Private Room for 25, late lunch, Sunday June 19th

I'm looking for a room at a modest restaurant that can accommodate approximately 25 people. The tricky part is that it's on a Sunday, Father's day, and has to be during the period between lunch and dinner, starting after 1:30. This is for a post-christening party. The christening is at St. Andrew's church in Lakeview. I'm happy to consider anything between Andersenville/Uptown and Bucktown. The closer to the church, the better.

In prior years, I have attended just such events at Club Lucky, which would be fine, but they are not willing to accommodate on this occasion for whatever reason.


I'm open to all suggestions. Thanks.

It's not exactly a huge board favorite, but I'd suggest Friendship Chinese. The food can please a crowd very well and they have a couple areas that are semi-private for a group up to 25. They're rarely busy with eat-in during the day and should be able to accomodate you.

Lately, their food hasn't been living up to what I enjoyed there during the early days of their remodeling, but I would still recommend it.

Here's a link with a little more info:
http://www.lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.ph ... friendship

Friendship Chinese
2830 N Milwaukee Ave.
773-227-0970

Best,
Michael / EC

This is out of the area, but my wife did an all-day meeting at Cafe Suron and everyone was happy with both the room and the food.

This is also slightly out of your area, but several Greek Town restaurants should be able to accommodate you. They would look at a group of 25 as a "small family". Check the Greek Islands, Costas or Athena. All would be good choices.

We had an LTH Scotch tasting event at the Hopleaf Bar's upstairs private room that worked out real well for a crowd that size. The food was quite good also. Worth looking into. Cheers


Hopleaf Bar
5148 N. Clark St
(773) 334-9851

This is for a post-christening party. The christening is at St. Andrew's church in Lakeview. I'm happy to consider anything between Andersenville/Uptown and Bucktown. The closer to the church, the better.

How about Chief O'Neill's? It's straight down Addison on Elston and they have an upstairs party room.

O'Donovans (the old Schulien's) also has a decent sized private room in the back.

2100 W Irving
IR8 2100

Thanks to all of those who replied. Turns out, I went off the board and ended up taking the group to Platiyo, the Adobo Grill-ish Mexican concept by the Mia Francesca folks.

That description might not sound too appealing, so let me be clear: it was very, very good. The masa stuff, sopes and tortillas were especially excellent. The tortillas led to very good chilaquiles. All of it was washed down with probably the best 3 buck margaritas (a Sunday special) in town. Veracruz style ceviche was excellent. We ate out back on the patio -- a very pleasant place to be yesterday in the shade of mulberry trees on cool tiles with gurgling fountains on either end of the space. Service was very solid. I'm not ready to say that the kitchen is up to Topo/Chilpancingo standards, but it is certainly in the same neighborhood as some other very good "fancier" Mexican places. The brunch menu has some nice choices and is a real bargain.

I'm glad this is where we ended up, since it is not the kind of place I would normally seek out, particularly given the mob scene that usually maintains at Mia Francesca and Platiyo. I'm more of an Islas Marias guy. But on a sleepy Sunday afternoon, Platiyo was perfect.

PS, I have been trying to get to the Nicoise/Ligurian place next door, Socca, for some time. It was not open when we needed it to be for the brunch, but it does seem promising particularly for the neighborhood.

JeffB wrote:All of it was washed down with probably the best 3 buck margaritas (a Sunday special) in town.

We ended up at Platiyo a couple Sundays ago, and I would agree that the margarita is a real deal. We made a late afternoon stop, and supplemented our beverages with a mixed appetizer platter. I pretty much agree with what you say--it was better than it had to be, but not as good as it could have been. But all the same a very enjoyable and reasonable way to kill an hour or two on a Sunday afternoon.

Incidentally, we went to Turquoise Cafe (I also need to post over on the Turquoise thread) yesterday for brunch. It was quite good and struck me at the time (though I didn't recall the date you needed) as someplace else that might have met your needs. I believe they have a private room downstairs.