Dinner Meeting Space for 30-35 People

Hoping to get some suggestions from the group. My company is holding a meeting next month and I'm looking for venue options. In the past we've always ordered in food/beer to our office, but we've outgrown our conference room. We'll have a group of 30-35 people, casual setting is ok (prefer not pizza as we had pizza for our last meeting), need private room with screen for projecting presentations (we can bring our own projector/laptop) and prefer a Loop location. The meeting usual goes from 5:30pm to 8:30pm.

The only other thread I found that touched on this type of request was for a much larger group (200 people) and most of the suggestions were to look into one of the private clubs. We belong to the Metropolitan Club, but do not want to spend that much on the meeting (recent prices for lunch buffets there ranged $35-$52 per person).

Daisy11 - I was just looking for a similar sized space for a work event. While we ended up going with a museum connection we have, here are a few of the places I checked out that had private rooms in or near the Loop (not quite in it)

Trattoria #10
Costas' Restaurant in Greektown
Parthenon in Greektown
The Gage on Michigan

I didn't get as far as checking their food prices, but I would guess they would be less than the $35-50 at your club.

Our office had a lunch for 27 people last week at Dine Restaurant, in the Crowne Plaza Hotel at Madison & Halsted - and we were pleasantly surprised by the food and service.

We ate in a portion of the restaurant proper - separated from other areas, though - but I do know the restaurant has a private room for functions (from the restaurant's website: "We cater to seated dinner parties up to 35 people and cocktail receptions for 40 people."). The hotel itself probably has other rooms available, and A/V equipment (such as the screen) is, I'm assuming, on-hand.

The owners of this restaurant also operate the recently-opened kosher restaurant, situated elswhere on hotel property.

We enjoyed the restaurant so much we're considering it as the location for our 2008 year-end holiday party.

Another nice feature about Dine: there's lots of on-site parking and if people are taking public transportation, it's easy to reach by taxi or CTA bus (and an easy 15-minute walk to both Northwestern and Union rail stations).

Dine Restaurant
733 W. Madison St.
Chicago, Illinois 60661
(312) 602-2100
Website: http://www.dinerestaurant.com

I work for a non-profit and we have quarterly board meetings for about 45 people, using a screen with a projector. These rooms have worked well for these meetings. We seem to rotate through:

Harry Caray's
Marche
Brasserie Jo
Bice
Petterino's
Maggiano's

Sorry I don't have time to look up their addresses right now. Pricing at these places is decent for downtown, though I think we usually pay at least $40 per person, not including booze.

We've also done some more casual meetings at Rock Bottom Brewery at Grand & State. They're less expensive than the ones I mentioned above, and the service has been really good. They have a nice private room upstairs with its own bar.

I also bet that at least one of the Elephant & Castle pubs has a private room too.