Meeting a friend at Ohare on a Sunday

Hi All,

Okay I'm not a world traveler...I hardly get to O'Hare at all ... I'm meeting a good friend on a Sunday morning and will be bringing my 7 year old daughter...the friend's flight departs at 1 pm...any suggestions on where to go in the actual airport iteslf, to have a nice lunch or brunch? Does such a thing even exist?

I assume you and your daughter are not flying in or out that day. For security reasons, those who are not ticketed on flights are not allowed into the secure area of the airport, where all the restaurants inside the terminals are located. But right alongside the terminals is the airport hotel - perfect!

This topic:

Breakfast at O'Hare

is a question from someone in a similar situation. As you can read there, I too was meeting someone (once for breakfast and also once for lunch). We met at the restaurant in the O'Hare Hilton, the hotel located right in the middle of the airport terminal area, and it worked out perfectly for us. The passenger can just walk across the roadway in front of the baggage claim area (or through the underground tunnel underneath it) to the hotel. For you, the short-term parking on the first floor of the parking garage is right across the driveway from the hotel, and reasonably priced (ONLY if you're there under 3 hours - beware!). And, compared with any place outside the airport, the ability to wait for your friends by sitting inside the restaurant and meeting them there, rather than having to sit in the cell phone lot and hook up via cell phone and deal with traffic around the terminal to pick them up and drop them off, is a real convenience, for you as well as for them. And the food was reasonably good, too!

Liz in Norwood Park wrote:...any suggestions on where to go in the actual airport iteslf, to have a nice lunch or brunch? Does such a thing even exist?

The short answer is "no", but if you need to eat at the airport, Wolfgang Puck is OK. There are a number of nice brunch choices that are near the airport, but I have not tried any of them recently.

I think the Hilton would be fine, then. But, we will be taking the train to O'Hare, not driving. Is it a long walk from the train to the hotel, does anybody know?

Thanks!!

The walk from the train to the Hilton is very short. The train comes up immediately next to one of the underground paths through the Hilton. In fact, you need to pass through the Hilton to get to terminal 2.

Cool! Thanks!

(I don't know how I survived before I found LTH!)

Okay now I am looking online at the Hilton O'Hare. Is the restaurant Andiamo's? They don't mention a brunch.....

Liz in Norwood Park wrote:Okay now I am looking online at the Hilton O'Hare. Is the restaurant Andiamo's? They don't mention a brunch.....

Yes, the restaurant is Andiamo. You're right, they don't mention a brunch on their website; they note their hours, showing that they're open. Both my visits were during the week; for breakfast, they had an all-you-can-eat buffet as well as an a la carte menu, and for lunch, they had an a la carte menu. You can call them and ask if they do anything special on Sundays for brunch; if not, then I would imagine they serve the same breakfast and lunch as during the week.

Maple Leaf is exactly correct regarding the location of the hotel. In the diagram below, the red rectangle is the parking garage (the CTA stop is directly below the garage) and the gray object between the red square and Terminal 2 is the hotel. Walking from the CTA to the hotel, just follow the signs and you won't need to go outside.

Thank you so much for that!! That was very kind of you!

Since it sounds like you have a few hours to spare before your friend's flight takes off, I'd suggest not subjecting yourself to a sterile airport or hotel breakfast and instead heading a short distance to Mac's Restauranton Higgins just East of Cumberland. Mac's is a small homey diner that serves breakfast and lunch. Also, a short distance further is Sally's Waffle & Pancake Shoppe, which is a Greek style coffee shop/pancake house. To my mind, either of those places would be preferable to anyplace within the airport complex.

Mac's Restaurant
812 Higgins Rd
Park Ridge, IL 60068
(847) 696-2950

Sally's Waffle & Pancake Shoppe
5454 N. Harlem Ave
Chicago, IL
(773) 631-8966

Thx for the suggestions, stevez. It's funny because I live near Higgins & Harlem, a stone's throw from Sally's. I had invited my friend to just come to my house & have a champagne brunch here, but she is totally freaked to be in the " beeg ceety" (she's from Georgia, in the deep South) and is afraid she will miss her plane or her luggage will be stolen or...etc etc.

So we will have to accomodate her & visit at the nasty old airport

Ah well! Que sera!

Just to follow up:

We went to the Hilton and because of time constraints, we weren't able to have brunch. In fact, although I had called the hotel in advance to make sure they were serving a brunch, when we got there, we were told there was no brunch but that breakfast was available. At that point it didn't matter because of the time, so we had something to drink.

1 diet coke, 1 sprite & 1 decaf tea later...it cost $8.00 without tip.