Dinner Recs for Wrigleyville, Lakeview or Ravenswood Group

Looking to find a nice, reasonably priced restaurant for a group of 40. Some kids. Group will be coming from a Cubs game so they are looking at 5:30ish. It's a pre-wedding get together (not a rehearsal dinner). Low key group. Private room would be a plus. They are open to a variety of cuisines. Some guests are vegetarians. I know the LTH group will give great input! Thanks in advance!

A couple options that pop into my head

Sweets and Savories is a great restaurant for a group. It's reasonably priced and the food is excellent. With a group that size you may be able to fill up the entire restaurant. It's at Fullerton and Ashland so it might be a little far, but it'd be my top choice. Also it's BYOB.
http://www.sweetsandsavoriesrestaurant.com/

Really close to Wrigley is an excellent Thai restaurant, TAC Quick. Once again a group that size might fill up the place. It'd be walking distance from the game and once again BYOB.
http://tacquick.net/

Not sure if your group is into beer, but Goose Island and Sheffield's are both beer bars that serve food near Wrigley. Both would be fun places to serve a group and they offer group pricing for events. I think a group that size could get a private room at either place. Both are also walking distance.
http://www.sheffieldschicago.com/parties
http://www.gooseisland.com/pages/wrigle ... pub/66.php

Be logistically realistic and you'll be fine. A bar adjacent to Wrigley will be mobbed and unlikely to set aside seating for 40 people post-game. Definitely won't be "low key." TAC is great and not mobbed with Cub fans, but 40 is a huge group for the small restaurant. Still worth a call. My suggestion: jump on the red line and go north a neighborhood or two. Tank (Viet) or Sun Wah (Chinese BBQ) on/near Argyle are swell and can handle the crowd. Demera (Ethiopian) is also great and can probably handle the group. Silver Seafood is another option. It gets mixed reviews (for up and down quality) and is sorta antiseptic inside, but it is big and usually solid. All of these are great for kids and vegetarians. I've done exactly this several times and out-of-town visitors dig it.

Jazz lovers and hard drinkers can continue on at the Green Mill.

30 second walk to the L followed by a 5 minute L ride to a great, very different urban neighborhood with a ton of options, induding vegetarian.

Good luck.

Spacca Napoli could likely accommodate you with adequate notice.

They were my first choice but don't allow events on weekends. Would have been my first choice but I'm sure we will find something similar.

They were my first choice but don't allow events on weekends.

Even with the new room?

Yes. Not on weekends. And not even when the outdoor space is open because a change of weather could cause a problem. I was surprised. But then I don't know how many restaurants handle this type of situation the same way. Any input?

I strongly recommend that you choose a restaurant that has a lot of experience hosting large private parties, rather than only based on someone's recommendation from having eaten there in the more typical party of 2-6. I had a very bad experience as a result of taking the latter approach. I was planning a dinner for a large group. I contracted for our group with an independent local restaurant (which I won't mention, it wasn't in Chicagoland anyway). What we found out the hard way was that, by choosing a restaurant with no experience serving large groups, they weren't prepared to cook and serve a large number of people at exactly the same time. Even though we had ordered all the food in advance, it took them well over an hour from the time they started serving the main course to the first table, until they had completely served everyone, and there were similar delays with the other courses. It was an absolute nightmare.

Since then - this is for a convention that meets annually - we have stuck with restaurants that already have a substantial ongoing business in private parties. We have achieved some of our best results at restaurants that have established a positive reputation among locals and have plenty of local clientele, but that also do a large business in private parties. That way, they are serving excellent, creative food and they have the experience to pull that off for a large group in the same flawless manner that they do for individual diners in their dining room.

Find a place that does a good-sized business in private parties. A place that knows what it's doing will have an experienced banquet coordinator (possibly the manager or owner) who will ask you a lot of questions; if you get a good feeling from the way they handle that, it's a good sign they know what they're doing with groups. And it's a good idea to ask for references and to follow up by contacting them.

While we all prefer to have great food whenever possible, you really don't want to have things go wrong (even if it's only in terms of logistics, not the food itself) and have everyone ask afterwards, "Why in the world did you decide to have the dinner there?" You can find places that have very good food AND the experience to pull off a private event smoothly and seamlessly.

Sweets & Savories does a really nice job with large groups. My wife and I hosted a dinner there for 30 people and everything went perfectly.

[quote="nsxtasy"]I strongly recommend that you choose a restaurant that has a lot of experience hosting large private parties, rather than only based on someone's recommendation from having eaten there in the more typical party of 2-6. I had a very bad experience as a result of taking the latter approach. I was planning a dinner for a large group. I contracted for our group with an independent local restaurant (which I won't mention, it wasn't in Chicagoland anyway). What we found out the hard way was that, by choosing a restaurant with no experience serving large groups, they weren't prepared to cook and serve a large number of people at exactly the same time. Even though we had ordered all the food in advance, it took them well over an hour from the time they started serving the main course to the first table, until they had completely served everyone, and there were similar delays with the other courses. It was an absolute nightmare.

Since then - this is for a convention that meets annually - we have stuck with restaurants that already have a substantial ongoing business in private parties. We have achieved some of our best results at restaurants that have established a positive reputation among locals and have plenty of local clientele, but that also do a large business in private parties. That way, they are serving excellent, creative food and they have the experience to pull that off for a large group in the same flawless manner that they do for individual diners in their dining room.

Find a place that does a good-sized business in private parties. A place that knows what it's doing will have an experienced banquet coordinator (possibly the manager or owner) who will ask you a lot of questions; if you get a good feeling from the way they handle that, it's a good sign they know what they're doing with groups. And it's a good idea to ask for references and to follow up by contacting them.

While we all prefer to have great food whenever possible, you really don't want to have things go wrong (even if it's only in terms of logistics, not the food itself) and have everyone ask afterwards, [i]"Why in the world did you decide to have the dinner [b]there[/b]?"[/i] You can find places that have very good food AND the experience to pull off a private event smoothly and seamlessly.[/quote]

I've done many events and I agree. A large group is similar to 2 seatings at a restaurant on New Years Eve. It's not what they do well. They're just not used to the numbers. I'll be able to ask the right questions, but I just want to get some ideas for places with good food that could work. THANKS!!!

Calo's on clark in Andersonville is your best bet. More or less a few blocks off the berwyn redline and they have a party wing. Charlies Ale House is another option.