Interesting places with salad bars?

I know there've been mentions of some here, but a search on salad bar, or salad AND bar, turns up hundreds of posts in which the word salad and the word bar both appear, but not together--so I'm stymied.

The problem to be solved is this: This Monday night, one of our group has requested we go to a place with a salad bar, but I'm desperately hoping not to go to R.J. Grunts. (Nothing against the place--just been there too recently.) I'm thinking there have been mentions of some other more "interesting" places with salad bars, including Romanian or Polish or Czech, or like that, that would likely have a nice holiday festive vibe goin' on. But I'll welcome any and all ideas that aren't Grunts. Thanks.

Funny you should mention Grunts. I just googled it today to see if it still existed. I last went there in the 80s and it's so off-radar that I wasn't sure it was still around.

Salad bars, I don't know, but years ago I enjoyed a good Polish buffet at Grota, the polish place on Central. Not sure about the "festive" vibe...

Grota
3112 N Central Ave
773.622.4677

I've never been to Fogo de Chao or any of those other places (not a fan of big hunks of meat) but some people say the salad bar is worth a visit.

The Lone Tree Manor on north Milwaukee Avenue in Niles has a good polish buffet with a nice, but not amazing salad bar.

Lone Tree Manor
7730 N Milwaukee Ave
Niles, IL

Riddlemay,

Salad bar wise, best I've seen in years, aside from a fancy downtown hotel brunch, is Fogo de Chao which has the added bonus of 'Gauchos' continuously enticing you with meat on a sword. You mentioned festive, what could be more festive than meat on a sword.

Polish buffet wise, the only one I've been to in years, and I go once every 5-6 months, is Red Apple. It's quite busy, food quality is good and it's very inexpensive. There are two, the one I go is just North of Devon on Milwaukee.

Salad bar sleeper, in my mind, is Bob Chinn's in Wheeling. Small, but well stocked with good quality ingredients. Bob Chinn's has terrific king crab, and fish in general and surprisingly good, though if you think about the amount of fish they go through a day it should not be, sashimi. Bob Chinn's is a fun place in general, in a Mardi Gras meets New England seafood crab shack sort of way.

Thanks for the reminder of RJ Grunt's, been years since I've been there for a burger and salad bar.

Re Grota, my not very enthusiastic opinion may be found here

Enjoy,
Gary

Red Apple
6474 N Milwaukee Ave
Chicago, IL 60631
773-763-3407

Fogo de Chao
661 N La Salle Dr
Chicago, IL 60610
312-932-9330

Bob Chinn's
393 S Milwaukee Ave
Wheeling, IL
847-520-3633

Fogo turned out to be just the ticket. Thanks, guys, for the suggestions. I'd actually been to Fogo once for lunch, and made a mental note how great the salad bar was, but for some reason didn't think of it this time, so I'm glad a couple of you guys did. Boink!

I think I learned something about the Fogo business model based on our visit. The salad bar (which you can get for just $20.95 if you're not eating any of the Gaucho-carved meats, a fair price considering how damned good the salad bar is) is so damned good for a reason--so that you won't have room for very much Gaucho-carved meat! The price of the full dinner (salad bar plus meats) is around $50, so in other words you're paying roughly a $30 premium for the meat. Well, after a visit to the incredible salad bar, there's no way you're going to be able to eat $30 worth of meat. Which is exactly why they make the salad bar so incredible. If it was mediocre, people might just nibble at it, and then get something close to their money's worth when the meat starts showing up. My guess is that with guests who only partake of the salad bar (and therefore only pay $20.95 for their meal), the place actually loses a few dollars a head. But the profit is enormous on that next $30.