Gnr-ish rehearsal dinner

hey guys,
I need some help. I have been scouring past posts as to not be redundant, but I can't seem to find what I am looking for. I am getting married on labor day this summer, and am searching for a site for my rehearsal dinner, in the general vicinity of downtown. (pilsen, lincoln square, rogers park, greektown are my rough borders) the kicker is we have about 80 out of town guests coming and including the bridal party it will be upwards of 100 ppl. I would love something very chicagoish because we have a lot of first timers, and am pretty open to cuisine. to give you a starting point, pizano's and la pasadita are already in the consideration. oh yeah, and one final detail: its a saturday night, so a buyout would not be out of the question, but i really would like to stay under $55 a head ++. they key for me is food and having 100+ ppl not crash the kitchen or waitstaff. please let me know what you think and thank you in advance!

We had a terrific rehearsal dinner for my son and his bride last year at Goose Island on Clybourn; buffet service of mainly burgers 'n beer, plus chicken sandwiches, hot appetizers, cookies and such for dessert, and it was all good. Their catering menu is on the website; the service and follow through from the staff were top notch, and heck, why not go before they close for good at year's end. PM if you'd like more details.
>>Brent

Under 55/head, and "Chicago-ish" is screaming pizza / beef / grilled snausage to me. I'd stick to that, OR, do Greektown, but a pizza joint private party should be well within your range, and not overstress the kitchen so the food will suffer. I totally know what you're talking about there - for 100 ppl, it would be pretty hard on about any joint to keep up, and/or put out a decent product. I'm just picturing the whole hotel pans full of beef/gravy, grilled snausages, cold salad, roasted peppers, giardiniera, french bread, and piping hot pizzas being brought out straight from the oven without too much loss of quality for 100 ppl. I bet you could get beer/wine/soft drinks included. For your out of towners, this would probably be a good crowd pleaser - and would probably make the whole "this person doesn't like Mexican, this person doesn't like x" debate moot.

What would you do at La Pasadita (if you don't mind me asking?)
I could see trays of enchiladas, barbacoa, rice and beans, but surely the asada would suffer, no?

Might I also suggest a different turn? A favorite of mine for a tad "out of the ordinary" for a private party would be Reza's. Persian. Private room. Shish ka bobs, hummus, baba ghannouj, pita. VERY mildly spiced. Mostly salt pepper, lemon juice and garlic. A lot of 'newbs' might think of Persian food as something modeled after Indian food, and will be pleasantly surprised. It's tiny bit exotic for some, but their catering packages have things that everyone will love, and will probably make the skeptics very happy with themselves for trying something new, exotic, and loving it.
Looks like you can add booze, and be under your budget too:
http://www.rezasrestaurant.com/banquet.asp

There are a number of threads devoted to large groups:
Which GNR winner for a large group dinner?
Perfect Party Location
Private Room for 25, late lunch, Sunday June 19th
Foodie Bridal Shower Brunch/Tea - suggestions needed!
Ethnic Wedding Reception

There are more - if you do a Google search on "private room" or "large group" and include site:lthforum.com, you'll come up with quite a few hits. Good luck!

You are really going to have to weed through the places that cannot handle 100.

brotine wrote:We had a terrific rehearsal dinner for my son and his bride last year at Goose Island on Clybourn; buffet service of mainly burgers 'n beer, plus chicken sandwiches, hot appetizers, cookies and such for dessert, and it was all good. Their catering menu is on the website; the service and follow through from the staff were top notch, and heck, why not go before they close for good at year's end. PM if you'd like more details.
>>Brent

My Fiance and I scouted Goose Island for our rehearsal dinner. Here is a summary of our experience. We went back a few months later and an abbreviated note is posted here. I will elaborate in a PM for those who are interested. My advice: stay away.

We ended up choosing to have our rehearsal dinner at Frontera Grill. They have a private room, but it won't seat 100 people.

An option with such a large group is to rent a location and hire a caterer: we did our entire wedding at Berger Park, using Food For Thought as our caterer, but there's a list of caterers you can use in any of the listed CPD facilities. May require a bit more planning on your part, but I think you could pull it off for your price point.

Just a thought.

to update: heaven on seven is available to open on a saturday night at the wabash location, so that could be interesting. they said the will turn the counter seating into a bar and then can do an assortment of food options from family style to buffet to bbq sandwich options. the kitchen there is used to a brisk lunch business so i think they could handle the group. After considering the carne dilemma, la pasadita is out and pizano's is too small. Pompeii on taylor is available for the group, but i have no experience with that location and after working near the adams location, have little expectation for the food. I know heaven on seven has mixed reviews on the board but i generally think the food as tasty and accessable for most. I will contact reza's and report back soon. thanks all

Thanks for keeping us posted - and congratulations, BTW!

Klas would work, but that is in Cicero. Chuck, of Chuck's Southern Comfort Cafe, can put together a very respectable buffet and help you find a hall. And, of course, Manny's could handle it easily and offers a range of foods that likely would satisfy any taste, even if the atmosphere is more utilitarian than some might like.

A good friend of mine hosted his daughter's wedding reception at Vie and they did a great job for a pretty large group, and the cost while far from cheap was quite reasonable for the quality. I do not think they had 100 people and keeping the price under $55 might be a challenge, though you could get close. I somehow doubt they would close for you on a Saturday evening...

Some other non-GNRs that I think might be okay include Quartino and any tapas bar that has or can find a room large enough to hold your group.

Me, I would use Chuck. He can give you barbecue, cajun and comfort food in one package. If not, I think tapas would be fun.

I am an event planner and hosted an event at that location of Heaven on Seven about 2 years ago. The space and service were quite nice. As was the food. Everyone who attended really enjoyed it. HOWEVER, we had some billing issues after the fact about the bar tab (we did an open, pay per drink bar, us paying the final bill). I felt it was MUCH MUCH higher than it should have been, based on who was there and what I noticed people drinking (I drank club soda so my assessments should not have been impaired). I repeatedly asked the event manager for an accounting of drinks, wanting to know how they could have reached this dollar figure. They had no documentation to provide (a list or tally of drinks consumed) but were insistent that it was correct. The event manager was lovely and very responsive prior to the event, but after became rather unpleasant.

Unfortunately, I had given them a credit card for the deposit so they charged me the full amount anyway in spite of my protests. They did not budge one inch.
Long story short, do a drink package there. We would have paid the same amount had we done the package. It was an absolutely awful experience. I would not do an event there again because I felt like I got really taken for a ride. If we had consumed that many drinks and they could prove it I would have GLADLY paid the bill, but there was no proof. It was just lousy.

In that vein, I remember a charity event we had set up, and because the space was donated, my boss at the time missed the paperwork that clearly spelled out our responsibility vs the bar's. We had told them the number of people we expected, and they charged us for this amount, considerably more than the number of people who actually attended - we were expecting to pay per person, and didn't have a contract to prove it. There was some ambiguity as to what had been agreed upon verbally, and we lost.

Lesson, which also applies above: if you're bringing a large group and you plan to foot the bill, get in writing exactly what your responsibility will be.

seebee wrote:Might I also suggest a different turn? A favorite of mine for a tad "out of the ordinary" for a private party would be Reza's. Persian. Private room. Shish ka bobs, hummus, baba ghannouj, pita. VERY mildly spiced. Mostly salt pepper, lemon juice and garlic. A lot of 'newbs' might think of Persian food as something modeled after Indian food, and will be pleasantly surprised. It's tiny bit exotic for some, but their catering packages have things that everyone will love, and will probably make the skeptics very happy with themselves for trying something new, exotic, and loving it.
Looks like you can add booze, and be under your budget too:
http://www.rezasrestaurant.com/banquet.asp

It's going back 10 years now, but we had our rehearsal dinner at Reza's on Ontario. I think we had 50 people. It was great--food, location, atmosphere, price, everything. (My father-in-law knows Reza but I looked at Reza's for work events before that and also heard good things.)

While it doesn't fit the Gnr-ish request, Harry Caray's is very Chicagoish. We had a rehearsal dinner for 120 out-of-towners there a few years ago and they did a great job. They have private rooms upstairs that are very nice and our guests had a great time looking at all the local/sports history memorabilia all over the restaurant. We did a sit down dinner with a choice of chicken vesuvio, lamb chops or pasta and it came in around $50 pp. I have relatives from Michigan that are still talking about the portion sizes and how much they liked the food. It may not be the best or most unique food you'll find, but it's important to have your event somewhere that knows how to handle a large group. And you can't beat the location if your guests are staying downtown or if they want to go out after the dinner.