quick specific Loop Lunch help

Today - I am in the always enviable position of being taken to lunch in which the person paying says 'where do you want to go?' and it is a business thing so I am not worried about if they like it.

The location we are starting from is 150 N. Wacker and we are going to walk. I know the loop pretty well and was thinking Prairie Fire was close but they are now closed. And there is Blackbird, and other places I know of....but does anyone who works around there have a suggestion of something they have tried?

I so appreciate it.

Try Nine (or perhaps N9ne). I've had a couple of good business lunches there, and it's an easy walk from where you are, which is a good thing, considering today's gloomy weather forecast. Try the duo of beef t-loin and lobster sliders, if it's on the menu. A fine option when someone else is paying.

I'm a little north/east of your location, but a few options could be:

Catch 35 - 35 W Wacker; very good for an expense account lunch!
Bin 36 - across the river at Dearborn (maybe too much of a hike?)
Petterino's - east on Randolph at Dearborn.

Thanks! Appreciate it. Good suggestions!

However, I should have posted this yesterday and had to make quick decision so went with South Branch, which I have been wanting to try.

I will keep the other places in mind and let you know how South Branch is!

Thanks again!

Spoiler alert: It's ok, not great (been there twice). Maybe slightly better than your average loop sit-down lunch spot.

Frequent business luncher in that area of the Loop. Generally bleak, but the best bets within a minimal walk, by far, are Rittergut (wine bar in the "old" Merc adjacent to Rivers) and The Florentine in the JW Marriott. South Branch has a Manhattanish or maybe Miami-like after work scene in warmer weather with the outside bar, but the restaurant is basically no better or worse than the formulaic Loop Office Building Lunch and Happy Hour Drones brought to you by the insidious Restaurants America group. These places make a good enough first impression with their furnishings and they clearly know what developers and landlords want in the lobby of A+ office space. But a few meals will reveal them as, at best, slingers of fried calamari and sliders by the numbers. South Branch is not part of the Restaurants America clone army and is a minor step above them. But the other places I mentioned above actually have pretty good food and interesting drink. Florentine, part of the BLT group in a classy hotel isn't surprising. Rittergut, a local-ish wine bar from the Rivers (a tired spot) people with an oddly Tyrolean theme is.

In my efforts to dissuade coworkers from ever meeting at any of the generic Loop lobby slider spots, I did some looking around. Try to figure out what's what in the various restaurants below, many within a block or 2 of each other in the Loop. Notably, the non-Chicago outposts of this empire tend to be lobby fillers in those weird new mixed-use phony "downtowns" dotting the Sun Belt exurbs 20 minute tollway drives from Dallas, Scottsdale, Tampa, Ft. Lauderdale, etc. Perfect.

http://www.restaurants-america.com/

PS, I should mention that the lamb burger and the Nicoise salad at Rittergut are both really very good; the former was a juicy, gamey, rare, revelation the latter was simply correct in all ways, which I can't say I'd otherwise ever had in Chicago. Florentine has been well enough covered here but I'll add that their happy hour is batshit crazy and probably can't last too long. Free wood fired pizza, made to order, whatever kind you want off the menu, plus daily beer specials. I think I ordered a $4 beer (Bell's Two-Hearted at the time) and ate 30 buck's worth of fancy pizza the last time I visited.

South Branch was, as some of you said, just ok. I had a vegetarian sandwich in which the cucumbers where sliced too thick and there was little or no flavor. Bread was kind of ok. Mac and cheese on the side, dry on top, runny sauce at the bottom with what was supposed to be the spices....badly done.

Lots of pretty girls dashing about, good atmosphere.

It probably works best as a place for drinks after work, especially when the weather is nice and you can sit outside.

JeffB wrote:Florentine has been well enough covered here but I'll add that their happy hour is batshit crazy and probably can't last too long. Free wood fired pizza, made to order, whatever kind you want off the menu, plus daily beer specials. I think I ordered a $4 beer (Bell's Two-Hearted at the time) and ate 30 buck's worth of fancy pizza the last time I visited.

We've been told the free pizza is on its way out, if it hasn't been pulled already. It's across the street from the office so it makes a nice after-work drink spot.

Kman wrote:

JeffB wrote:I think I ordered a $4 beer (Bell's Two-Hearted at the time) and ate 30 buck's worth of fancy pizza the last time I visited.

We've been told the free pizza is on its way out, if it hasn't been pulled already.

And with that, today's lesson on cause and effect is complete.

I used to work in that area of Wacker and would add Sepia to this list. I enjoyed a very nice lunch with a vendor especially since the restaurant doesn't get nearly as busy and loud during lunch compared to dinner time.