Restaurant suggestions wanted - new baby

My wife and I are the proud parents of a nine week old son; he is our first child. We enjoy going out to eat and continue to do so with our son. I’d appreciate some help identifying restaurants and pubs that meet the following guidelines.

• Have enough room to get a stroller in the front door and into the dining area;
• Serve food on weekend afternoons around the 3 to 5 PM timeframe;
• Have a decent beer selection (my favorites are Alpha King, Two Hearted, and other similar beers);
• Have at least a few vegetarian menu options;
• Moderately convenient parking, accessible from the blue line, or Ukie Village/Wicker Park area (within walking distance for us);
• Not too empty, not too crowded;
• No super loud music;

We’ve been to Old Oak Tap and Jerry’s on Division in the past few weeks and those worked well. However, I want other options…thanks in advance.

Toons, Big Jones, Owen & Engine, Frasca and Spacca Napoli have been excellent baby-in-tow regular stops for me. I think they all meet your requirements, and they all have very baby-friendly staff.

Kennyz - thanks for the suggestions.

The stroller moms pack John's Place (2132 West Roscoe St.) at lunch. I imagine they're equally friendly to folks with kids at dinner.

Feast. Frontier. La Condesa. Boundary. Kin BYO (they love kids). Via Carducci. Bella Notte. Athenian Room. Really, I've seen babies and kids at pretty much everyplace in that area. I was just at Feast at 5:15 on Wed night and there must have been four Mom's and strollers in there.

Congratulations!

We have taken our baby all over the place and have never had any issues. A current favorite is Bad Apple in Lincoln Square - great beers and burgers. Ethnic restaurants are awesome to go to with babies - we've had good experiences at Semiramis, El Cid, and Spoon Thai. It was even fine to take the baby to Girl and the Goat, which kind of surprised me (we called ahead to make sure).

Our first baby arrived on March 3rd. We're planning to take her to Marie's Pizza next week (early on a weeknight,) as it's a couple blocks from our house and I know it's baby/kid-friendly.

I was happy to find this thread as we plan to socialize her by taking her with us early and often. However, we're definitely more comfortable going where we know she will be for the most part welcome.

As it's been about a year since the thread was updated, if anyone has any suggestions to add, I'd love to hear them. Thanks - Lynn

LynnB wrote:Our first baby arrived on March 3rd. We're planning to take her to Marie's Pizza next week (early on a weeknight,) as it's a couple blocks from our house and I know it's baby/kid-friendly.

I was happy to find this thread as we plan to socialize her by taking her with us early and often. However, we're definitely more comfortable going where we know she will be for the most part welcome.

As it's been about a year since the thread was updated, if anyone has any suggestions to add, I'd love to hear them. Thanks - Lynn

Congratulations, Lynn!

ditch the stroller and get your wife into baby wearing. will open up infinite restaurant going opportunities. you'll go from a potential burden to a fawned over asset. i speak from experience as a father of a 1 year old who experienced this.

We've found Coalfire very kid-friendly for kids of all ages (ours is now 7). In the winter it gets a bit drafty near the door, but the pizza is astonishingly fast to arrive, the beer and wine list is good, and it's delicious.

Jen

Ras Dashen. When it's not busy the whole damn staff takes a break to fawn over the kid.

Thanks for the feedback. Regarding baby wearing, I'm testing out our Becco carrier as I type this. Put her to sleep about 30 seconds after I put it on - brilliant! I can definitely see the advantage of this over a stroller in a restaurant.

Haven't been to Coalfire in ages, so will definitely put that on the short list. Would not have thought of Ras Dashen as a baby place, but we usually go prime time on a Friday or Saturday night. Won't be dining at those times for awhile, unless we have a sitter, so will give it a try off-peak hours.

Coalfire is a great choice. Whenever we go before Bulls games we have one of the few tables without a baby/small child.

Just keep in mind that the food takes a long time to come out at Ras Dashen. If your child is fussy, this can turn into a difficult situation (been there).

Wow, nice to see my old thread popping up again. My son is now just over 14 months old and I can’t imagine life without him (sounds cliché, but I think other parents will understand).

Dining out with my wife and son has been quite fun, for the most part. We seem to frequent Jerry’s on Division and Burger Bar (f/k/a Urban Burger Bar)…relatively decent food and pretty good draft beer selection. We have also enjoyed going to Old Oak Tap and Spacca Napoli. We also just tried Nini's Deli for lunch and they prepared a fine PB&J for my son (and a tasty falafel sandwich for me)...the all natural peanut butter and organic jelly was a very nice touch. Nini's is a new place on Noble in between Grand and Chicago...half market/half deli with a few tables.

I have been to Coalfire several times (not with my son)…I can imagine that it would be a good place to go with (well behaved) kids. I see someone mentioned Frontier…I’ll have to add that to my list (only been to Frontier with other adults and enjoyed it).

Now that my son is getting a little older and turning into quite a healthy eater, I think we’ll be able to branch out to more and more places. Keep the suggestions coming; thanks everyone.

This is not exactly dining out, but I have found that trips to Costco are quite educational these days. I can give him all sorts of samples, which is a totally painless and free way to find that he likes things like curried lentils, hummus, and tuna salad.

He also adores the falafel from SP Kebab. Can't blame him - they are some of the best I've had - but I wish they had a child-size portion so I could hog the whole thing!

SP Kebab
6808 N Sheridan Rd
Chicago, IL 60626
(773) 856-3755

Suzy Creamcheese wrote:This is not exactly dining out, but I have found that trips to Costco are quite educational these days. I can give him all sorts of samples, which is a totally painless and free way to find that he likes things like curried lentils, hummus, and tuna salad.

I totally second that-- my daughter will try all sorts of things that she might turn her nose up at when she's at home. Love Costco.

Jen

I have taken my baby to (and seen lots of other kids at) Grange Hall Burger bar on Randolph street as well as Carmichaels steakhouse on Monroe street. Both have pretty good beers although neither has huge lists.

Update - we have been to Bad Apple several times now and love it! They are so great with kids and I'm addicted to the chickpea salad. Also hit Coalfire recently and "yes," very good for kids.

I'd like to add Chief O'Neil's to the list. We've been twice with Audrey, sitting inside once and outside once. They were very welcoming and accommodating both times.

Two other places I'll recommend for casual dining with babies/kids with good (not foodie or destination-worthy food,) are McNamera's on Irving Park and Vaughn's on Elston. I may be biased because we've been "regulars" at both for several years and they've always treated us well, but the atmosphere at both during child-appropriate dining hours is ALWAYS welcoming. Not to mention, the Mexican cook at Vaughn's does a mean chilaquiles.

Pulling up this old thread as I now have a baby and I'm looking for spots that highlight local, organic, and/or naturally raised meats. We don't use a stroller but sling the baby.

Places that are currently in our regular rotation:

Uncommon Ground (Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner)
Nana (Breakfast, lunch, dinner)
Indie Burger (lunch and dinner)
Flying Saucer (Breakfast and lunch)
Two -- Dinner (at an earlier hour)
Publican Quality Meats (lunch, brunch, Tue burger nights)
La Madia (dinner -- at an early hour)
Big Star
Xoco (lunch, dinner)
Farmhouse (breakfast, lunch, dinner)

I'd especially welcome more dinner suggestions as we are pretty happy with our breakfast options at Flying Saucer, Uncommon Ground, and Nana. We run into trouble during the week when trying to figure out where to head for dinner.

Not sure what time you eat dinner, but we took our 6 month old to Parsons Chicken & Fish the other night right at 5pm, it was already crowded but were seated right away, the food came pretty quickly, and the baby enjoyed the outdoor sights and sounds.

Does 16 months still qualify as a "baby?"

I can't believe how quickly the time is flying by. We recently visited 2 GNR's that were great with Audrey. Al's Deli - wow. I'm not sure why we'd never been, but holy cow, good sammies. They were very accomodating about making a plain turkey on white with just a touch of mayo for the "baby."

It was a nice day, so the park across the street was perfect for dining followed by a swing ride for Audrey. We'll be back for sure.

Tonight we had an early dinner at Sabatino's. They were outstanding with Audrey. She enjoyed the pizza bread, pasta/bean soup, and had her first ever ice cream. It was a festive occasion. I treated myself to the soft shell crab entree which was excellent.

In addition to our stand-by's - Bad Apple & Marie's, we hope to work our way through the GNR list with her as appropriate.

Also hope to check out Parson's soon as a friend recently raved about it.

Meatheads in Roscoe Village is incredibly kid friendly - maybe not GNR level burgers, but pretty solid.

with the recent mishugas around the Alinea baby, I thought it might be a good time to update this thread. Our infant has now turned into a toddler and just like his old man, the kid LOVES to eat. We've taken him to a handfull of places around Roscoe/Northcenter that have been great with him (especially Big Bricks and Bad Apple) but was wondering if anyone had any other good toddler/restaurant recommendations.

Adding The Radler to this list. Especially good because of the noise factor. He can get loud and noone would ever notice