Penn Carry Out Restaurant

This place is great. The service is super friendly and the food is great. The tuna salad pizza, crab cakes, Greek salad and soup are all wonderful. It’s kinda dive-​y, and going upstairs to the bathroom is a little weird, but it’s comfortable and clean.

I’ve ate Greek/​Mediterranean food in Pittsburgh, PA, Charlotte, NC, and Phoenix, AZ and I haven’t found a Greek vegetarian platter as good as the one I ate here at this place! That was back in 2006, I hope it hasn’t changed.

Great, quaint restaurant with stellar portions and superb service. It is walking distance from the University of Maryland medical system, so if you have business there, patronize this locally run place instead of the ripoff, price gauging chains in the hospitals. I had the chicken cheesesteak and will try their recommended gyro next time I am there.

This place is great, take out or sit down. I have only tried lunch there and the service is always quick and with a smile/​kind word, that goes a long way.
The food ranges from simple american (burgers/​pizza) to authentic Greek food. The greek combo platter is my favorite, swap the fries for something else and it’s even healthy!
All in all if you are looking for a quick sit-​down lunch with good food in a nice attmosphere, look no further, this is it.

Really good food, fantastic size portions, super good price. They get me in feed me well and get me back to work. Love this place.

Good food!!! Prices are slightly high, but the food is very good. They’d been around for a while and have a good reputation.

Is everyone so busy studying they can’t even take a few minutes to goof off and write a Unilocal review for this place? Thanks to you slackers, I spent over $ 7 on a gyro that had no lettuce in it. If only someone had pulled their face out of a medical textbook and posted a picture of the greasy thing with no greens. If only someone had done the public a service by writing a review about what I should’ve ordered. If only someone had the heart, after ALL this time Penn Carry Out has been in operation, to share some freakin TIPS. Why are there so few pictures of this place when it’s been around for more than 14 years!!! Does no one have a smartphone around here who can 1. take a picture of the food in front of you before you eat it, and 2. post it on Unilocal?!If you are a loyal customer, you owe it to them to help promote their business. If you are not a customer for a good reason, why are you keeping it to yourself while everyone else is totally clueless and ordering gyro without lettuce!!!
Rant aside, this place is a 3.5 because if it DID have lettuce, it would be a pretty good gyro. Once you get past the front area which is really squishy, oddly spaced, uncomfortable and awkward, you’ll see that the dining area is surprisingly nicely maintained. Their bathrooms were quite clean, and rather above my expectations, which is a good indicator of their quality & preparation standards.
So yea… I actually came to this same place and ordered the same exact thing 5 years ago, was mad at the absence of lettuce, and vowed never to get this again. But I totally forgot… because I didn’t Unilocal it. Lesson learned.

When you first walk into this place you might think WTF… but sit down and try the place out and you will think a lot differently! It was 9am, I am a student and a bunch of us from class after an exam decided we needed food and drinks. Being that the bars are closed at 9am we decided to go to Penn Restaurant. We were the one of the only people there, but regardless the service was good. We ordered beer, wine (yes at 9am– hey we just finished a final exam) and alot of food. Everyone was satisfied with their food. I had gotten a large cheese pizza, which was delicious. Some other students got the gyro omelette, bacon cheeseburger and gyro platter. There were no complaints at all. I would go back!

Very nice place with good people. The food was amazing. I think I found my Dimond in the rough.

Delicious soft shelled crab sandwich and garlicky coleslaw.
Good service. I came in after 5pm as they were closing. They gladly took my order and served up some great local cuisine.

Went there for breakfast with a friend after our shift – I now know why it is a favorite of UMMC professionals, UMB students, and local laborers alike. After experiencing breakfast joints like Miss Shirley’s and Blue Moon, it was nice to have a normal, cheap, tasty breakfast – no bells or whistles; just decently priced, tasty fare. Refreshingly gritty and blue collar ambience is almost reflective of a simpler time; and the best part was the Heineken with my eggs and pancakes. $ 10 for all including tip.

I love this place! Ever since starting to work in this part of the city, I have been looking for a lunch option that isn’t in sandwhich form. Unilocal lead me to Penn Carry Out and thus changed my world, just a little. Folks, this place is an authentic Greek diner in the heart of the city. It is run by nice greek people and the décor fits the bill! They serve HUGE portions for a reasonable price tag, and the food is fresh and delicious! I usually order the greek salad with chicken and they literally place an entire grilled chicken on top. They also include a whole sheet of feta and then a ton of other fresh vegetables. They don’t skimp on quality here — no siree. They have a large restaurant area but they also have a seperate section just for carry out (my advice is if you’re in a rush, call ahead… it takes them a while to prepare your order for carry out). I’ve already been there 3x within the past 2 weeks and plan to return again and again!

I never knew what to make of this place before I finally tried it. From the outside it looks pretty run-​down and I often wondered whether they had closed down. I mentioned it to the bf once and he said he went there all the time as a kid before O’s games, so I figured it would be a fun place for us to visit for lunch. I was really pleasantly surprised when I got inside. The dining area is pretty spacious and I think there’s an upstairs. We went for lunch on a weekday but it was still really busy with UMB patrons. I love Greek food and was happy to see very affordable Greek food in addition to American food on the menu. I ordered a gyro with fries and the bf got a Greek combo plate that came with salad, chicken souvlaki, gyro meat, pita bread, and fries. The food was delicious and took a little while, but it was busy so it was understandable. I could tell that the «hole-​in-​the-​wall» thing that Penn Restaurant has going on really works for them and I love that. Will definitely come back.

Usually, a restaurant with a credit card minimum doesn’t really bother me. Technically, Visa/​MasterCard don’t allow retailers or restaurants to have credit card minimums, because it discourages small purchases. I can empathize with businesses trying to save money, but …
If I want a soda, and didn’t know you had a minimum credit card purchase rule, and say «All I have is my card, sorry.», you can’t grudgingly take my card and give me a bunch of gripe about it. You made the choice to break the rules in your agreement with Visa, and you made the choice to take my business anyway.
The food itself is rather average, and the wait for food isn’t as quick as you’d think for a takeout place. Nothing against the food for a negative customer service experience, but I’ve eaten there more than once. I could make something similar at UMD Hospital’s cafeteria.

This may be the silliest review ever, as I only got two items today. Three if you count the bottle of Coke.
The Penn is a favorite of my coworkers due to both proximity (we’re right next door) and price. I’m always stealing a french fry or two when their lunch comes and at least once a week I find myself saying «I’m really craving good fries right now! I need some of those fries from the Penn!»
Well, today I finally decided to indulge my craving. I had half an eggplant parm sub with me for lunch (I’ll review that restaurant another time; it was leftover delivery from Sunday night), and couldn’t think of anything better to accompany my sandwich than an order of piping hot french fries. As I discussed my plans with our receptionist she said to me «you know they have really good onion rings, too!» Ohhhhh-​kay. Anyone who knows me knows that I am a FIEND for onion rings, so I had to have both, naturally.
The fries: Piping hot. Delicious. Everything about them was perfect and exactly what I hope for in a french fry.
The onion rings: The jury’s still out on that one. Very good, but not the best I’ve ever had. They tasted fine, but seemed almost easier to eat with a fork because the breading wanted to fall off. Better that than the onion rings that are so well-​done that you take a bite and end up with the entire onion dangling from your mouth while you’re left holding the empty breading.
The Coke: Ice cold and delicious, of course, and much needed as there was no time for coffee in the midst of this morning’s various crises.
The service: So friendly!!! The gentleman on the phone with whom I placed my order was charming and wonderful, and also very friendly when I went to pick up my order. We shared a good laugh about the fact that almost all of my coworkers had trickled in at some point during the day.
After reading a description of the greek veggie platter posted by another Unilocaler, I might just order that the next time I feel like wandering next door. I might even decide to sit down in the restaurant portion some evening, you never know!

Very popular lunch spot by UMB employees and students.
It gets very hectic here during lunch and the service can be a bit sporadic due to volume (the place was packed and they only had 2 waitresses manning the place). You sit yourself and when you’re done eating, bring your check up to the counter/​register to pay. I would recommend coming here around 11:30 to beat the lunch rush if possible.
I tried the Greek Veggie Platter which consisted of warm pita bread, 4 warm dolmas (stuffed grape leaves), greek salad with a nice slab of feta, a small cup of tzatziki (yogurt sauce), and 6 or 8 mini spinach pies. It was a lot of food for a decent price.

Given that I work a couple of blocks away from this place, it’s an easy choice for work lunch (paid by the boss of course). It’s a mix of american and greek food in a greek-​ish décor and a favorite of nurses, residents and employees of the University of Maryland Medical Center (mostly due to its proximity rather than the food).
The food is very edible, though I dont go there to eat good food. The gyro comes as a pile of meat on a pita bread with no sides rather than in a sandwich form which is kinda weird (I like my gyro either in a sandwich or on a plate with some salad and fries, not a bizarre mix of both) The double deckers are ok (basically a stripped down club sandwich). My personal favorite is the turkey melt, with the cheese perfectly melted around the turkey. The fries are the frozen type, nicely deep fried.
Service is good and the staff is polite, though you seem slightly rushed to accommodate a high volume of client.
Bottom-​line, given their prime location, they could serve anything and still get a good amount clients. They serve food for not-​to-​expensive ($ 6 to $ 10) which is good, but they definitely have lots of space to improve their menu.

Being a student at the University of Maryland (Baltimore), meals and money are two things that are hard to come by. However, this place is right near the downtown Med school campus and is a good place to grab a quick lunch at a good price.
It’s a bit like a diner, but in a smaller space. The décor inside is slightly run-​down, but the atmosphere is cozy, clean, and comfortable. They offer dining-​in or take out, and for the most part the service is quick. The staff is always friendly and makes you feel at home.
Being a Greek restaurant, they make good Greek food, but their other entrees aren’t bad either. I recommend their Gyro or BLT sandwich and fries. The only thing to be mindful of is the lunch hour — if you’re planning to take food out, calling it in ahead of time will save you 15 – 20 minutes of waiting.