Golf Mill Shopping Center

It’s not the biggest mall but it’s decent. Whatever you want, you can pretty much get it over there. It’s also a great place to hang out. They have a food court with a variety of restaurants.

I love the variety of stores the have at this mall unfortunately it can get really traffic in this area thus I don’t go here as often unless it’s to watch movie at AMC

This place used to be enjoyable. Over the years places like fye, kb toys, gamestop and a couple of restaurants have closed down or moved out of the mall. Its like I only go there for a massage. Rare I see a movie there.

Meh. I’ve experienced better is absolutely correct. This was sad and everything that everyone else said was correct. The only decent places were JC Penney and Express. I just don’t see how everyone else is staying in business. It was just depressing.

Raze this dump.
I needed to stop here to pick up glasses from LensCrafters as old orchard did not have my frames. I wasn’t expecting the «mall» to be upscale, but this place is a dump.
It is old, has certainly not been renovated, and the mix of stores inside is pathetic. Surely everyone’s shopping needs can be met at any of the other infinite shopping centers in this area?
I’m surprised that so many tzochtky shops are surviving and I nearly expected a happy endings massage place to crop up, complete with creepy, balding middle aged men.
Avoid at all costs. It’s seriously gross.

This mall has degraded over the years. Used to be mcdonalds and tacobell in the food court now they are gone and 80% of the stores were not open at 11am on this Saturday morning. It is like walking through a ghost town. The food court food selections is an embarrassment to what a mall is supposed to be. I only come here because of my business related work… otherwise I wouldnt be setting a foot in here. I was here last week and Panda express didnt have the signature crab rangoons before that sbarros wasnt even serving pizza or calzones with no explaination why as I was sitting I watched the oven get worked on. Would be nice to give people written notice. The last few times I have been here the Le Pita place has been closed. Its not shuttered up yet maybe they dont want diners to stop coming here completely. The sarku japan place is horrible with customer service. They give us glaring stares .
The people in the mall are not the best either.

I’m not a huge fan of golf mill. There are a couple good stores (finish line and Victoria’s Secret) but other than that it’s usually just weirdos loitering in the food court.

I’m just really not a fan of malls, especially during the Christmas season but my mom insisted it wouldn’t be busy on a Monday afternoon. She was right.
I worked at the Bath & Body Works at this mall about a 100 years ago… ok, more like 15ish years ago and that may be the last time I went in this place.
First off, this place isn’t awful… it’s an indoor mall. You won’t find anything super fancy here like Macys, you’ll find more middle class average stores… Penneys, Sears, Kohls, even Value City Furniture… so decent stuff, and in addition to Department Stores you’ll find stores like Bath & Body Works, Victoria’s Secret, and a bunch of clothing stores with trendy clothing in it. They also have a decent food court. I remember hitting up this mall on Black Friday with my Mom, Sister, and Grandma back before the crazy days of people lining up outside and stampedes so I do have some memories here as well.
Back to being not busy… Monday afternoon, December 1^st… yeah, not even a little. I literally had to walk from where we parked on one end of the mall to the complete other — walking through Sears and I was in & out quickly… I was amazed! I’d like to think traffic may pick up on the weekends? I hope???
Plenty of parking, there isn’t a garage… it’s all lot, and plenty of entrances around the place, mall entrances and through department stores. You really can’t get lost here. And, if you’re up for early walking… the mall opens pretty early for walkers before the stores open.

I am rating this poor, old mall 4 stars more out of pity. I do like the penny’s and the kohl’s. It is weird walking thru the Sears to access the other end of the mall but it’s not too hard to navigate. Now if they could just get rid if those trampy Kardashian’s cut outs in Sears I might change it to 5 stars!

Well, since the mall was purchased, by Sterling Realty… no changes for the better! I came in entrance 6 3 weeks ago for a haircut, the heater was broken in the entrance and the barber shop was FREEZING! Poor guys, John, Sal and Joe… fast forward to 3 weeks later (11−19−14) STILL broken!
No new stores, and they claim their occupancy rate is high, yes, because they turn empty stores into «storage»… wow…
The onky GOOD thing is the mall manager is gone, and they promoted one of the girls to Ad Manager. She knows how to get things in here.
This mall will be DEAD for the holiday season… what a shame…

I have been coming here for years, and as the years continue to go by so does this mall. This mall reminds me of an outdated outlet mall from the 70’s. To be honest I really don’t know how this mall remains open. I’m guessing it does because of the anchor stores, JCPenney, Sears, Kohls, and Target. The anchor stores are busy, however the small stores in the mall are practically empty, and it’s Saturday! It’s kind a sad. This mall really needs to be reinvented, especially with the lay out because I really don’t think this mall is going to survive for very much longer.

This mall is laid out very strangely. In the morning, people walk around here for exercise. The stores here are nothing fancy like the ones you would see on Michigan Ave. They are your basic go to everyday stores like Sears, Target, and Kohl’s.
I ended up here because I was checking out the Scrubs Outlet.

a nearly dead mall limping pitifully along for decades.
once it was beautiful… when it was an outdoor mall and there was an actual mill wheel and a pond with koi fish. evil greedy geniuses killed that and enclosed the mall, making it a tomb basically and the mall died pretty much.
by contrast, old orchard increased revenue tremendously by investing in the renewing of their sad, neglected mall.
but niles politicians and developers can’t realize what a truly great town center golf mill could be if they followed the example of old orchard. they can’t realize how much they’ve thrown away by not renovating, and i’m also talking about all the money lost by spending money on a bad design for that mall.
it could be an oasis and a place you want to go to in the midst of the traffic and madness that’s everywhere around there. it should be!
there should be fountains, gardens galore all over that sick, miserable, ugly intersection of gold and milwaukee!
get your heads together and build a 21^st century commercial park with walking paths and something of beauty for once!!!
bring back the mill! bring back koi fish! trees! flowers! invest in something alive not dead!
niles is truly one of the most disgusting dive towns i’ve ever lived in and seen in my travels, which explains the energy put into lying in promoting niles as «the best place in the united states of america to raise a family!» it’s hilarious how massive a lie that really is!
how dishonest can you be lol!!!
the village trustees must be amazing liars when it benefits their own pockets and serves their great lack of vision and their spiritual bankruptcy.
do they kiss their children with those same lying lips they use to tell people niles is actually the best place to raise children? what ferocious untruthfulness. it blows my mind.
where is the george bailey to stand up to mr. potter? but it’s far too late folks. your beloved bedford falls has been devoured by pottersville and it’s probably gone for good. as they herd more and more violent, uneducated people into smaller and smaller spaces… it becomes harder and harder to stop the runaway train that is bad vision and bad leadership.
act with love for once you goofy politicians!!! truly do right instead of pretending and wasting oceans of money on garbage!

This review is mostly about the Poutee restaurant inside the mall that serves Poutine, but I’ll make a few comments about the mall.
The mall itself is rather lackluster and not as busy as a mall should be. Most stores and kiosks are boring and full of crap nobody buys (I think they have an entire store devoted to jeggings… seriously an entire store devoted to jeggings.) The food court is full of weirdos that stare at me as I walk around, mostly old folks lounging around, the occasional young couple, Jehovah witnesses having bible study and a class of kids that go here when they get out of karate. Definitely not your standard mall fare.
After work I’ve been trying the restaurants in here while I wait for the bus. One of which was «Poutee», a restaurant devoted to poutine, a Canadian favorite of french fries covered in gravy, cheese curds and beef. Coincidentally I had been looking for restaurants in Chicago lately that serve this delectable sounding dish, but there weren’t any close to my area.
The lady at the register was friendly and we chatted a bit, she said she loved my watch. I ordered a large «poutee» and a soda. It took about 10 minutes for my order to be ready since she made it fresh. I was a bit hesitant while waiting since I’m not a real big an of cheese and I didn’t know what kind of curds they were going to use. Finally my food comes out and to my delight it was mozzarella cheese curds, perfectly melted with the hot, fresh out the fryer fries.
Everything tasted fantastic, the gravy especially. My only regret was not grabbing a spoon since there was a lot of gravy left after the devouring of the fries was over with. The mix of flavors was great especially the beef, cheese, and fries. I definitely look forward to trying it out again one day.

I really don’t know how this mall still survives. I never see people actually shopping here. The good things about the mall is that it has a movie theater, sears, target, and jc penny. The rest of the mall has filler stores that no one would actually go out of there way to visit. It is somewhat depressing. It has the feeling of a funeral home: complete silence, uncomfortable glances, and a faint sound of sobbing in the background.

Dirty. Weird people walking about. Some stores seem to be there just cos they needed something to take up space. Place needs major renovations.

This is an alright mall. It’s better than what it used to be. The only reason I’m ever here is to go to the AMC movie theater. I’m usually not walking around shopping/​They do have a few good stores in the Sports & Cards shop, Finish Line & Northgate but other than that, there’s nothing too appealing. It’s still a bit too ghetto and a bit too raunchy for my taste. I prefer Old Orchard which is right near me.

Golf Mill reminds me of that dirty dish rag in the corner… it’s old, it’s worn, it’s dusty, and it’s definitely seen better days.
The only reason I drop by this building is to go to the AMC movie theater or Target adjacent to it, which are not associated with Golf Mill. The stores within are dated, the air will mess with your allergies, and by the way, do NOT get sucked into using the photo booth by the movie theater! It’s eaten our money twice now. Wtf!

Perhaps a bit of background might enlighten some of you young whippersnappers.
Golf Mill was opened in 1960 as a middle class, middle-​of-​the-​road OUTDOOR shopping center. It was originally anchored by Sears and an Evanston-​based store called Lords (which was replaced by JC Penney). It never had the upscale pretentiousness of Old Orchard, which was designed to appeal to the more affluent North Shore shopper.
Golf Mill catered to the demographics of the growing, blue collar suburb of Niles; and to a lesser degree, Morton Grove, Chicago’s northwest side, and some of the new developments that were being built south and west of Glenview. It did not try to market to the carriage trade. It catered to the working class «white ethnic» people in Niles.
Although it was not as elaborately landscaped as Old Orchard, it featured a nice rotating wooden «Mill» wheel, reflecting pond with goldfish, and shelter area for shoppers to use as a rest and meeting area.
For the first 15 or so years, Golf Mill was a very successful center. It was near new residential housing developments, and was a natural mecca for local shoppers. It was said that the Sears store there was the busiest Sears store in the US, and it was a bustling center that brought serious tax revenues to Niles. Occupancy was at or near 100%.
During that period, they added a movie theater and a theater in the round on opposite sides of the shopping center.
Concurrently, the Golf and Milwaukee area experienced a huge retail boon in which a lot of additional strip malls and stand-​alone stores opened on all of the arterial streets, resulting in a grossly over-​retailed situation — and Golf Mill’s fortunes started to turn.
In 1978, management decided to convert the shopping center into an indoor mall, a tricky proposition because the sores were not really arranged to accommodate an indoor format. It was decided to have separate North and South wings, connected only by expecting shoppers to walk through the Sears store in the middle of the mall to get to each wing.
The expansion was completed, but the storefronts were never even vaguely near capacity. Management added a Kohl’s (originally a «MainStreet» store) and a Target store on the north end. People did shop at the two stores, but they didn’t walk to the south end to visit Sears and Penny’s.
The theater in the round was closed to accommodate the expansion of the mall. And the original movie theater was converted into a fitness center, and a new multiplex cinema was successfully opened at the west end of Golf Mill.
Demographic change occurred in Niles. Many (not all) of the old Polish and eastern European immigrants died and were replaced by a mix of Asians, Muslims, Hispanics, and some African Americans who did not have the same shopping habits as the original residents.
The North Mall became relatively empty, and the South Mall also lost quite a few stores. The management has allowed some marginal retailers, martial arts facilities, and general office-​type businesses (like an insurance agency) to open in the mall. Half of the food court stores are empty. But the mall is only about 65−70% occupied, even if you include these marginal businesses. And the place looks tired and out-​of-​date.
Successful shopping centers usually have a lot of teenagers roaming the stores on weekend. It is not happening at Golf Mill.
So, we presently have a successful Kohls, Target, and movie theater. Sears and Penney’s are not faring well [although that may be caused by stupid corporate management decisions at both]. Everything else looks sad.
It was recently announced that the owners of the mall have put it up for sale.
I do not know what the future will bring, but something is needed before Golf Mill enters a mall death spiral.

Did you know that there’s an old school arcade that’s STILL here? I’m talking like the kinda games where you need to redeem dollar bills for TOKENS. Yes. They still exist.
They have all the favorites of my childhood — skee ball, wack-​a-​mole, that shooting game where you aim for the clown’s teeth, NBA Jams, Mortal Kombat, Simpsons. It’s so effin’ cool. And cheap.
Granted, yes, it’s a little run down and the «prizes» aren’t anything to rave about, but who cares? You get to step back in time and relive those great times you had in the 90’s. (Diversions anyone? Loved that place.)
The arcade is located in the JC Penny Wing, in the little hallway closest to that Dollar Store entrace, by a little juice counter/​snack shop.