The White Eagle

Been here a few times for my birthdays and family functions. Food is pretty good, especially their soup. Service was also pretty good.
Restaurant does feel very dated, though this does bring a certain charm to it. Crowd is definitly on the older side. Haven’t seen much of a difference since the new owners took over.
Biggest disappointment was the dessert.

I’ve been going to The White Eagle since I was baby (and probably even while in gestation — HA). Mostly, we’d go there for ‘special’ (good and not so good, mind you) occasions, especially because most of my family is buried in the cemetery (St. Adalbert) across the street. Recently, I learned that the original owners had sold off their interest in the place, and it saddened me (the end of an era!), but there’s always the opportunity for some positive changes.
After a wake, I remembered that the restaurant portion of the venue offered ‘family style’ dining — and I was up for a bowl of their incomparable mushroom barley soup. (Good stuff in general, but especially so in blustery, winter, weather.) We were promptly seated, and tended to by our delightful waitress. My husband and I ordered the ‘Family Style’ dinner. (It’s an outstanding value. Seriously.) I noticed that the food tasted better — almost fresher — and brought that up to the waitress. That’s when I learned that original family had sold their interest in the venue, but that they (the new owners) were not going to meddle with the ‘Family Style’ menu offerings. The food was fresh, hot and plentiful — we’ve been back several times (just for the Family Style offerings) and we’ve even introduced our friends to the place (many of who lamented the location, because if it were closer, they would be frequent visitors, too.) Maybe it’s because we’re going for dinner, later in the evening (around 7pm), but we’ve ALWAYS had excellent, attentive, service and excellent food. I feel kind of bad for those who posted negative reviews — in all the years of going there, we’ve always had excellent food and excellent service (except for one problem we had a few years back — presumably under the old owners — but the problem we had wasn’t due to bad food or bad service — just a few bad members of restaurant staff).
I noticed that they’ve added an ‘Italian Night’ Family Style offering, and, quite frankly, I’m torn — I want to try the new offerings, but I love the original menu! Decisions, decisions.
I’ll be back to The White Eagle, and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend the restaurant to anyone who wanted copious amounts of fresh, hearty, stick-​to-​your-​ribs, food at an outstanding price. In fact, we’re going tonight — one of our friends texted me, asking if we could get together and hang tonight, but ‘go to that awesome Polish place on Milwaukee for family style dinner’. Oh yes, we can go there. Yes, please! Yum.

My family and I have been going to The White Eagle for the past several years for our Thanksgiving dinner. The new owner’s have completely destroyed, what was once a great, restaurant.
Upon arriving, we had to wait in a ridiculously long line (1 hour), despite having reservations. We had to PRE-​PAY for our food (unfortunately, because the food itself was utter crap). There were two incompetent employees attempting to calculate everyone’s bills while we were all standing in line, which just served to create chaos among the patrons.
Once seated, we waited OVER AN HOUR to receive a family style dinner. Our server, threw our bowls of food down onto the table while talking to us sarcastically. The food was a mix of terrible tastes and dryness. We could not even attempt to fix the food, because they didn’t serve gravy or butter. Imagine, a Thanksgiving dinner without gravy!
Save your money. DO NOT GO HERE!

Ive been here in the past under the previous owners and thought it was really great, however tonight was not so great. We went for Thanksgiving dinner and had set a reservation. Upon arriving it was very crowded as expected, there was a table in the main hall area with people standing in line and no staff was directing anyone or explaining what to do so we stood in line (myself, boyfriend, grandma, grandpa, and great aunt) My grandma has had thanksgiving here before and never had these issues. Everyone in the line was complaining about how unorganized everything was. Not to mention there are A TON of elderly people that go here and they shouldnt be made to stand in a line like that. Even though most of these people had reservations like us everyone still got stuck waiting. They also made you PRE PAY when you checked in for your reservation. They initially tried sitting us at a larger table with another family… sorry but no… when we finally got seated we waited forever and a guy finally came and advised us we could go to the bar and get our drinks or since he wasnt doing anything he could get them for us if we wanted but told my grandpa he would have to wait for the waitress for coffee. I thought they were joking when they brought the glass of coke, it couldnt have been bigger than a 6 oz glass, literally 2 sips! My boyfriend had to go to the bar every 5 minutes for a refill and wait in a line for that too! Oh and that waitress my grandpa was waiting for NEVER CAME! We didnt have a waitress the whole night! We had to flag down other servers for coffee, water, and food refills since its family style. My grandpa and boyfriend were sitting on the ends and the servers kept hitting their chairs with the carts. We had to wait 10 minutes for food refills and the waitess just says «sorry i had to wait in a line». Food was overall ok. Based on the quality of service and disorganization tonight, my family and I agreed we will never be back. Worst thanksgiving dinner service ever.

White Eagle is a hidden gem! The mushroom soup is the greatest mushroom soup! Its creamy with imported polish mushrooms, and barley! I enjoy the family style dinner with chicken, beef, and many side dishes! I met the new owners a few times at the restaurant, they are so nice and always fun! The staff, especially Sherry, is a great person, and employee! The White Eagle has great food and a pleasant experience!

We have been going to the White Eagle for over 25 years. We love the family style dinner. The mushroom barley soup is everyone’s favorite. We also enjoy the chicken and beef dishes. It is one of the best values in the area.
The new owners have already made some nice improvements and are very nice. They always stop by to ask how things are. A nice touch and they are truly interested!

This is a review of the restaurant since the new owners took over. The White Eagle has been an institution in my family (do to the proximity to the cemetery and every celebration that requires a banquet hall) for the since the ‘70s. We have dined in the restaurant about every other month for years. Yes, there are differences in the recipes but the flavors are getting closer to what the Przybylo’s served. Even in those days, service wasn’t exceptional but we were willing to overlook that. What they lacked in service they more than made up for in food. The food is now getting close to what it once was. My issue is not with the food. In fact, the food was tasty enough to earn this review a star. The service was abysmal. We arrived for lunch on Sunday to a somewhat more crowded than usual dining room. Family style lunch took 2 hours. ??? A manager walked in to talk to the servers about some input error. Hey manager! The biggest error was that you walked in to a full restaurant of unhappy customers and you didn’t care that no one was being served. Someone (manager?) should have checked in on diners. The poor wait staff had to deal with angry customers. The new management is turning away a lot of loyal customers.

They should have told us the gratutity is included in the total price of the bill. We asked the waitress about tipping and she did not mention it in order to get tipped twice. Which she did — 18% included and an extra 20% on top of that! Please instruct your waitresses to be honest and inform patrons that tip is included instead of withholding this information or worse lying to get a larger tip! Too bad we loved the food, but because of the deceptiveness and lying we will not be back and will tell others to beware! Shame on you!

8÷22÷15 An era is gone…
Ive never even thought of reviewing The White Eagle but sadly today I am.
Been going to this place for 35 years. Weddings, funerals, showers… my very own wedding 33 years ago.
In Between we would go, just because, because of the fabulous food. Well that time has gone. Its over.
A group of seven if us went yesterday to find that Victoria Banquettes have taken over. Ive been there also. Very good food.
This review is 1 star because The White Eagle chefs are gone and took their recipes. The mushroom soup, the beef, the chicken, the noodles with liver, the cole slaw, the polish sausage… all different and to be honest it was all bland.
All seven of us at the table left sad. Good bye White Eagle food — forever.
Victoria’s do what you do best as far as food goes, and do yourself a favor don’t recreate what you can not.
On a high note the service was attentive and spot on.

Sorry but this old Polish standby, is just too tired. Had their range of dishes for lunch and all were disappointing. Polish beer and the bread were both great though.

Wound up here because Smak Tak was closed for a vacation. disappointed through and through. At its best, everything tasted banquet hall style fresh and it was played and presented as such. At its worst, I waited 10 minutes for a menu and 10 more to order drinks. Then it took 45 more for the food to come out.
Ok, so the chicken was good. But I’m not even sure how to begin rating this on the Polish quality.

Very Polish banquet hall on the NW side. If you live here and have Polish heritage, you have probably been here for a weeding or funeral or two. There are lots of people that really like the food here. I never got into Polish food. The chicken is good, as are salads and portions are unlimited.
Soda is by Filberts, a local brand that was only at Polish banquets but in the new packaging has become quite trendy as real sugar /​cane sugar is an in thing these days. No kidding.
Bonus points for the pay phone in the lobby.

Had my wedding here and the food was horrible I’m very embarrassed that they served such horrible food at my wedding. People remember 2 things from every wedding that’s food and music so half of everyone’s memories were disgusting. Thanks for ruining my wedding

If you’re Polish and grew up on the northwest side then you’ve probably been here a number of times for weddings and funerals. I still remember the original location on Division west of Western. The place is huge and also has a a gift shop. They also have a restaurant portion where you can eat a meal.
I was here for an event in the banquet hall. There have been few variations over the years in the offerings. The menu for the banquet hall is still CBS style (chicken, beef and sausage). But they’ve also added stuffed cabbage. The star soup is mushroom but they also offer chicken noodle and red borszt. The plate of vegetables was a good addition — not overly cooked.
A good choice for a banquet hall if you have to feed a thousand people but I would not go out of my way for the restaurant.

We went the the restaurant for the first time in a long time, I really had forgotten how good all the food is. We had family style as we normally would, Chicken livers and noodles, mashed potatoes, Baked
Chicken, roast beef, Sausage and Kraut, and pierogies. It’s a steal for all the food you get. We now plan on making it a family tradition to visit for all special occasions… It’s a bit of of a drive for us but well worth it. Oh and the Mushroom Barley soul is still the best!

We hosted our annual volunteer appreciation luncheon here. The setup was great. Everything was arranged just how we asked. Family style proved to be more than enough and the servers provided us with to go boxes.
The food was delicious. We ordered the roast chicken, beef tenderloin, polish sausage, pierogis, carrots, a tomato mozzarella salad, their mushroom barley soup, and assorted pastries. The soup is their signature soup and it was amazing.
The only reason I’m not giving this place 5 stars is because there was confusion with beverages for the event. We knew it’d be a cash bar but had been told soda and ice tea were included in the price of food. Our initial guests were told by the bartender they had to pay for them. It took longer than expected for the host to tell us it wasn’t included but they did eventually allow us to run an open tab and pay after the event was done. Everything else was great and we would definitely host another event here.

Love this place! Been here several times potato pierogi and mushroom are excellent, great roasted chicken. Delicious comfort food. If you aren’t at the banquet hall try the «Family style dinner» on Sundays. Beware of carbs. But indulge for good winter comfort food. The first time I ate here I was stuffed for about three hours and was literally in pain to move. (must have been a dog in former life)

I was here last Saturday for a Germanic celebration, and while I wasn’t blow away by the décor and food, I wasn’t entirely disappointed either.
Our group had 525 people in it, and White Eagle seemed to do a nice job of accommodating all of us and our lederhosen. Facility was well-​lit, bathrooms were clean. Bar prices were average, ‘tenders were friendly. Kudos to the one who poured me a beer even though I didn’t have my ID on me (rare nowadays with that stupid ‘we card hard if you look under 30′, and I look WAY under 30).
For the ‘family style’ meal, I honestly expected more/​better. The noodle soup was anemic, but the salad was fine. Polish sausage with sauerkraut was OK, but the chicken entrée was lacking. I didn’t get a chance to try the beef in gravy. The mashed potatoes were AWESOME. Dessert was a small sampler that included several types of kolacky and other assorted sweets, which was pretty good. Since the sampler was small and my table was populated by mostly sweet-​toothed folks, I asked for a 2^nd tray, which never came.
I used to work in catering so I saw my fair share of jaw-​dropping banquet halls. White Eagle probably runs in the middle of the pack, as it were, with decent food & service and ample parking. I’d recommend this place for anyone planning a party whose guests number in the hundreds.

I simply love the Polish food here. Lots of folks don’t like the all the banquets going on but the restaurant is great. For $ 10 they offer a plate full of wonderful goodies that will have you loosening your belt if you can finish it all.

The White Eagle has been the go to banquet center in Near NW Chicago for over 50 years. They can accomodate groupss as small as 6 or as large as 1500. When we were there in their restaurant today, there were four events going on somewhere else in the massive hall.
The menu is Polish, as the location, on Milwaukee Avenue, is just a short jog up from the Polish center of Chicago. Chicago is the largest Polish population concentration in the world, after Warsaw.
The best deal, for two or more people, is the «Host Family Style Dinner», at $ 10.50 per, includes soup or salad, bread basket, two types of pierogies, noodles, mashed potatoes, and three entrees. On the latter, we opted for sausage/​kraut, chicken, and goulash. The server goofed and brought us brisket in gravy instead of the sausage, but when it was pointed out, quickly brought the sausage (and left the brisket!).
These very ample servings, and while there is a «no seconds» policy, you are able to take home the leftovers, and I’m sure we have enough for another two meals.
The taste, quality was top-​notch. Certainly not what you would expect from a banquet type facility. For a couple bucks more, you can add a soup or salad (whatever you didn’t opt for on the previous menu, and dessert).