English

Opinions about English are wildly divergent, but the place has never done wrong by me. Quite the opposite, in fact. Every time my friends and I go, we get a spot at the bar and prompt service in addition to decent daily specials. I like the dim ambiance inside, and the weather-​permitting sidewalk patio is awesome too. Maybe I (un)consciously avoid English when I know the halls will be decked with bros, and walking down LaSalle I’ve seen it packed with people, but there’s another side of English that exists, and that’s the side that gets 4 stars and my repeat business.

Epic Fail.
My coworkers and I go there for lunch, they sell us «all you can eat» mac n cheese which is their Thursday special, and they run out before any refill. This is not that big of a deal. The problem is that due to the incompetence of their manager, they did not make it right. They took off 15% from the bill (which wasn’t even the price of one of the false sales).
Long story short, if you sell something, and don’t provide it, you comp the item. They did not, and have left me furious over it. Other than that, it is any other bar in Chicago, nothing special.

So you advertise a Thursday lunch special… a weekly special… that means you are prepared Thursday for lots of people to order it, right? You make sure you have enough, right?
Today’s weekly special: unlimited mac’n’cheese. My coworkers and I ordered some, and when we asked for a second helping, we were told they ran out! This was around 12:30 in a not-​even-​half-​full dining room. So it just so happened that the four of us had JUST ENOUGH to make ‘em run out? This early???
Okay, so you run out? No prob. We asked if we could substitute another small item, like sliders. Waitress checks, comes back and sez no, but they can give us a 15% discount. Let’s see… we wanted (in toto) 8 mac’n’cheeses, and got 4. We got half of what we wanted, so they give us 15% off. That’s like Rahm Emanuel’s claim that over a four-​year period CPS teachers are getting a 16% pay raise, which includes 2% the first two years, 3% the third, and 4% the fourth… but that’s neither here nor there.
And I’m definitely NOT there if they don’t address what customers pay for.
Asked for a shot of Grand Marnier, a pretty common staple in bars. They ran out. At 12:15 they had none.
Looks like they don’t stock very well.
[place catchy, sassy closing line here]

I was ruminating the other day about the «top 5 shite-​est nights out of my life» and thought of this place.
Not really sure what the attraction is. Basically, they took a giant, warehouse-​ass building, put a few bars in it, stocked it with mediocre food, then called it a day.
But for some unknown reason, Chicagoans flock to it. There are literally thousands of great bars and restaurants in the city, and yet they choose this place. It mystifies me.
Admittedly, it seems mostly to appeal to frat boy douchecanoes — just in very large amounts. When we went it was 6 deep at every bar, with heaving masses of sweaty a-​holes everywhere else. We stayed for about a half hour, then realized that we could enjoy a similar experience crowding around a dumpster and listening to our iPods on maximum volume, so we left and went somewhere better. I don’t remember where exactly, but I can guarantee it was better.
So, in summary, there’s not really much to do, there’s no circumstance in which you could plausibly meet an interesting person, the drinks are mass produced, and the food is wank (my «mediocre» grade above was an overstatement).
I’ll be generous and concede that the experience might be different when it’s not 11:30pm on a Saturday night, but I’m not that generous.

I think I may regret not having the $ 5 all-​you-​can-​eat Mac and cheese, and the $ 4 shots of Jameson or Fireballs, that make up the Thursday specials menu.
That’s said, good beer list with Allagash and Guinness, so we were good to go. I also noticed they had a Pimm’s cup. Not something I’ve seen much on a menu, and I think I may be adding that to the list of things I regret not ordering.
Turkey sandwich was good. The apples, slaw, and cheese, all made for yummy condiments and the multigrain bread was fresh and seeded. Only downside was I would have preferred real turkey as opposed to the slices that seemed like they were out of a deli package.
Fried pork with mozzarella also made for an interesting combination. That didn’t taste much like pork.
Service was a bit slow. Though it was late. So happy they still served us food.

I came here after a wedding on Sunday. I haven’t been here since my 21^st birthday.
I had a couple of beers while everyone else got food, drinks, etc. I have to admit that the waitress handled us well considering how large our group was. It was pretty empty when we arrived. Everyone was enjoying the Bulls game. The atmosphere was nice because they opened up the patio and windows.
Although it was nice, there wasn’t anything that stood out in particular.

I love this bar. The appetizers are good, the drinks are top notch and it’s never jam packed enough to be uncomfortable. I have fond memories in this bar, I always look forward to coming back.

It’s St Paddy’s weekend so everything will be busy. I get it and appreciate it.
I have been to English probably three other times and I walked away thinking each time that it was a solid bar. However, tonight was horrible experience. Our group was upstairs and were for the most part ignored by our server, had her spill shots on me and had to track her down to pay (after sitting with money in hand for 15 min). She never came around to get us more drinks and when she did come around she would get one order and bail for 15 min. In over an hour we did one round of drinks and 2 shots; in other bars that would of gotten accomplished in 30 min tops.
The upstairs experience is a major fail. With so many options unfortunately English is not going to be something I recommend.

Fun bar! A little something for everyone. One girl wanted to dance, so we headed to the 3^rd floor where it was a little less crowded. The music was a good selection and good volume.
The beer selection was good, but I was disappointed that each floor had it’s own separate bar. When we moved from one level to the next, we had to close our tabs. They also start closing the place (was it 3am?) one level at a time– the top first.
The coat check downstairs was a nice touch– $ 3.

I am updating my review to inform you that someone named «Katie» working on behalf of English saw my two-​star review, found my telephone number, called me and told me to change my review. I informed «Katie» that such phone calls violate Unilocal’s terms of service, told her to never call me again, and then I hung up.
She called me right back. She then told me that she was «recording the conversation» to prove to English that she’s doing her job. I said some impolite words. Hi, Katie, if you are running or working for a business that calls people to harass them to change their reviews, you should know that your conduct in recording the conversation is illegal under Illinois law. 720 ILCS 5÷14−1. She called me from a Washington phone number, which I won’t publish here, although I want to.
Now, English, please allow me to be more specific about why I think your restaurant sucks:
1. the service is awful. I waited for more than twenty minutes before anyone even came to our table to ask whether we wanted anything. Then I waited at least another fifteen minutes before receiving a drink. Used glasses and plates were never cleared from the table.
2. it’s overpriced.
3. It’s extremely crowded with rude people.
4. They hire people to make threatening, illegally recorded, telephone calls to try to get them to change their reviews.
Why don’t you put your time and money into making a place that doesn’t suck, rather than spending it on these terribly idiotic tactics to try to improve your crappy rating?

The food is pretty good, better than expected but not the best in the area. I had some kind of fish the first time I ate there which was pretty good. The drinks are pretty reasonable. I see advertisements about their specials during the week but have yet to go for those. On the weekends it gets pretty busy.
Weekends are somewhere between the mid 20-​s to late 20’s. You will find your 21 year olds there getting absolutely smashed. In the winter, at times they have coat check others they don’t.
Again it is pretty good but there are better places in the area. I would say go on a Thursday or Wednesday and try the food.

+ Spacious
+ No line or cover
— Terrible music and not loud enough to dance
— No ventilation
— No coat check

Barf. This place has the worst service.
I am usually really big on tipping well and do not tip less than 18−20% unless something was really terrible … well… this was really terrible.
We weren’t even there at a busy time. Bleh.
The food was mediocre — the drinks were good.
I really just can’t get over the bad service — inattentive, rude, and slow.

This bar was so douchey. It reeked of desperation. That many mediocre looking younger guys commingling with that many older women? You won’t even need the roofies.
The décor wasn’t bad, but the music was terrible. It was Final Four playoff night, plus 40^th birthday party, plus bachelorette party, plus all the other people who normally come here on a Saturday night. It was packed. Like, I can’t move without someone’s grossly overtreated hair skimming my drink. They do have a decent selection of whisky and also of craft beers on draft. The bartenders have nice racks. However, these 2 things aren’t enough to make up for the rest of it. We lasted about 30 minutes before slamming down the rest of our fairly weak drinks and hailing a cab to someplace more tolerable.
As a side note, if it was 7pm on a Tuesday, there’s a chance this bar *might* be tolerable. I’ll never know.

I went to English on a Saturday night. We had to wait in line for about 10 minutes, but once inside, the bar wasn’t too crowded. Given the line, I was expecting to have to wait a long time to get drinks, but that wasn’t the case.
The DJ was good, the atmosphere was pleasant. If I visit Chicago again, I wouldn’t mind coming back.

Went to English for a winter party. It was a Friday night after-​work thing. And it worked out pretty well. We had the third floor to ourselves which was kinda nice.
The food was heavy appetizers, I never saw a regular menu. The offerings included mini chicken sandwiches, little burgers, chicken skewers and little bags of fries. There was not enough food and they were very slow to refill anything.
The bartenders were good. We never waited for drinks.
English was clean and so were the bathrooms.

My last time here was not as bad as it could have been. I know this to be true because I have been here plenty of times and it was bad. Like, «who’s pushing? Did that girl just throw up in that other girl’s purse? Are those guys triplets? Quadruplets? Why do they all look the same? Are we about to die in a fire? Ugh, I hate this song» bad. But, this was the case every time I arrived without reservations and went hunting for a table.
On my last occasion at English, we had a booth. This made all the difference. No longer was I adrift in a sea of Ed Hardy, hair gel, steroids, and roofies. I had a respite from all the bumping and grinding and I could fully slouch into total inebriation as the waitress made an effort to come back and forth to our booth. So, was it the awesome company that made the night so good? The service? The eleven-​billionty vanilla vodka and cokes I had (don’t even hate; it’s gonna be all you drink this summer)? Yeah, it might have been that last one.
Blame it on the a-​a-​a-​a-​a-​alcohol, blame it on the a-​a-​a-​a-​a-​alcohol…

What can I say about English on Saturday night? Well, it had some good and some bad. The music was awesome. One of my friends and I were loving the mix of 90s and 2000s music. We danced the night away.
No cover which is always good and not too overly crowded which is also good. There was a long line to get in though. And it was full of drunk 21 year olds. A girl who must have been about 21 even though she looked 41 (her friends all looked 21ish so I assume she is the same age unless it was their mom going out with them) tried to start a fight with us in line. lol. She swore we cut her even though we had been in line the whole time before her and then started making some racist assumptions. To me it was just hilarity but to my male buddy it was not so fun. Good thing it was a girl and not a guy messing with us or we wouldn’t have even made it in. You just have to laugh when people are so drunk they have no grasp on reality though.
Also, I hate to be a big ol’ meanie but inside were some of the most not good looking people I’ve ever seen. We hung out on the top floor so maybe it was just a bad level or a bad night or something but woooo! Never seen anything like it at a club-​bar-​lounge type of place.
Also, it’s like a sauna in there. Never been to a place that was so steamy and hot. Goodness!
One other thing I liked was the scattered tables. We were able to snatch one up and have a base. A home base is always a necessity when out on the town.
All in all, we had a fun night because we make our fun, not our crowd. And the music was off the hizzook!

English is one of our regular summer patio lunch spots near Merchandise Mart and it offers a gourmet menu considering that it’s a bar. Hands down, we love and often order the creamy lobster mac and cheese, which comes in a generous bowl. There are large chunks of buttery lobster and the cheese has a slightly smokey taste. Someone there truly loves good food because the truffle fries are definitely a treat, the crab cakes are great with a nice pale ale and it’s hard to say no to their turkey burger and lobster sliders.
We’ve never eaten inside and haven’t been during nights so perhaps we’ve avoided the bewilderment that comes with a popular bar. Our summer lunches tend to be sunny, tranquil and delicious and that’s what keeps us going back. :)
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UPDATE:
We recently dined inside for lunch and one of the most surprising things is their donut holes dessert, which come to the table hot and moist. There’s a great cinnamon flavor, cake donut style and you’re offered a hot dipping chocolate which officially classifies the dish as ambrosia. :) It was totally unexpected to get this kind of dessert at a bar, especially when we were told that they were serving apple pie a la mode. Thank gawd they ran out of that! These donuts holes… the quality is what I expected from The Doughnut Vault. Isn’t it kinda odd that way?

I made a big Unilocal no-​no. So the pressure was on for me to take a couple out a «night on the town» for a Friday evening. Why the heck would I take a couple to Sable Kitchen and then follow it up with English?! I am still trying to find a valid reason…
–Staff was sassy, border-​line rude and dressed to turn on those gents for more tips (aka slutty).
–Speakers were crackly with horrible music choices playing.
–Food would be better plastic and left on display. Maybe it already was and that’s why it had the chewy, nasty texture and lack of flavor.
–Lobster & White Truffle Mac&Cheese had tiny pieces of lobster and the cheese combination was off. Kraft tastes better and is a fifth of the price. Don’t be fooled by the fancy gastronomical name.
–Lobster Cake Sliders were simply disgusting. Why I had trust getting seafood other than fried fish at a bar is beyond me.
–Best thing about this place was the décor of enlarged framed artwork, humungous chandeliers, and the dimly lit dying neon ENGLISH sign outside at the entrance which puts you in a trance if you stare at it long enough.
Their motto of «Eat Well, Drink Better,» is spot on true… you can’t really mess up alcohol so of course it’ll be better than the food. You just better darn mix it right! Go to Sable and take a lesson on both cooking and bartending.