Glunz Bavarian Haus

Food is very good. Audio Visual guy could use a little work.

Repulsive. Don’t go here under any circumstance.
The deets: I went here with my parents and husband a few weekends ago. Having gone to Germany this summer I was looking to replicate that amazing food. We walked up and saw they had a German band outside but it was super hot so we all thought we’d rather eat inside. Once we saw the inside of the place, we all looked at each other and said «Outside it is». The place should be on Restaurant Impossible or Kitchen Nightmares.
They didn’t have any dunkel, which is my favorite German beer. Their website indicates a totally different menu than was presented to us. We started with the pretzels which were clearly frozen but not bad. It was downhill from there.
My dad and I ordered the sauerbraten with red cabbage and spaetzle that looked like scrambled eggs. The meat was tough and it was flavorless. My mom got pork with the same sides — my beef was filet mignon compared to her pork. My husband was the clear winner though– he got beef stroganoff which was served atop a pile of grease. A few bites in he found a twisted piece of aluminum foil in his dish. When we told the waitress, she picked it off his plate with with her hands, apologized and walked away. Sure enough, that $ 24 plate of goodness with a prize inside showed up on the final bill. After some convincing, it was taken off.
All in all, I had a blast here. We all laughed more than I have in a long time but it was really just because we were blown away that anything could be so disgusting.

This is the single worst meal I’ve had in Chicago. In fact, it ranks right up there as one of the most memorable of all times but for all the wrong reasons. Disgusting in a word. Let me repeat, DISGUSTING!
OK, the four of us were in the mood for some German food and some good German beer. We were not far from here (at Hop Leaf drinking some really good beer!) and saw that we could get some German food here. It even sounds German, authentic perhaps? But oh, so wrong! The Unilocal reviews aren’t that good (lesson learned fellow Unilocalers!) but we persisted. Maybe our resolve was lessoned by a couple beers at Hop Leaf?
Upon arrival, it was SUPER hot outside so we elected to sit inside and not in the «garden», which essentially is a fenced sidewalk area. Yuck. Once inside, we all looked at each other and said, NO WAY are we eating in here! It looked really nasty. Very unappealing and it didn’t seem like the AC worked to give us any reason to even consider staying inside. So it’s off to the garden. The selection of German beers is pitiful. Come on, Hofbrau haus on tap? Stiegl (an Austrian beer, BTW)? No dunkels? Give me a break!
So we ordered anyway and selected some food while the octagenarians playing the keyboard and accordion wheezed their way thru some unindentifiable pseudo German songs that made me feel sad. For me and for them. The sauerbraten was disgusting. And over priced. The spaetzle was like lead pillows that had no taste. The beef was underwhelming and bland. The beef stroganoff was even worse. Gristle, piles of floating grease, tough, chewy lumps of brown matter that were passed off as «beef». Total yuck. And, to top it all off, there was a piece of spiraled aluminum in the food. Looked like it was the residue that comes off a wine bottle when you cut the cover off. And, when the waitress was «informed», she took it in her hand and disappeared without saying anything! Not, «sorry», or «oh my, let me get you another meal» or «we’ll take that off your bill». NADA!
An absolute disgrace. My advice? Listen to the Unilocal community. STAY AWAY! STAY FAR AWAY!

Since our kids had just enjoyed some amazing German food on a European trip, we decided to switch it up when we visited them in Chicago and look for some tasteless & overpriced German food instead. Imagine our delight when Glunz Bavarian Haus delivered all that & so much more!
It was a steamy hot Chicago night & the temp was still hovering around 85, so even though they had outdoor seating with 2 old guys playing German music we walked inside looking for a cool haven. One look at the interior and all 4 of us chimed enthusiastically, ‘Lets eat outside!‘
We ordered 4 beers & I was really looking forward to a fine German Dunkel — the only offering was a Hofbrau Dunkel, pretty much like getting the Bud Light of Dunkels — clearly a great start! The soft pretzels with dipping mustard may have been a tad too tasty.
My Jaegerpfandl pork tenderloin was just gristly and tough enough for my liking, the bacon mushroom gravy was a congealed season less glop and the spatzel was like squiggly scrambled eggs. Who wouldn’t want to come back for that? Not sure why but I asked for salt & pepper — the salt was a solid brick inside the shaker, another score!
My son in law was the clear winner on this dinner with the beef stroganoff. The plate was swimming in grease and beef gristle and just like eating cracker jacks, his came with a prize — one of those twists of foil that looked like a leftover as you cut the band off the top of a wine bottle. We gave the prize to our server hoping it could be redeemed for cash but alas when the bill came, no such offering. Hubby went inside and management took care of that oversight.
Service had none of that annoying hanging around asking how our food was or if we needed anything. Just dump the food down & run away, just how we like it! She did hover once as I was pounding inside my opened salt shaker with the bottom of my knife at the ‘f-​ing brick’ inside but thankfully not long.
Bonus points — scavenger hunt for toilet paper in the appropriately filthy bathrooms!
Oh yeah — Glunz Bavarian Haus really delivered!

Nice outside patio street side with German band on summer weekends is great… usually Friday nights. Go for the pretzels and beer but if it’s rainy or cold outside head somewhere else… The interior is neither charming or rustic but more 1970s Chicago

21^st birthday, blah blah blah.
I can only rate this place on the atmosphere compared to what I had experienced that night. Coming from HQ beercade, it was way different. 5 friends and myself came in, and my sister had promised me Das Boot. I was excited, but I didn’t realize she’d be taking me to a near-​empty place where I was just glad to have a boot, I guess.
She had never been there, either, and probably would have wanted to take me to a more lively joint had we done our research. Can’t rate it on food because we didn’t get the pretzel because they were «on order». Yeah, one of those places. The guy, who was eventually waiting for my group to leave, briskly walked out when we left, seemingly excited to get out.
Sorry for keeping you trapped, dude.
I reccomend heading north on Lincoln to the real square. Sorry, Glunz.

I really like Mirabell, and the Brauhaus a few blocks north on Lincoln is pretty good too. I decided to try Glunz to see if I was missing another good German restaurant. I’m not.
The first bad sign was that no one else was there at 6:30 on a Friday. We were the only two people until another couple came in a few minutes later. No one else had arrived by the time we left at 7:30. On a Friday!
The next bad sign was an «off» smell. Not a bad or pungent smell, or not even that overly disinfected smell you might get in a place that’s trying to cover up something. You expect to smell food when you walk in a restaurant, and I didn’t here. It’s tough to describe, but it reminded me of an old house that the same elderly couple has lived in for 50 years with the windows rarely opened.
OK marks for service, but it tells you something when there’s only one waitress/​hostess in the entire place on a Friday night. Service was neither quick nor slow, just average. The waitress was polite; not rude, not exceptional, just polite.
The menu looked promising, but the execution was poor. Liver dumpling soup is kind of a way I compare German restaurants. It’s a common dish, and I’ve had it in Germany, both in restaurants and and homemade by a Bavarian hausfrau. So, I always order it, and see how it compares to other places. At Glunz it’s bland and greasy. There were big drops of oily grease floating on top. The dumpling tasted more meaty than liver-​y, and wasn’t as finely textured as I expected. My cheese spaetzle was lukewarm and bland. I used more salt than is healthy to give it at least some flavor. My wife’s sausages were flavorful, but the kraut and potato salad were neither cold nor warm (it’s a day later, and so far no signs of food poisoning!) The worst part was that while our meal and the other couple’s were being prepared, I heard the distinctive hum and beep-​beep-​beep of a microwave.
On a good note, the beer selection is broad, and has several authentic German varieties I’ve grown fond of during my visits to Germany. I don’t mean St. Pauli Girl either. I had a Tucher weissbier (a mid-​sized Bavarian brewery), and it was served in the correct glass. The beer is really the only good part about this place, but you might as well go to one of the other German restaurants where you can at least get good food.

I can not even express my review of this experience without a giant sigh.
My husband and I went to Glunz with high hopes. We are right around the corner and as we are in a German neighborhood we expected high quality German food. Not exactly what Grandma makes but something close.
Unfortunately I have no good news to report.
First and foremost the dinning area could easily be on kitchen nightmares. The cobwebs on the lights, the black who knows what on the white ceiling around the fans is concerning and the playing straight German music but playing American tv sports channels on all the tvs is odd.
We ordered all sorts of things. Liver dumpling soup (served somewhere between luke warm and cold), pretzels (actually pretty tasty), asparagus soup (served room temp), bread dumpling (warm but not hot, decent but …) Sauerbrauten (dry, overcooked and yet not even hot) Schnitzel (I honestly looked at my husband and tried to confirm that this should been a thin cut of quality meat. It was a deep fried nothing. I honestly couldn’t tell if it was meat or fish!)
Part of or all of the problem may be coming from the Kitchen.
I did not hear a single knife, an oven or flame stoking. the only noise I heard from the kitchen was this… beeep, beeep, beeep. They are microwaving everything.
Regardless our bill was still over 70 bucks. I only had one beer. My husband had no drinks.
It was atrocious. I feel awful in saying this but… until this establishment decides to make itself a restaurant instead of a bar which microwaves its food. Only go here for drinks.

Whenever I’m in this area, alone or with friends, I always enjoy popping into this bar and knocking back a couple of drinks and maybe a pretzel. Staff are helpful, its a nice, friendly environment during the day and a lot of fun later on.

This is a very no-​frills kind of bar. Don’t come here expecting anything in the way of atmosphere or romance. Long picnic style tables and benches, decent beer list, and modest prices. The night I stopped in for a beer (Delerium Tremens! gotta get it when I find it) they had a live German band performing in the back, and there were two tables of Germans with their arms around each other swaying back and forth, singing along to the songs, hoisting steins of beer, I thought I was in a commercial. Oi Oi Oi! and everything.

The bartenders here are very knowledge about their pours. Each bartender I have had has been able to provide insightful suggestions based on experience, customer input and knowledge of the brewery. The bartender was even able to make me a raddler during the summer because he had been to Munich enough to know what it was without having to ask. It is nice to drink in the company of those that take their beer seriously. Their prices are middle of the road, with most beers costing about 6 bucks.
I have only eaten here once and it was just okay,. Granted I had chicken schnitzel, so I can’t expect much from a breaded chicken cutlet thus I will reserve my input for the beer.

A lesson learned the hard way — don’t ignore red flags.
My wife’s sister was in town to visit, and after a long day of galavanting around seeing the sights we were hungry and ready for a nice dinner. On the train home we decided on German food, and I quickly pulled up a couple of options. Stupidly, in the first of many bad decisions, I didn’t bother to check Unilocal for any of them (which I normally always do). Glunz was the only one that had the entrée my sister-​in-​law wanted on their menu (kaesespaetzle), so we settled on this place.
When we arrived at the restaurant (mind you, at around 7:30 on a Sunday evening), our first red flag presented itself. There was literally no one else in the restaurant. Not one person, inside or out. The bartender/​host/​waiter (he was the only employee we saw the entire time) who popped out seemed genuinely surprised that we wanted a table.
We asked to sit outside, as it was a beautiful night. This request was met with casual indifference. The guy was pleasant enough, he was just a terrible host and waiter — he had absolutely no idea how to do those jobs. He wasn’t familiar with any of the menu items, had to be coached through each step of the ordering process, and you could almost see the «that’s a great idea!» light bulb illuminate his face every time we said something like, «Hey, could you please bring silverware?»
We *should* have just paid for drinks and left, but stupidly we forged on to entrees. I ordered the jaegerpfandl, my wife the beef stroganoff, and my sister-​in-​law her cheese spaetzle. The pretzel we ordered as an appetizer never showed up. My wife’s and my entrees were atrocious. I have never been served a worse piece of meat in a restaurant — it was cafeteria quality. My pork was gristly, overdone, and tasteless, her beef was like leather. The spaetzle was big and bland. The «cheese spaetzle» was just the aforementioned chewy, bland spaetzle with (swiss?) cheese melted over it, nothing like the buttery, gooey conconction it’s supposed to be.
Again, were we to have followed our better instincts, rather than our sunburnt, hunger-​ravaged ones, we would have just cut our losses, complained, and left. But since we were there to visit with each other, no one wanted to cause a scene, and we ended up paying the obscene bill (our entrees were $ 22 and $ 25, respectively) and feeling like we just got robbed.
The cherry on the cake? In the hour-​and-​a-​half we were there, not one other person entered. I’m not surprised, I only wish we weren’t the suckers that didn’t know better.

Went during the week and the place was dead, save for a couple of other tables. The ambiance is on par with other German restaurants in the area. Ordered beers that were served in the proper glasses. Glunz is one of the bigger distributors and importers of all things Teutonic so the beer selection is very good and fresh. However, my wife and I were very disappointed with the food and service.
Although we were one of only a handful of tables, the waitress was not attentive at all. We started with soups, mushroom and liver dumpling. The mushroom soup was on par with opening a can of Campbells at home and the liver dumpling had a metallic taste, just not good. Our entrees were edible but overpriced for the quality level. In short, stop in for a beer or two but don’t sit down to eat.

As the Teutonic bars in Chicago go, Glunz is alright. I’d probably sooner drink at Laschet’s, Mirabell, or Resi’s, but Glunz isn’t half bad. It does look and feel more like a restaurant than a bar, so keep that in mind when planning a night out. I’ve never been in here when it’s crowded, either, so if you need a rowdier German bar, head farther north to Brauhaus.
This was a stop on both the World Cup and Oktoberfest pub crawls of 2010. The staff at Glunz has been good enough to put up with our shenanigans, or whatever the German word for shenanigans is. There is a picture from the latter evening of me participating in a shotski. I don’t have the slightest recollection of said participation, but I’m not one to deny what certainly happened. And I’m not really that guy, but sometimes I am.
Glunz…wouldn’t kick it out of bed for eating German crackers.

A large group of us went to celebrate a couple birthdays. We made reservations for 7pm. We arrived early and the place was practically empty so I was concerned. Within 15 minutes the place was full, the band started to play and the first round of drinks was being enjoyed. Their beer selection was plentiful, something for everyone in our party.
My dinner, the chicken schnitzel was delicious. Judging from the empty plates around the table, everybody’s dinner was great.
This is probably a good place to take the family for a tasty German meal. But on that Saturday night when we were there, Gluntz’s provided the perfect setting for our celebration. Great value for the money, fun atmosphere, and greet food.

Things sometimes happen in a funny and odd way. My friend and I stepped in here and almost immediately decided that we were gonna move. It was then that we heard the girl singing and playing the keys that we decided to stay and take it all in. This alone turned into a good thing as she had a great voice and it kept us around.
The CC machine wasn’t working, but they were taking down CCs anyway. Not a problem for me, I just wanted some bier. I was digging all of the different german beers that they had, but in the end I settled on a franziskaner. I know, not really adventerous, but I just wanted to sit down and listen to her sing.
The area where she was playing was pretty nice. The stage was set perfectly and it was a pretty intimate atmosphere. There weren’t a lot of people there, but we were all congregated around one spot.
I’m glad I stayed and I want to come back here again at some point. There was a good german beer selection to work through and I’ll need to do that (plus, they have boots and I want to drink from a boot ala beerfest)

Imagine, if you will, that I’m early for a show in the area and walking down Lincoln toward Irving Park Road. I pass a window cleaning man who could be a voice-​double for Larry the Cable Guy. He’s muttering to himself. I’m a bit confused. Now add to that imagination that what sounds like a child’s voice is yelling out to me, «Look at that ass.» I look up to a second story window and see a parrot… Now either I’m hallucinating or this is really happening. I know it’s 95 degrees, but I have a feeling I’m still able to discern fact from fiction.
It’s time to get a drink.
My friend and I meet up at our designated spot and have 30 minutes to kill. I convince her to follow me a block and a half down to the German restaurant and bar that I saw while walking around the neighborhood. She agrees and we stake our claim at the bar.
It’s 7:30pm and we’re ready for some drinks in this hot weather. She orders a drink and I can’t decide. The bartender looks confused and returns to inform her that they cannot make her drink with the alcohol they have on hand. She orders a Whiskey Sour and the bartender stares at her blankly. I don’t know if it’s the language barrier or if she just doesn’t know how to make the drink. My friend cancels her order and I pick up the slack with a Weizenbock Weihenstephaner Vitus. It’s bold, flavorful, aromatic and flowery. I am in love, but my friend is without a drink and I have ½ litre of alcohol that needs to be downed in 15 minutes. It is quickly chugged and we ask for the bill. $ 7.74. Not bad. It’s quite the bang for the buck and I drop a $ 2 tip. Then we leave.
Our affair was short, Glunz. I imagine I will be back someday and can try your other beers and something from the menu. At first glance you are not flashy, but you are inviting. I love your selection of 80’s German folk/​pop hits in the background. I hope your food is just as enjoyable. For now I’ll say you’re OK, but I hope to up the stars in the future because how many places in the city do you know where you can get half a litre of GOOD beer for under $ 10?

I’ve noticed that Glunz’s has mixed reviews. The night that we visited it wasn’t extremely busy and my date and I quite enjoyed the fact that we were the only patrons in the establishment for a bit until the typical dinner crowd came in. I’m not very creative when I order German fare and I don’t know why, but this time we shared a cheese platter which was very tasty, a pretzel, and our beverages. Everything was delicious and the service was fantastic.
I’d recommend paying cash when you visit only because a few days later I noticed that what I paid with my card was a bit off. When I called and asked Glunz’s they explained to me that it typically clears up in a few days (whatever company they use make it appear a little extra is taken out for tip maybe?). They were right, it did. Which made me very happy.

This place had to have been having a bad day when we came in.
Is this bar just weird during the week and normal on the weekends? Or, maybe it was just a bad day when we came in, but this place was totally dead. There was a bartender, one server and two guys partying it up alone. Our group was eight and we needed a large table and some boots of beer immediately.
Service was pretty slow, which was odd considering there was no one in here. When one person in our party didn’t know what to order, it took like 10 minutes for her to come back even though no one else was around and we were like 9 feet from the bar.
Also, the kitchen was just closed. I was kind of looking forward to having some food and then there was just no one in the back. The bartender just kind of shrugged and said «meh» when we wanted some menus and then pointed at the empty kitchen. Ummm… ok.
All in all, a weird evening. The beer was good, the service was slow and they just weren’t serving food. This experience definitely makes me never want to come back, but I probably will because people always speak so highly of it.

Wandered in here last Friday while strolling the new hood with the Mr., not knowing what to expect, but enjoyed it!
Not a huge seating area, we joined several other tables in their homey dining room, and were entertained by an authentic, charming 3-​man polka band. Little did we know that Oktoberfest had started up the night before!!! (fyi, live polka on the weekends thru mid-​October).
He ordered a beef dish with salad, cabbage, and spaetzle. I ordered the cheese & onion spaetzle and cream of mushroom soup. Loved the soup. And the spaetzle was good too — though, a little pricey (around $ 15 or so.?). Beer was very reasonably priced ($ 5 or $ 6 for a big glass, but food tended to be a little higher priced).
Lots of excellent beer choices, unfortunately, I could only drink one because they are so huge and I was so full. We’ll be back, and next time I will try more beers and the pretzels!