Elgin Public House

This is easily one of the best spots in downtown Elgin! The food is on the gourmet side, but worth the price. My husband will only order the Kobe burger, he can’t get enough! If you get the chance, their Sunday Brunch is fantastic! I mean, absolutely fantastic. They also hold Trivia night on Wednesday’s at 8pm. I’ve been a couple of times and it is always PACKED! The guy who runs it is hilarious and super entertaining! Parking is amazing, the garage across the street is free. You can also street park (free) right in front. The staff is awesome. Very friendly, welcoming and accommodating. Their bar has a great selection and they always have the game on.

The Fiesta burger was cooked perfectly, juicy and delicious. The pub fries were also good. For a pub, it wasn’t terribly noisy and allowed for conversation.

We picked EPH for lunch while out in downtown Elgin, and it ended up being a good choice overall. My dad and I both got the steak sandwich: a butterflied half of a filet with red pepper aioli on ciabatta roll, doe perfectly and offset nicely with grilled onions. My mom got a burger with a lovely pretzel roll, and my grandmother had the potato-​crusted fish sandwich along with the daily special of the seafood bisque, both of which she enjoyed.
I had initially ordered the side of the mushroom risotto; they have a daily risotto, and as I love to make risotto and and am something of a connoisseur I try to get it whenever I see it on a menu, which isn’t too often. Sadly, this was a horrible representation of the dish. It didn’t even appear to be made with actual short grain rice, but was gummy and had no flavor (didn’t seem to have any salt, and the mushrooms were tiny slices that looked canned). It was honestly a travesty of a dish and I asked the waitress what side she suggested instead; she said she had had the mac and cheese for lunch, so I went with that, which was much better: springy coils in a thin cheese sauce, piping hot.
Despite this bobble I would still be willing to return and try other things; EPH has lots of choices on their menu. Our waitress was very helpful and nice. We sat in the front room, the only table for most of the time, and the kitchen might care to know that their noise carries out there, including some questionable moaning at one point… a little weird.
3.5 stars.

We were driving through Elgin when we decided to stop for lunch. We were greeted and we proceed to sit in a booth at the end of lunch hour. I had a good wedge salad with very fresh ingredients but not the best blue cheese dressing, not bad but just okay. My groom had mac and cheese which he liked. They also had Alagash White which made him very happy. The service was good. We’ll be back.

We are always amazed at how much we enjoy ourselves here. Mondays are the best with half price burgers. Excellent service and love people watching. Place is filled!

Good pub, and decent food. Recommend the Sunday brunch and the buffet and Bloody Mary station are excellent for the price. Good experience for hanging out in particularly for groups. Surprisingly not that noisy for such an open location.

So, on the same Iowa trip, I stayed in Elgin as well. Previously, I had not tried to go anywhere decent for dinner, but I made the exception this time. I found the public house based on prior reviews and decided to give it a go. I arrived on trivia night, which would normally have been awful, however, the woman hosting was not half bad! I sat at the bar, which is in between the formal dining area and the cafeteria-​style area in the back. I was able to watch a couple of basketball games and enjoy a couple of very nice local microbrews. I knew I wanted a burger, but wasn’t sure of which one, so I asked the bartender to pick for me. I got a BBQ burger with fries and an amazing jalapeño slaw that came on the side as well. The burger was good, not great, but the fries were cooked perfectly and the jalapeño slaw was amazing. I will for sure be back when I have to come through Elgin again!

Hi,
If you have not tried their cobb salad then you are really missing out. It can be described as unique and filling. Great job taking something as mundane as a salad and making it a memorable experience.

I came here on a Tuesday night, the special was mac and cheese and domestic drinks. It was actually quite busy for a Tuesday night. We were quickly seated.
Our server came by promptly once we were seated. I ordered a burger and pub fries. My burger wasn’t anything special but wasnt bad. The pub fries were thick but were cold):
I wont go out of my way to ever go here and if im ever around id probably give it a second chance to see if maybe i just had an off night experience.

food was just ok. went there with my wife, it wasn’t crowded and yet we waited a long time to be waited on. ordered a mixed drink when it did come it was watered down. bartender obviously docent know how to make a jameson and ginger ale. food was so so, but the service was lousy. bad servers usually reflect bad management .
Won’t be going back …

My family and I headed out for dinner on the look out for a fish fry. We settled on the Elgin Public House for our Lenten dinner. We are glad we did.
My husband and I both got the fish fry. You get a basket of five tilapia filets in a tasty and light seasoned batter. The fish is excellent, use your lemons and enjoy the tartar too, it’s very good. You also receive a handful of steak fries which are also good, but warning EPH uses House Recipe ketchup… not my favorite. The basket also comes with very flavorful black beans (an odd addition, but tasty), an interesting cole slaw made of more than just cabbage and carrots and finally, the pièce de résistance: the hush puppies. I love hush puppies, I may have even gone through the LJS’s drive thru for a side order of their dry hush puppies just to scratch an itch, and let me tell you, these hush puppies rock. They are perfectly crunchy in the outside and just underdone and moist on the inside. Love love love. The platter is $ 11.95, a solid price for all this food. So why four stars? Well the kids menu is a bit over priced at $ 6.50. Two chicken fingers and 10 fries total w/​a milk makes $ 6.50 a bit steep. We also got chips and salsa, we were really hungry when we sat down and went for a quick app, they were good, but again, for $ 6, a bit overpriced.
I’ll definitely go back to EPH. Greg, the owner, definitely knows his recipes, the food here and at Grumpy Goat is great… its just the price point on a few items is a bit high, but I guess sometimes you have to pay for quality.

Average pub food. Not bad. Nothing special.
Hawaiian Chicken Sandwich was fine. Mac ‘n Cheese is creamy, but bland. Not the craft mac you hope to discover at a local pub. Didn’t finish it.
Husband’s Chicken Po Boy was pretty standard. Not bad, but nothing we’d come back for.

How does EPH keep getting better when it was already fantastic?! Their entire menu, which is quite extensive & has many elevated options compared to regular «bar food,» is great and their Sunday Brunch is excellent — not to mention a huge list of great beers & other spirits. But how on Earth had we never come for their Friday night Fish Fry? Some friends told us how good it was so we all went there this past Friday and it did not disappoint.
It’s not AYCE but it’s still the best fried fish I’ve ever had. Tilapia in a beer batter w/​some fresh herbs added to the batter (I think it was thyme), and it comes w/​hushpuppies, fries, a small coleslaw & a small Guiness black beans side. Delicious! The Friday Fish Fry is year-​round, too!
The service is always just right as well — we love this place & it remains our favorite local casual place to eat out.

Big food selection on the menu, same with their beer menu. Garage parking, your usual bar atmosphere on a saturday night. Bison burger and KC burger was ordered. They forgot the slaw for the bison burger but hey on a busy saturday mistakes are bound to happen. KC burger tasted fantastic, very juicy. This place is great for groups for sure.

Love the classy-​comfortable atmosphere of EPH. They have lots of beers (mostly in bottles and cans) and their signature cocktails are well-​balanced and fresh. The service is kind and the building has character with its old brick wall and charming nooks.
On our most recent visit, my gf and I sat upstairs in these cozy leather lounge chairs along the row of windows looking down at Chicago street on a Saturday evening. We ordered the soft pretzels with EPH cheese sauce and honey mustard. We also shared the buffalo chicken sandwich with a side salad. The pretzels were good but they were clearly just the Superpretzels you can buy at any grocery store in the frozen food isle. I didn’t mind much, since I only used them as a vessel to transport that gooey homemade cheese sauce straight to my dome! The sandwich was great and the salad was fresh.
The prices are a little higher than you might hope for, but they at least know how to handle the rush of a Saturday with grace and turn out some good food and drink to their apparently valued patrons.

I’ve been coming here for years and haven’t been disappointed yet. The food and service are consistently excellent. The two things which stand out to me the most on the menu are their black bean burger and their fried pickles. I was also very pleased when I found Chimay under their beer selections. It’s expensive, but worth it, especially if you are a fan of Belgian beer.

I dropped in around 10:30 pm on a Friday. The front room was reserved for the cast and crew of a local theater production, so I headed towards the back rooms. It felt like a dimly lit dive, but with a surprisingly extensive menu. Their beer list is quite extensive, including 4 different Three Floyd’s. When they told me they had Zombie Dust, that was all I needed to hear. The waiter poured it from the bottle into a glass at the table, and I appreciated the service. He could ahve been a little mroe active in keeping our water glasses filled though. For food, I just had the Cajun shrimp appetizer, which had a pretty strong lime and garlic flavor. Ten shrimp came to the order, which was a nice sized portion.
Despite living 15 minutes away, I rarely venture into downtown Elgin. But when I do go back, I would probably go back and I imagine I’d have to try one of their burgers.

This place is awesome.
Pros: FRIENDLY staff, big screens, bunch buffet, plenty of seating, large selection of beers.
Cons: juice by itself is $ 3.50…not closer to where I live. :)
Since becoming a mom, I like to add whether an establishment is breastfeeding friendly. This place is!
I will definitely make the hour trip to eat here again.

In Elgin and in the mood for a good burger with a chill place to hangout and watch the game or just catch up with friends? EPH is a sure bet to cross off those items on your list.
I came here with a coworker for lunch on a whim, and the two of us ordered the Burger Saltimbocca, which contains Prosciutto, Fresh Mozzarella, Sage and Bruschetta Mix on Toasted Ciabatta with Red Pepper Aioli. It was like eating a burger-​fied bruschetta on ciabatta bread. I had the cajun fries which were good, but there were other sides available to choose from like mac and cheese, different slaws, and such. Needless to say, we were in a happy place.
If you have the choice, eat at the bar, not in the first room at the entrance of EPH. There’s so much character and charm further in!

This is a great little place in downtown Elgin. Except it’s not little. Not at all. On our way in, the waitress led us through 2 or 3 different dining rooms to the back dining room. The aesthetic/​ambiance of the whole place is somewhat lacking, but the food makes up for it. The tables and chairs are the kind that you can get from cheap garage sales. The ones your parents had in the basement for when ALL of the family came for Christmas dinner. The ones that never saw the full light of day because it was embarrassing to have them. Those chairs.
Anyway. Besides that, everything was great. Our waiter was friendly and attentive and had suggestions on drinks.
I had a chicken sandwich with fries and they were delicious. I basically annihilated the whole sandwich and fries probably in 5 minutes. Our bill ended up being $ 47 for 2 (2 drinks, 2 entrees and a tip) so a little bit more pricey than I expected, but nothing horrible. If in the area, we would probably go back.