Welcome Inn

Driving here initially I was thinking, this place is suuuper sketchy. We sat down and the owner was super friendly and gave us some time to read the menus and after looking over it, my sister got the Ukrainian Dinner, my uncle got the Kelbasi I got the Ukrainian Dinner. We also got borscht, and it was delicious. The bread was fresh too. When he brought out the food it was amazing! The sauce on the cabbage rolls was tangy but at the same time it was great. It had such great flavor and not too heavy or salty. Definitely have to eat here.

If you’re into authentic this is the place for you. Not a corporate thing at all. Eastern European food was yummy! Lots of fun history here.

You will like this place if you’re a fan of character and good food. If you’re an Applebee’s type of person, you will hate it. It’s like walking into another dimension. It’s in the ghetto, dark and a little grimy, and the décor hasn’t been updated since 1972. It also took forever to get our food, and the owner took our drink order three times. BUT the food was OFF THE HOOK GOOD. We ordered a little bit of everything, and honestly couldn’t remember the last time we ate so well. We had some kind of sampler — I think it was called the Ukranian sampler? Order it. Corned beef? Order it.
Tip: see the sign above the door that says King of Pork? He’s not kidding. We ended up having him cater our wedding.

Definitely a hole in the wall, but this was a noteworthy food experience. This Ukranian restaurant — which has very good Ukranian food — happens to make the best pastrami in this part of the country.
Three of us were blown away by the pastrami (and to a lesser extent, the corned beef) on the reubens here. Personally, I’d put the pastrami on par, quality-​wise, with that served at Pastrami Queen on the UES and with the smoked meat at Schwartz’s in Montréal. Better yet, this adequately-​sized sandwich on dark rye is half the price of those at the other two places and can be found at a great little place five blocks from downtown Syracuse.
The meats (pastrami, corned beef, and pork shoulder) are smoked and/​or cured in-​house. It shows. We’d heard some buzz about this joint, but our expectations were far surpassed.
The Ukranian food, cooked by the owner’s mother, is very good, too; we passed around some of the usual stuffed cabbage and pierogies (five or so varieties, I think). Some good eastern European beers (bottled) on hand in the bar.
Cash-​only operation, it seems, but there’s no way to ding Welcome Inn for anything service– or operations-​related. That food is an experience. Nice to know that the long-​lamented demise of the authentic delicatessen hasn’t prevented this European pub from picking up the slack and taking care with its spectacular meat products.

This place has great food thats why we went back. The night we went (a week or so ago) they were out of the kiebada and Ukrainian beer. The waitress lacked common sense. She did not know how to be efficient. Instead of taking our drink order and our order, she walked by our table three times just to check on other patrons and bring them some sour cream. No, it was not busy; there were only eight of us sitting there. We sat at our table for 25 minutes — no water, no drink order…nothing. Then someone complained that the food was burned so the waitress was busy yelling at the old lady in the kitchen. After 35 minutes, we finally got our water and we got to order food. We waited another 40 minutes and we finally got some water and bread. Yeah. Mind you, there wre only six of us sitting in the restaurant.
The food was good but the service was LOUSY.

Atmosphere is a bit, uh, lacking, but the food is fucking amazing. Had the Ukranian dinner, and everything was great, especially the cabbage rolls.

As good as it gets in the Westside. Once there were a ton of restaurants in the area, but the Welcome Inn is the only one to survive. I heard they had great pierogies and pork, so I tried it out. I had the pork butt, open-​faced sandwich and it was awesome. My friends all get the pierogies every time they go. I guess the owner used to have a food cart selling them downtown but he doesn’t do that anymore. Try it out.
My suggestion: go there for an early dinner. And if you’re not from the Westside, leave before it gets dark.