Chestnut Street Cafe

I am writing this review on behalf of my SO who practically worships this little casual establishment. When he was working in the Seneca doing fire protection engineering, he dragged all his co-​workers here for lunch, including his boss. He ate here every day for lunch having the same thing, the hamburger. Considering the location, we’re not sure how they can afford to sell you a hamburger for $ 4.99, but it’s fresh, not frozen, hand molded and cooked to your specifications. The owner is wonderful and always remembers him and his co-​workers, even after a year away. The lunch is so good that my SO and his co-​workers, despite working in the Aon Center now, take a cab down to Chestnut for lunch on Fridays. Considering all the lunch choices in his current area, like Tavern, Elephant & Castle and numerous other restaurants below in the pedway, he still loves the Chestnut Street Café best.

Really, nothing to this place, except the wait staff works their a** off. Eggs are eggs, bacon is bacon. Yada yada yada…
…until you order the French Quarter breakfast sandwich. Holy Moly! Yum. Huge croissant w/​tons of thin sliced ham, fold over scrambled egg and tons o’ swiss cheese. Heck with any other breakfast sandwich you’ve ever experienced before. This is the ultimate!!!
4 stars for the French Quarter sandwich and staff… without that it would be 2 stars.
BTW, if you’re staying at the Seneca and have breakfast ticket included know that you don’t have to order what it says on the ticket. You can ask for the regular breakfast menu and your ticket counts towards $ 6 credit for anything else on b’fast menu. They wont tell you this, so ask!

Went here lots of times over the years when it was Chalfin’s deli. Good corned beef, real turkey breast, hoppel poppel, etc. Current version just does not measure up.

Having stayed in a very pleasant suite in the Seneca, I expected breakfast in their «café» to be just as pleasant. Not really. The décor was kind of like what you’d find in a diner on the outskirts of a fertilizer plant someplace in Iowa. Dingy, plastic-​y table tops. Dingy tile ceiling, Dingy tile floor. Except the diner in Iowa probably has windows. This place is in the basement. The French Toast was okay, though. Hard to screw up French Toast.

Classic greasy spoon food. I have to say– the food was really pretty good (omelet and bagel and lox). Lots of real cheese on the omelet, too much lox to eat with the bagel. The service was excellent– very attentive. Two big problems for me here– terrible atmosphere and somewhat overpriced. This place is a non-​descript basement with flourescent lights and lots of brass. Not very festive. For the two of us, each had coffee– with a tip– $ 35. Too much for a greasy spoon type of breakfast.

This place was memorable in its inadequacy. We stayed at the Seneca Hotel on a trip to Chicago maybe three years ago and breakfast was included. The first morning we went down to the basement for breakfast. As Jeff W. observes, the room is unprepossessing. I saw matzoh brei on the menu and ordered it. It was the worst I’ve tasted, bland and boring. It’s not the cook’s fault. It’s not part of his culture. But whoever put it on the menu should have told him how to make one. I almost offered my family recipe to him. I tasted little salt, no pepper, no onion and certainly no schmaltz. It was probably just matzoh and egg. As my grandmother would have said, feh!
The following days we had breakfast at the little kitchen table in our room. There was a marvelous farmers’ market nearby where we purchased Wisconsin cheese and HoneyCrisp apples (the first we’d tasted) and other produce. We fetched bagels from the deli (café; my memory is that it was called a deli then) to augment that and we had our own excellent breakfasts.
I don’t usually write reviews that are so old, but that matzoh brei stuck in my memory and in my craw. When I made us matzoh brei for breakfast this morning I thought of that terrible one and decided to write the review.

breakfast review:
Met a friend from out of town, staying at a hotel nearby. I had the florentine omelette with spinach (fresh), mushroom, provolone. Cubed hash browns were extra crispy with a nice seasoning. The combo was great. If stuck to this area, it’s a satisfying breakfast.

For a solid breakfast, this is the best deal in the area. I can’t comment on lunch or dinner.
It’s standard fare, but served hot, in good portions, and at reasonable prices. Try getting that across the street at the Ritz Carleton, around the corner at the Drake, or two blocks away at the Park Hyatt. It’s filled with conventioners and out-​of-​town visitors staying at the Seneca, which is a reasonabiy priced hotel the veteran Chicago visitors know about. They make your eggs the way you want them, same with toast or bagels. It’s just the basics, but breakfast basics are hard to find in fancy hotels or four-​star restaurants. The best feature is the sausage — excellent patty pork sausage. Good service, absolutely no décor.

2 stars.
That sad little yellow two star rating looks pathetic, but it’s because of how no frills this place is. I went there out of convenience, as it was part of my hotel. I wasn’t expecting anything other than sustenance; and sustenance was provided. This isn’t really a restaurant so much as it is a space with tables and chairs. It seemed as if someone said «well, we have this area, so why not put some tables here and call it a café?»
I got the «steak roll», a breakfast sandwich with steak, egg, and cheese. The roll was pretty good, but the steak was tough and fatty, and most certainly not cooked medium, as I had asked. I almost laughed when they asked me how I wanted it cooked, because I just knew that there was no way that what I asked for would be what I got.
This is accessible to the world outside of the Seneca hotel, but I wouldn’t suggest coming here. If you’re a guest at the hotel though, it will suffice if you’re in a pinch and don’t have time to explore other food options in the area.