Halfway through a 50 mile bike ride with my parents and little sister (yes, I'm a 28 year old man and still go on bike rides with my parents), we decided to make a pit-stop at Popolano's in Chesterton. Â It was a nice Saturday afternoon, so the outdoor patio here was the ideal choice. Â To be honest, I didn't even step foot inside the restaurant, so I couldn't give any input on that, but I will say it's one of the nicer patio's that I've experienced. Â We ordered a few appetizers and drinks. Â I would HIGHLY recommend the Tequila Lime pizza, as skeptical as I was going into it, it was utterly delicious. Â We also ordered the Beach Bread and the Calamari--both of which were good, but the Tequila Lime pizza was definitely the star of the show.
And yes, the 2nd 25 miles were MUCH harder than the first.
We were here on a beautiful day for a late lunch and sitting on the patio was so nice. Our server was friendly and not fake and over polite. Her recommendations were spot on and our prime rib and pot roast sandwiches were delicious. We liked it so much we ordered pizza from them that night. Toppings were yummy but the thin crust wasn't as crispy as I would like and it took a little longer than they said it would but it was a good price and made for a good breakfast the next morning!!
Review Source:Went here on a date with my fiancee' and was very pleased with my experience. Â The atmosphere is nice, plenty of family chatter to keep it relaxed but not terribly loud. Â Also, the Tequila Lime Pizza is to die for! Â (at least for me :) Â Good place for a relaxing meal with friends and family.
Review Source:First of all, before getting to the important stuff, the food here was really good. I had one of the specials, which was marlin with a coconut risotto and a mango salsa. All were extremely fresh and flavorful. The chicken dumpling soup and the very yeasty bread served along with my meal were also terrific. The pizza my son ordered and the eggplant strada my wife had were also quite good, and none of us left hungry. My wife and I had the sangria to drink -- which was quite good and refreshing.
But the best things about this restaurant, and the most surprising to me knowing nothing about Chesterton, were the ambiance and location. First of all, I had never heard of Chesterton -- I simply wound up there because there happened to be a Hilton Garden hotel there near Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. I figured we'd wind up having to eat at some form of chain restaurant. But as it turns out, there is a very cute little downtown Chesterton area that has not one but multiple nice-looking restaurants, several with large, attractive outdoor seating -- perfect for a beautiful late-spring evening!
Second, the ambience of this place in particular was quite nice. Very large outdoor seating area in the front of the converted house, full of fountains and bistro tables. Â People of all ages -- couples, families with young children, babies, etc. Â Next door was a very nice house that had been converted into an antique store.
To summarize, the high points of this place are:
- lovely downtown Chesterton location
- great outdoor seating for nice weather
- fresh tasty food
- family-friendly -- the staff was terrific in dealing with our 3 year-old
The low points are:
- not particularly cheap -- but this isn't really a low point.
Very cute area, love that the restaurant is right next to an antique store (shopping!). Â Husband and I went for dinner, wanting pizza.
Tried their Italian Chili, was really good :D. Â Ordered pizza with all the fixings, extra crispy. Â Love that they make their own pizza dough. Â
Our server was very nice, talked with us and very attentive.
The only tip i would suggest is that you request a table away from the front door. Â Being in Indiana in February, the cold air whooshed right in every time the door opened. Â I was sooo cold that I kept my jacket on the whole time.
For a really long time I had no idea what this place was. I must have passed it at least a couple hundred times before really thinking about eating there. I have no idea why though. It might be the building. From what I can tell, it looks like a converted old house, and it has an absolutely huge outdoor eating area facing the street. Not that these are bad things. The location and building are probably the best part about the joint.
I had takeout once from here, but yesterday I finally sat down and ate there with my dad for dinner. We came kinda late, so it was pretty quiet. I would have liked to eat outside, but it was maybe one or two degrees below the perfect temperature, so of course my dad said it was too cold. The patio is really nice though. The inside isn't too shabby either. There's a nice bar that doubles as a lobby/entrance area. The dining room is surprisingly small though. I wonder what's in the upper levels of this place...
Anyways, the waitress we had was very nice and accommodating. Nothing but good things to say about her. I ordered the rigatoni and chicken and my dad ordered some sort of beef sandwich. We got bread and oil and I got a cup of chicken dumpling soup. Both run-of-the-mill. The meals themselves were pretty disappointing. My pasta had a good flavor, but the chicken... man, that chicken was rough. They are chunks of white meat, but a lot of the chunks have tons of fat running through them. My dad could tell just by me trying to cut through it that something wasn't quite right. I didn't try his sandwich, but at one point during dinner he did say, "this is the worst beef I've ever had." I've never heard him say that before, so I have to assume it had to be pretty bad.
Popolano's seems like it would be a great place to have a drink outside, but to go there for a meal, eeeeh. I left feeling like the place was more flash than substance.
I ordered the rustica pizza. Â The toppings were good, but the sauce was a little bland. Â I ordered a mojito. Â It lacked flavor. Â I am not sure what was left out or mis-measured.
My complaint comes from how slow the service was. Â Every step took far too long. Our server was friendly, but simple things like bringing the bill were tedious.
Popolano's is a nice place with an upscale burger and pub menu. Â What sets it apart is the location. Â Popolano's is located in a beautiful old house in Chesterton, Indiana. Â After a day on Lake Michigan, it's a wonderful place to stop for a drink and a good sandwich.
The food is a little hit or miss--like all pub food. Â When we were there, I had the club wrap. Â It was decent, but not amazing. Â As usual, the bacon in a club controls and Popolano's uses a solid applewood smoked bacon. Â It was a wonderful, tasty and crunchy addition to the turkey--which tasted okay and the avocado that was pretty much flavorless. Â Best part of the meal: the sweet potato fries. Â They are not to be missed.
My plan was to hit up Butler Winery for wine tastings and then do some noshing at Popolano's. Alas, Butler winery inconvenienced my schedule by an unscheduled closing! Well, since the two businesses are so close in distance, we headed right over. It must've been around 5 pm on a Friday and it was packed already. With, you guessed it the early evening crowd, mostly elderly peoples. I happened there with a smoking hot cougar, so we got lots of looks from this crowd. Maybe it was the cougar or maybe me, the recent addition of color to the already bland crowd. We were told that there is a Friday fish fry special which starts at 5 pm, so some people got there earlier to get in on the deal. The special is under ten bucks (m/b) for all you can eat Perch, fish and chips, shrimp and more. Most tables ordered the special. Since we were just two, we scored an enchanting booth nearer to the rear of the restaurant next to the handicapped entrance. There they have a few plush booths and single tables for two against a picturesque view of the side of an older Italian building with flowers and greens hanging over a balcony. The opposite walls depict a garden view and each one of the tables in the cozy area; has a table candle lit to add to its ambiance. The restaurant is set inside an historic, over one hundred year old building and was converted into this restaurant from an ice cream parlor. For real! This is a big building for an ice cream parlor. Just for the sake of saying Popolano's is NOT a chain restaurant, it's a family owned restaurant with two locations and some history there. Since we were winery hopping we ordered a few appetizers, one of the all you can slam fried shrimp & chips specials and more wine. The house offered a special on sangria, I had hoped to have one of their signature (fresh fruit) pina colada's but they were out of fruit. The special sangria was okay and had a nice buzzing punch to it. Food was good, fried butter flied shrimp with waffle fries and the toasted ravioli was perfect. Crisp outside with a tasty ricotta (?) cheese filling. Two strange tidbits, the sauce for both the ravioli and the shrimp were so cold I feel as though it's refrigerated in its serving cup. The taste is great but the consistency is so chunky it's hard to get a good dip. Second strange tidbit, the waitress was dumbstruck when I said we were only having drinks and appetizers. As if every patron always orders an entrée. Later that evening at our next destination I would realize this is a norm around here, everyone orders an entrée.
Good food, decent drinks, a bit pricey but looking forward to a return maybe with a group so I can see another area of the restaurant.
Reservations are necessary. Â Groups expect a thirty to forty-five minute wait during rush hours.
I didn't know it was a multiple location restaurant until I read the other review. Â Makes a bit more sense now I guess. Â
I had mediocre food and mediocre service. Â I will probably not go back on my own free will. Â I expected more out of this place. Â When the servers are dressed in vests and dress pants and shirts, that's the quality I thought I was also going to get in my food. Â Wrong.
Went there for lunch after the European Market with my bff's. Â They had been there before. Â My sister-in-laws baby shower was catered by them, and I was less than impressed than, but I thought maybe it was just the mass producedness of the food that lead to my opinions. Â So, I was open to trying again.
We sat down and the server asked us if we wanted any drinks. Â I asked what beers they had. Â He blankly stared at me and said, a lot. Â What do you want? Â If I knew what I wanted, I wouldn't have asked him to tell me, I would have asked if they had it. Â I ended up having to go inside to the bar to look at the beers. Â They only had about 12, so the fact that the server could not tell me this, was a bit annoying. Â The first beer I asked for (that the bartender said they had), they were out of.
Anyway, we order our food, and the server brings the wrong dressing with my salad. Â I asked for two different ones, so I didn't say anything as at least one of them was ok. Â I ordered the 4 cheese pizza, and my friends ordered entree salads. Â I had no idea the pizza was going to be the size of a large english muffin. Â I looked up the cost of their to go pizza's, and this was more than their 12" small pizza, but was maybe 4" total. Â If I was starving I may have been a bit upset. Â I asked for wine with my meal, and by the time I got it (after reminding the server about it), I was almost done. Â My friend ordered her dressing on her salad on the side, but it was on it. Â And my other friend didn't have any dressing at all. Â When he asked the server for dressing, the server said, oh no it just comes with the drippings as the dressing. Â A. Chicken really doesn't produce much "drippings", B. That is a horrible way to describe it. Â If our server had been extremely busy, I wouldn't have minded some of the mistakes, however he only had one other table of 4. Â I hate to see how the service is on a busy day/night.
All in all, the food was eh, soso. I know that this is a small place in a small town, but the decor and ambiance they (attempt to) create leads one to believe that the food and service will match. Â
At least I can check this off my places to try list, and now i'm done with it!
I had a bad experience here one time. My girlfriend and I got there one Friday evening and they were pretty busy, I've seen busier, but it was busy. Anyways, we waited, and waited, and waited, which wasn't so bad until the hostess seated two other couples ahead of us even though we were there first. I know, why didn't I say something right away? Well I blew it off the first time because I really liked the place, but the second time I spoke up. The woman must have been having a bad night and was kind of rude with her apology. Well, we walked out. Â I Â am still going to give them a good review, however, because I really like their food and as the last reviewer said, the prices are good. I forgive the hostess as she was in fact probably having a bad day and I can't be a great judge for that moment because I was really really hungry, and then really really pissed off. I've been to another Popolano's in Lansing, IL. many times, but this one blows them away by far. Again, they do get busy so if you are going, go well before you are about to pass out from malnourishment!
Check out their site here:
<a href="/redir?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.popolanosrestaurant.com&s=03886a5e4c69363df149c54d39e3dcdf93631b30bc3115c30761f539ea4786e0" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.popolanosrest…</a>
If you love dining alfresco, you will love Popolano's. I visited with family on a Sunday evening and food was excellent.
Free warm bread, butter & olive oil dip
Here's what we ordered:
-Tequila Lime Pizza, very tasty.
-Bleu Cheese Burger w/Sweet potatoe fries, yum yum
Prices were excellent! Both entrees were under $10 each!
Menu is extensive with pasta, pizza, burgers, & fish
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