Fifteen ravenous 10-year-old hockey players? Check. About 10 additional siblings, already bored to death? Check. Another 15 adults, just really wanting something to drink, then eat, in that order, in a timely fashion so their kids can be in bed before midnight? Yep.

I gotta hand it to the folks at Ram Restaurant and Brewery in Wheeling. I about fell over when we showed up last Friday evening at 8 p.m., days before Christmas, with the whole hockey team in tow, and they actually said yes, they could seat us. It truly was a Christmas miracle!

We did have to wait a few minutes - after all, it take some serious planning and a waitress whose willing to go for it, to get enough tables cobbled together to fit us all in. And that they did, save a few (lucky dogs!) adults who sat at the bar. Keeping in mind there was just one waitress working the whole table, she got right to work, and before we knew it, we were chowing down. (I got the lettuce wraps. No PF Changs, but not too bad. The Gorgonzola Chips were all kinds of awesome, though!) My friend and I were keeping tabs on how many booths cleared due to our massive presence and associated noise level, but truthfully, the kids were very well-behaved given teir age, the time of night and the atmosphere, and the restaurant was incredibly accommodating.

This waitress upped her awesomeness level even more when she readily agreed to break out our family’s tab apart from the others. I’m not sure what she would have done if everyone else insisted, but we are eternally grateful!

And come to think of it, my light microbrew was down right tasty. Ram offers up their beer to go - you should check it out!

Ram Brewery and Restaurant
700 N. Milwaukee
Wheeling

Technorati Tags: North Shore Chicago microbreweries, Ram Brewery, Wheeling restaurants, Restaurant Row, North Shore Chicago restaurants, large seating restaurants, good beer

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 26th, 2007 at 6:31 pm and is filed under Thoughts(t) , Shopping(t) , Check this out!(t) . You can leave a response.