The Little Goat Diner, located in the West Loop, is an upscale take on the classic American diner.  At lunchtime, it is crowded, noisy and full of great food!  The servers were a little slow, but overall, we loved the food and the ambiance.

Going to the West Loop at lunchtime means two things.  One, you will be hard pressed to find parking and two, you will have to wait for a table.  After driving around a bit, we finally found a space and headed to the restaurant.  The hostess took our name and phone number, told us the wait was 20 minutes or so and said she would text us when our table was about ready.  We love places like this as you can stroll around the neighborhood while you wait.  Having not been to the West Loop in a while, we were pleasantly surprised by the number of restaurants and bars in the area.  We will come back to this area on future Date Days.

The menu of the Little Goat is not huge, but it is varied and eclectic.  They serve breakfast all day, have a variety of lunch options and even some dinner favorites.  Everything feels like the restaurant’s own version of classic diner fare.  Theresa perused the breakfast side of the menu, thinking about pancakes, waffles or a bi bim bop breakfast bowl.  Ultimately, she decided on the Bull’s Eye French Toast.  Tom, on the other hand, usually sticks to the lunch side of things.  Today, it was the Sloppy Goat (how can you not eat goat when the restaurant name features the word?) and smoked French fries.

The french toast, a homemade sweet onion brioche topped with a fired egg and crispy chicken was very good.  The BBQ maple syrup on top brought all the flavors together and Theresa became a member of the clean plate club.  Tom’s Sloppy Goat, a Sloppy Joe made with goat meat and topped with slightly pickled slaw, was also a hit.  Coupled with the smoked fries (based on smoked paprika we think) it made for quite a large meal.  We chased everything down with a Chardonnay for Theresa and a Bloody Mary for Tom.

We left the restaurant with a leftover Sloppy Goat snack for Alex and just enough time to get to school to pick up Nate.  Another great date in the book.