Europa Cafe

Nice comfort food with an Eastern European influence. I dined here for lunch while afflicted with a bit of a sinus bug, but could still taste the flavor of my crustless chicken pot pie. Flavorful food in the tri-​states area! Who woulda thunk it? Completely pleased with every aspect of the experience here: service, décor, quality of ingredients. A great place to stop for lunch.

So glad we found this cute restaurant during our visit to Dubuque. Was great to get a European taste after all the (very nice, but usual) fare of Italian beef & burger we tried in Galena during this weekend trip. Service is very attentive here and the food selection is really nice. We had the beef stroganoff (was super delicious!), the borscht soup and their house specialty White Lasagna. One of the best pasta dishes I ever had. All in all, a great feast for a very reasonable price — and a nice chat with the very friendly owner.

Tyler, I would like to respond to your harsh accusation about getting food poisoning at our restaurant. I am a co-​owner and also the waitress who served you. Before your review I didn’t even have an account on Unilocal,but I was so shocked at what I read that I signed up just to respond to you!
You ordered spinach salad with shrimp. This is a very popular item on our menu. In fact, the very day you came in for lunch we had 7 other orders for this salad in just a few hours – all with no complaints. We stand by the freshness of our ingredients, and we cook our shrimp to order for each salad.
I do not think is was our salad that gave you food poisoning because (1) you were not feeling well when you arrived, (2) you hardly ate any of the salad, and (3) the signs of food poisoning begin to occur 2 to 4 hours after digestion – NOT IMMEDIATELY after eating a few bites!
I did not charge you for the salad – not because it was bad, and not because you barely ate it. I gave it to you on the house because I saw that you did not feel well. I remember advising you not to drink sugary pop with your stomach ache, and even gave you some bottled water for the road to help you stay hydrated and feel better.
I am sure my loyal customers will ignore your false and unfounded accusation. I am hoping that new customers also can see that your review is off-​base in comparison to the many positive reviews Europa Café has received.

The food and the service are always excellent. The smoked salmon is my meal of choice and the Lemon cake is delicious!

Bad shrimp on my embarrassment of a salad. I actually got food poisoning here :/​but service was lovely, may try again but till than; sorry for the one star

Fresh foods, the spinach salad was tasty, coleslaw too. Each cup of coffee is individually made and delicious. They have a nice size vegetarian selection too!

ukrainian kotletkas it’s what’s for dinner. it was awesome! Everything was freshly made.

I wouldn’t necessarily consider this to be «authentic» European fare, but it is tasty non the less! Waitstaff is friendly but disorganized when busy. They serve one of the best gyros I have ever had!!!

The food is amazing. Only one chef does the cooking and he is from Europe, so the food is authentic and not «Americanized». The server was very friendly. My only complaint is that the service can be a bit slow when it’s busy. It’s not really their fault, since the place only has 9 or 10 tables which isn’t quite enough to require two servers, but it’s a little much for just one server. I’d recommend going on a week night if you don’t want to wait too long.

One of my favorite spots in Dubuque, this place truly knows how to make fresh and delicious meals. I highly recommend Europa for lunch or dinner. I would especially recommend the Borscht soup, but it is all good.
Service is very attentive, as well as very friendly.

I feel obligated to try anything European due to my roots, shockingly enough I have never tried authentic Ukrainian food. My first time here was a success!
They have a beautiful cozy set up inside, very vibrant and welcoming with some cool music playing. Very clean as well. They have both a lunch and dinner menu with specials as well. I was here for lunch break from work in the area, so tried a little bit of everything or why else be there? :)
The soup for starters was a Ukrainian Borscht that had a great mixture of cabbage, beets, tomatoes, carrots, potatoes, and chicken. Not a heavy beet flavor they balanced everything really well and was a delicious hearty soup.
I had the smoked salmon which is a Slices of Alaskan smoked salmon with dill cream cheese and tomatoes, served on a bolillo roll. This is very similar to nova lox, they do it in their way which was very pleasing since I love lox. This is my new Dubuque fav, but I will have to try other things since they have a nice menu and I don’t want to be too boring with the same olé, same olé. I also had the cole slaw which isn’t mayo based that was pretty good as well.
Impressed overall with this place from décor, great service, great food, and two menus. Will have to try more here when I am in the area!

We decided to try this place out based on the other reviews we’ve seen, plus we wanted something different.
I am so glad we went because this is a great restaurant!
Atmosphere: I felt as if I were sitting in a European café based on the décor, music, and furnishings. It was exceptionally comfortable and pleasant.
Staff: great! Very nice, professional, and helpful!
Food: My girlfriend ordered the Greek salad and I ordered the chicken Kiev with rice and Ukrainian coleslaw. She also ordered a cup of coffee, which she really enjoyed (freshly ground on site). The food came promptly. My girlfriend loved the salad! The chicken Kiev was cooked thoroughly and tasted wonderful! The rice was good and the Ukrainian coleslaw was amazing!
We will definitely visit this place again and again!

A friendly, attentive wife and husband own this little place in west Dubuque. The food is delicious, authentic and the perfect amount. The Borscht was to die for (from scratch down to the stock) as well as the Ukrainian cole slaw. The restaurant is spotless, bright and just a nice place to enjoy simple, tasty homecooked food. I am Ukranian but my boyfriend isn’t. He hesitates trying new cuisine sometimes, but he was thoroughly satisfied and asked me to take him back! Nice place to take a date. It feels like a café in Europe.

We are from Los Angeles in Dubuque to visit our son in college. Looking for a spot for lunch and found this place on Unilocal.The restaurant is small but very nice inside. The menu had a mix of offerings but we wanted to go with the Ukrainian food since it is their specialty. We had the borscht, goulash, Ukrainian Gyros and slaw. The borscht was fabulous and full of flavor as was the goulash which was served over rice. The gyros was very good and you can tell the ingredients are fresh. The service was friendly and very quick. Top notch! We will definitely be back when we are in Dubuque.

Wow! Totally worth checking out! Quality healthy ingredients, tons of flavor, quaint atmosphere and wonderful staff. I wish we lived closer

Was visiting DBQ for the night and wanted something a bit different than the norm. Unilocal came through once again with reviews one can count on. Yes, this is a café, small in statue but large in flavor. I looked at their Web page and the menu before I went there, just to ensure a quick order. Was promptly served (although just a few consumers present), was warmly welcomed, and a little disappointed the gift of the sea soup was not available. Had a main meal, soup, latte, and dessert. The portions were adequate and the entire meal cost less than $ 25. The flavors of everything were not overpowering, nor were they bland… no extra seasoning required. Would I go back to this place, yes. I would hope you give this place a try too.

It’s great! The sandwiches and soups are excellent, and I had a delicious salad (it was piggin’ massive!). The woman working could not be friendlier and did a great job explaining the menu. You can tell they prepare almost everything from scratch and use fresh ingredients. I hope they can make a go of it and stick around for some time!

Okay… I was expecting a little more. The food was decent, I was just wanting something a little more authentic. The place comes off that way initially, but the menu seems Americanized. Only one server for the entire restaurant, but it is small. The food being a little different from the norm is the only reason it gets 3.
Obviously no nachos.

Great food — the Thanksgiving Panini is really good — the server does a great job though stretched a big thing. A bit pricey — but really good quality food. Small space — lunch time was quite busy.

I begin by writing that I’m a hesitant five-​star giver, so please know that even a four-​star review is quite an accomplishment.
The wife and I had a horribly hard time actually eating here. Europa opened in June and we stopped by one evening for dinner. Closed. As the gods would have it, it is currently only open for breakfast and lunch. We tried to stop by for breakfast on a Sunday morning. Closed. As the gods would have it (again!), it is not open on Sundays, despite being located next to a kind of church.
Eventually we figured it out: breakfast or lunch, and not on Sunday. So today, a Saturday we stopped by. Got there about 830 only to find that they were closed. Dammit. But they were to open in a half hour, so we drove around for a bit and returned just after they opened. This is, without doubt, the kind of restaurant you will root for to survive what is likely a difficult breakfast/​lunch market. The locale may be a bit away from the restaurant beaten path, and the outside of the building may not be much to look at, but the inside of the restaurant is cute as a button. As the name might make you think, it’s a European-​themed restaurant, with pictures and photographs of Eastern Europe (Czech Republic? Ukraine?) on the walls. Great furniture, nice atmosphere.
As someone who takes my breakfast very seriously, I could care less about the décor of the food wasn’t up to snuff. I got a bacon and ham omelet and the wife ordered some kind of ricotta and cranberry crêpe. Both were fantastic and $ 6. The omelet was baked, not stove cooked, and was filled with salty hunks of meat. It was just the right size; I could have eaten more, but didn’t need to; there is something to be said about good portions. We ordered a piece of apple strudel, too, and it was flaky, flavorful, and filled with the right mixture of tart and sweet apples. In all, to breakfast entres, a hunk of strudel, and a cup of coffee was less than $ 20. And it was all made then, not an hour before you got there.
The service was friendly and grateful (how rare is this: a business that is sincerely thankful for your breakfast dollar!). I love Village Inn, but I’ve never left with the impression that they were glad that I gave them my $ 25 for breakfast. The people we interacted with at Europa were glad we we had come in, and that was a rather unexpected and pleasant experience.
In all, I can highly recommend this as a breakfast stop, and having looked at the lunch menu, I’m looking forward to going back for a lunch entre, too.
Give them a try; I’ll be back.