Syrenka Luncheonette

Great place for polish dining. Their food is very good, and I especially love their pierogis, one of my favorite meals. The prices are also cheap, it’s a great place to eat for a very affordable price. Just make sure to have cash, they don’t accept cards. Nevertheless, a very pleasant place that left me with a good experience.

Been coming here for years: Syrenka’s is a clean, 1970’s cafeteria style luncheonette that serves the best potato pancakes on the planet! The golabki is pretty damned good, also.
Prices are fair and portions are large enough.
As long as those potato pancakes stay the same, I will continue to come. I only wish they were open until seven or eight …

Perogies were good, mashed beets delicious, golabki like Baba’s. Don’t forget the smetana!
$$ Cash Only $$

Authentic Polish cuisine served cafeteria style. Kielbasa, potato pancake, and stuffed cabbage are all standouts.

Consistently delicious and has satisfied my pierogi and mashed beet cravings for over a decade. My Dad says they are the best in the city and he has been eating pierogi for 69 years!

Every time I walk through the door, it’s a step back in time. Been going here for 45 years and nothing has changed (except the name, used to be Sabina’s). Same great recipes, same great décor. Cafeteria style, traditional Polish food. Golabki just like mom used to make. Pierogies and potato pancakes (placki kartoflane) are made to order so, may take a few minutes. Everything is great but, don’t miss the sauerkraut! Save room for Jell-​o!

Awesome comfort food. I was in Poland for 10 days last year the taste and quality of the food here are as good as anything I experied there. What a find. I am from Delaware but I will be back.

We were in the mood for some Polish food so we headed over to Port Richmond. I had read good things about Syrenka and it was also mentioned on Bourdain’s lay over.
The place could be used in a period movie of the 1970’s or 1980’s but its is spotlessly clean. Our server was very nice and the prices are really reasonable. 5 Perogies for under $ 6.00, 2 people can easily eat there for under $ 15.00. I had the Kielbasa platter with 2 sides of vegetables. The Kielbasa was huge and the sauerkraut was very good. I only wished the Kielbasa was grilled.
This is a great little place for a quick meal at a great price. Cash only.

This place exists for one reason: to enable you to eat cheap portions of delicious Polish food. If you’re taking your mom out, probably skip this place. The aesthetic is «‘70s school cafeteria, complete with a lady behind the counter with a ladle slopping sauerkraut, kielbasa, and golabki on your plate.
But oh damn, is it delicious. I got the stuffed cabbage and sauerkraut. The cabbage was okay (I saw most people getting kielbasa, but I wasn’t in the mood for that much meat), but the Sauerkraut was outstanding! And the prices were quite reasonable, although I had to be sure to hit up an ATM before.
I highly recommend going here if you’re in the area. It’s an interesting mix of people in a very functional (and delicious) restaurant.

I’ve been going to this place for years, and years and years.
If you want real home made polish food that just gives you comfort, go here!
Try everything it is all so good.

Best Polish food in Philadelphia. Maybe even in the US. Totally authentic food and décor.

My friends thought i was crazy when i told them to meet me here… and I admit its not much to look at… but holy food! Syrenka is amazing.
The food is cafeteria style, so you grab a 70’s tray and silverware which matches the décor. Put your tray on the bars and slide it on up to the register and order. Not knowing what i was in for, I opted for a vast array of everything… which ended up being a ton of food. For the price, i’d do that again in a second. I started off with the borscht which was creamy and salty and beety and full of potatoes and corn and carrots. Yum! Next, i had the potato and cheese pierogies. Now I must be candid, I don’t think I’ve ever had pierogies that weren’t frozen Mrs. T’s. These made me accutely aware that this needs to change. They were steamed, 5 in a serving, plated with a dollop of sour cream. They were light and delicate and so so delicious. I also ordered potato pancakes which were HUGE and also delicious. I instantly gave one away to a friend because there was just no way that I could conquer these. They also came served with sour cream. The piece de resistance was to take a bite of the pierogie, a little sour cream, and a bite of potato pancake, and combine and eat together. It was memorable.
All in all, 4 of us stuffed ourselves for $ 30. The food was amazing, the portions were generous, the service was so so sweet and efficient, and i’d be back in a second without thinking twice. I loved this place.

Very good perogies, pretty good customer service. The prices where a bit high, that is about the downside to this place. Like $ 5 for potatoe pancake? That’s a bit ridiculous for some potatoes. Overall the food is really good but I just wish the prices where better considering nearly everything is made with potatoes!

For a small place, the ethnic Polish dishes are very tasty!
Prices are low, but the food you get is more than worth it.
If you like Polish food, don’t miss stopping here. Well worth your time and money.

This is Eastern European comfort food on a dime. Great galopki (stuffed cabbage), bigos (a hunter stew with sauerkraut and kielbasa), and pierogies (boiled, not fried). Order at the counter. The woman was super helpful and patient. We got a pile of food for 3 for just over $ 20. Amazing. Definitely try it.

Stopped in on my way out of the city back home to New Jersey. Awesome location just for that, a block off of I-​95, easy access on and off.
The place is simple, a throwback to decades past. I came in around 3pm, and it was entirely empty. I ordered a golabki platter with mashed beets and mashed potatoes with extra tomato sauce. The sides were so delicious, as was the stuffed cabbage. It really does have a home-​cooked taste. Very comforting food, especially on a cold windy day. Parking near the place could be tricky, but it’s definitely worth it. The price is right too – only $ 6.70 including tax!
If you’re looking for some feel-​good food on your way out to the Northeast and beyond, or want to kill time and avoid 95 traffic north of Allegheny, stop into Syrenka.

Syrenka is one of the realest places I have lunched at; simple tables to eat at, a counter with hot food to pick from in the front, and a kitchen in the back to make all the rest. The well-​used phrases «honest, home cooking» can’t help but come to mind. If you had a Polish grandmother who loved you very much, she would make you the exact meal that I had.
It was hard to not order more than just one cup of bigos, a savory cabbage– kielbasa mixture, but there was more food coming.
The stuffed cabbage looked about as unattractive as all stuffed cabbage do, but it tastes absolutely amazing. Sometimes stuffed cabbage can be a little too sweet, this was not the case here. Though it was meat stuffed, I like to think this was the healthy component of my meal.
Best potato pancakes ever? This is really hard for me to say, because I do like to think I make a stupendous latke. I don’t even know what they do here, the latkes, first of all, are huge, and on top of that they are so flavorful, fluffy, and crispy that I was 90% in love and 10% jealous of their skillz. I enjoyed these more than the ones I had at New Wave Café.
Grab a table, pick out a few things to try and you can’t go wrong here. With its array of amazing, hearty food that will keep you stuffed until dinner time, Syrenka gives cafeteria food a good name.

Time capsule, time capsule! Syrenka Luncheonette’s décor is first what will strike you as you walk in the door. It’s shades of brown and 70’s all over. This is some real back in time stuff here.
A la carte or platter prices are listed up on the old school Coca Cola menu board. Polish specialties are served cafeteria style from warming trays, but not by stereotypical lunch ladies by any means; beautiful stylish Polish ladies have been behind the counter at our every visit. There lies the only real evidence that we’re not grubbin in ’77 or so…
Maybe prices have gone up a bit since the 70’s, but damn do we get a tray full of good eatin’ for the both of us together for under fifteen dollas. I’m sayin, we have made animals outta ourselves splitting: the golabki, kielbasy, bigos, mashed beets, an order of pierogi, and two drinks… all for fourteen seventy somethin? Good deally.
If you want your order of pierogi fried (they’re cooked after you order), you’ll have to order them that way with onions and sour cream, if you wannem. I forgot to order them fried, so I was initially a little disappointed when I realized my omission and the potato and cheese dumplings were served only boiled and buttery, but when getting down to eating them, I didn’t really miss the crisp. In this state they went so well with the buttery, sweet and earthy mashed beets. I’m repeating the word, «buttery,» cause there’s a lot of this happenin here. We’ve repeatedly ordered that buttery buttery combo again.
The porky sauerkrauty hunter’s stew that is bigos was pretty good, not my most favorite bigos ever, but obviously went well with the kielbasy, it did. Definitely dug the giant golabki– tender cabbage leaves stuffed with rice and beef… tasty, tasty stuff in tangy tomato sauce. I loves golabki, and that’s a good one.
On subsequent visits we’ve enjoyed mushroom soup and some potato pancakes (tasty but greasy), too.
All in all, I’d say that Syrenka’s is A-​OK all the way: Tasty, hearty food for good prices is the key. I dig this time capsule of a Polish cafeteria.
Butt-​buuh-​butttery time capsule, time capsule!

Anyone who thinks this is the best polish food in town needs to walk around the corner to M&M. The pierogies are just nothing special. They are on the small side and drenched in butter to mask their mediocrity.
Same with the stuffed cabbage. I thought $ 7 for one piece was a bit much. The sauce was on the watery side and it was lukewarm.
The best thing I had here were the potato pancakes. They were crispy and delicious, but I still prefer M&Ms.
Perhaps I am spoiled with deliciousPolish food from living in the neighborhood my entire life, but Syrenka didn’t do it for me.

This no frills place was mostly disappointing and I’m surprised at all the rave reviews here. We met a Polish friend for lunch and all shared a few things. I only ate a couple of bites of everything I tried because the food ranged from just okay to downright bad.
I had lots of stuffed cabbage growing up and sorry but this didn’t even come close to what I would call good — the filling was mostly rice, the meat tasted low quality and the sauce was meh. The side dishes were ok — potatoes were fine, the red cabbage was decent. The potato pancakes were nice and crispy but they tasted off, almost sour or something and after you had them in your mouth for a minute you realized how greasy they really were.
The pierogies were ok, my dining companions were a lot more impressed with them then I was. I’d say they were better than the frozen kind from the supermarket but didn’t come close to the homemade ones my co-​worker used to bring in that the church ladies at her Russian Orthodox church made. Or the ones available from Riekers Meats for that matter.
The service was friendly and it had a great neighborhood-​y feel. The prices are low, but I felt like that was definitely reflected in the quality of the food and at the end of the day, you get what you pay for I guess.