Park Grill --ick poo

I just ate at the Park Grill on their outdoor patio. Huge mistake. Service was bad, as was the food.

I work in the area, so I thought I'd check it out. It seems to be a popular lunch spot, even among the non-touristy type. Also, a local magazine rated their cheeseburger as one of the top 5 in the city. I'm not sure which restaraunt's burger they had, but it wasn't this one's. Any chain restaraunt in Chicago can produce something of higher quality than this.

The service was absolutely horrible. Our server had dyed blue hair, and you could barely understand him... We ordered the food, and didn't see him again until he came with the check. When he did come back, he didn't ask how things were, just if we wanted to order anything more. When we said no, he put the check on the table and didn't say anything. (No "would you like your check?" .. "thanks for coming" "have a good day" ..etc).

The menu was limited to only items they could prepare outside on their BBQ grill, or that were pre-prepared. Keeping with the thought that a local magazine said their burger was top 5 in the city, I ordered one. With your $10 cheeseburger, all you can have as a side is fruit salad, chips, or pasta salad. No fries. Substitutions on anything else? No lettuce, no tomato, no mayo, no pickles, no options. Forget about it.

The burger came, and as far as burgers go, it was mediocre at best. The Sysco-run-of-the-mill bun was a little on the stale side (tossing it on the grill for a minute probably would have helped it a great deal). The burger was supposed to be a BBQ burger, but there was probably 1/4 teaspon of sauce mixed in with the onions, no actual BBQ sauce. The cheese was not melted because it was too thick and chunky to do so on their grill. The burger was not moist or juicy...

The menu for the inside restaraunt looked a little more extensive, with a few more options. If the service of the outside is anything like the service of the inside, I'd guess its not any better of a dining choice.

Skip this place, and go across to the Bennigan's. Their outdoor patio is more welcoming, service is better, and at least the food is reliable. And that's saying a lot, since I usually try to almost always avoid chain restaraunts when dining in Chicago.

FYI, it was the Trib that ranked their burger as one of the best.

yup, it was in the trib and their sunday magazine thing... I should have read the reviews on metromix.com first, lots of really bad reviews right around the time of that article...

My assumption is they are running a very different menu/kitchen on the large patio (i.e. ice skating rink), than they are indoors or on the small patio adjacent.

The full restaurant has an extensive menu with fries.....really really darn good fries. They also had a salmon club that was really good.

The only time I ate there, I was surprised to notice how schlocky the food being brought to the other area was. Also of note is that a reservation made is only valid for inside or the small porch and the large outdoor area has it's own wait system.

It's always been my impression that the indoor operation is more of a true restaurant and the outside is just a mass-feeding operation.

I've never had an experience anything at all like the one you just mentioned, indoors. The service was good and attentive while being inobtrusive and the food was quite good, if nothing amazing. (But definitely not cheap.)

Too bad, as it's such a great location. The burger was on my list, but I may need to table that for awhile. In other Vettel burger list-related news, the vaunted Rosebud burger is now being served at Rosebud on Rush as well. I had occasion to try it last week, and it was indeed an excellent burger. Beautiful pretzel roll...true steak flavor, good shoestring fries. My quibble? Dribble. This is a three napkin affair that demands your undivided attention and a short sleeved shirt. It reminded me of someone's old post on Solly's (Mike G? V.I.?) describing the burger fat blues. A glass of red wine is nearly essential to cut through the richness and fortunately, there are good open bottles to choose from. Bill Daley wrote recently on good burger pairings, but I was unable to recall a single one. The wine will put this burger lunch at $20 plus tip, but it's the kind of thing I'll only have maybe once or twice a year, so using Sally Struthers math puts its cost at mere pennies a day.

Having never eaten at R. on R. I was also struck by some great-looking entrees on plates of other diners. Working in that area, Spiaggia Cafe has been the go-to for nice Italian, but a colleague and I made mental notes to return for lunch sometime soon. It's also interesting that that formerly barren stretch of Rush is becoming destination dining with Rosebud neighbor Silver Spoon replacing the previously awful Pea Pod. Change is good.

Kanpai,

Jeff

Ate at the small patio (part of the restaurant proper) on Mother's Day, and while the food was a good deal better than previously reported for the large patio, the service was at least as atrocious. The server took so long to respond to our requests that we started helping ourselves from the nearby busing station for bread and silverware. Then my mother wanted mustard, and when the server couldn't seem to provide that, either, Victor left the restaurant and went to the condiment stand outside to get some.

Victor left a meager tip and then felt bad. "I don't want him to think we're just cheap." So I'm thinking maybe we should get a little card made that says, "We tip 20 percent for good service" to leave on the table for such situations.

In any case, we won't be back.

Anybody willing to fill me in where exactly this restaurant exists?!

PIGMON wrote:Anybody willing to fill me in where exactly this restaurant exists?!

Right in the middle of Millennium Park.

I have dined twice at The Park Grill (main restaurant) and found the food there to be very good (Kobe beef burger one time, Kobe flank steak the next), but the service was spotty.

debo wrote:Victor left a meager tip and then felt bad. "I don't want him to think we're just cheap." So I'm thinking maybe we should get a little card made that says, "We tip 20 percent for good service" to leave on the table for such situations.

I wish I had that idea... .. I left a pretty lousy tip (actually, come to think of it... did i even leave a tip? hmmm! ;p)...

I can maybe excuse the poor food and chalk it up to the fact that its outdoor.. I cannot excuse the horrible service, which is what a tip is designed for... Despite the gripes of others and even my friends, I wouldn't feel bad not leaving any tip whatsoever in a situation that deemed it necessary...

It sounds like the indoor restaraunt might be worth checking out still... but i'm not sure why there could be such a huge difference in service between the outside and inside.

dddane wrote:It sounds like the indoor restaraunt might be worth checking out still... but i'm not sure why there could be such a huge difference in service between the outside and inside.

I'm not sure that there is, necessarily, except that that the tips are probably much better inside, which would tend to draw the better servers there.

The first time I ate there the service was pretty bad. Bad enough that I talked to my (very good) server about it on my second trip & I saw him relay my comments to the manager while I was eating.

Hopefully they can fix the service problems, because the food inside was really quite good (if a bit pricey), and it's a beautiful & convenient spot.