Legal Sea Foods - Chicago — Restaurant in Chicago

If I could give this Legal Seafood location a zero, I would. I lived in Boston for 10 years and LOVE Legal Seafood. My experience last night was not only a let down, it was borderline disgraceful for this beloved East coast brand. To start, the upstairs bartender, where we decided to sit, seemed like it was his first day - ON A FRIDAY NIGHT prime time. And while I appreciate training someone, he was alone and didn't seem to have the skill sets to even manage the very few people in the bar which directly reflects the failure of management to not have someone with him to train him properly and give customers the best experience. There were 2 separate customers trying to pay their bill when we arrived, 1 staff member at the end of the bar that appeared to having a shift end drink and 2 two tops. In my perspective, not nearly enough volume for the disappointing service we received. He greeted us & brought menus right away but then didn't come back for over 10 minutes. We immediately ordered some apps & wine - when he brought the wine, he said he only had one glass and it was hot from just being washed - my Dad ordered a Chardonnay - which needs a cold or room temp glass. He almost poured the wine in the hot glass before my Dad stopped him and asked to put some ice in the glass first to cool it down. Just a big rookie bartender mistake. The entire evening, he appeared frazzled and continued to have long lag periods without checking on us, refilling our waters etc.

Additionally, we got our edamame first and then it took another 10 minutes to get the chowder, which was colder than the warm bread rolls. Your SIGNATURE dish is cold?!? Further, we immediately ordered our dinner which was pretty simple: another order of edamame, fried calamari and a Greek salad, no cheese with blackened chicken. Edamame was lukewarm and the first Greek salad had cheese all over it - so I had to return it due to allergy. The next salad, which took about 15 minutes to return(!!) had NO CHICKEN - C'mon - really? Had to send it back again Third salad had lukewarm grilled chicken, not blackened. I decided to just eat it since I was so hungry at this point.

Lastly, there was some serious staff representation that I was appalled a brand like Legal Seafood would tolerate. First, there was a manager (dark hair, male) that went behind the bar a few times - not to help - but to pour himself a large shot of Casa Amigos tequila (I know the bottle because I drink tequila) - I have no words for this behavior. Second, there appeared to be a few staff that were off shift, sitting at a two top by the stairwell that goes down to the restaurant talking really loudly, joking with the staff as they came up & down the stairs, dressed like they were going to a Bears game. All in all, the staffing is less than desirable with many of them seeming to be very inexperienced and lacked basic customer experience skills or basic human experience etiquette - I don't want to hear you swearing & joking with your staff while I'm trying to have a nice dinner with my Dad.

As much as I love Legal Seafood, I will not be back to this location and have some serious reservations on how such an iconic Boston chain would allow a location to be run so poorly....

This is a much delayed review. I’ve given legal 3 chances, twice as a regular dinner and I even hosted my rehearsal dinner here. First two times I’ve dined in my service was extremely poor. Not only did they not let us know they were out of oysters before seating but it took us 25 mins to flag down a server to let us order. Then the food took 30 mins when the dining room was empty, then it took another 20 mins for the server to get us a box and the check. Mind you I was extremely apologetic when flagging someone down yet they still just stood in the corner giggling with each other. Now the food during the two dine in visits were off as well. So we established there’s no oysters, so we got lobster rolls, chowder, lobster bakes and other apps. The lobster bake was over cooked, lobster roll was overly toasted and overly sauced, and the chowder had no seafood all potatoes in our bowls. We only went back a 2nd time since I hoped it was an off day for Legal, but our 2nd time we had the same issues with different servers.

Now we booked a rehearsal dinner here since my in laws at the time had better service there before. The event coordinator for Legal Seafood has TERRIBLE communication the entire time. On our contract it was mentioned we were allowed to order drinks at the bar and as the host I would take care of the bill itself. The manager on duty that day yelled at my wedding party and me, the bride, stating that we’re causing a scene by ordering at the bar. Keep in mind the restaurant was NOT busy. Now the servers were all extremely rude to me and pushing me to order a drink when I personally told them I don’t drink alcohol. Also there was not enough seats when I requested sit down tables but food served in a buffet style. The food came out at a slow pace even though the private event was suppose to be buffet cocktail style. At one point 2 of our meal choices did not even come out until I asked about it. The excuse was “oh it was just sitting back there and no one brought it out.” The Mac and cheese we had had barely any cheese on it. It felt more like buttered noodles. At this point I was so disappointed in our service and it being the day before my wedding I asked to close out and get everything packed up. They denied me Togo containers for the remaining food that they never brought out stating it’s a health code violation. I then challenged the manager on duty as I am a restaurant owner as well. I wanted to know what violation it was and how it’s different from when I’m dining in and want to take my leftovers home. That’s when other servers brought us boxes since they said there was NO policy on taking home the leftovers. Once we decided to leave the servers started being nice to me just to hand me the check and state “dont forget to add an additional tip since we got you the Togo boxes.” Our 2.5 hour event ended up ending within an hour and a half. What a waste of $4500.

Sorry Legal, 3 chances and your service and quality leaves us regretting...

Came for lunch with my parents to try since we had gone to their location in Boston. The restaurant itself is in good condition with river views. The menu is plastic and doesn’t seem to fit with the location (similarly, some of the dishes are plastic), seemed like what you might find at a beach restaurant.

The first issue was that half of the menu is Market price and you have to ask your server for everything. Personally a market card or a chalk board with the daily prices would be my recommendation. This was exacerbated by how infrequently we saw our server. Maybe once every 20-30 min and she didn’t pass by either, this lead to us waiting to order more beverages a couple times.

We ordered a few items from the sushi menu, calamari Rhode style, clam chowder, fish and chips, a lobster roll, and a steamed whole lobster. The sushi was fresh but we were only given one dish (plastic) of soy sauce and the sushi rice wasn’t fluffy. The calamari was good but didn’t seem to have any garlic. All the rest of the food was great. Well cooked and seasoned. The lobster roll was large enough for two people and the chunks were big and juicy.

The largest issue we had was the service. The server punched the order for the lobster in wrong, then when we received the food and told them, they brought a second lobster roll (the other style) despite clearly saying steamed whole lobster. Everyone at the table had finished their food and had to wait before the lobster even arrived. When the right lobster finally arrived, the server who brought it informed us the manager would be stopping by but he never showed up. Additionally, when I got up to use the restroom, I found three members of staff crouched down behind a booth seeming to be hiding while looking at a cellphone. Then when we got the check, there were no adjustments and the extra lobster roll was on the check in addition to the steamed lobster that we ordered. I don’t know if the server thought we wouldn’t notice but it just further soured our opinion of the restaurant.

As we exited, we finally saw the manager standing and chatting by the host stand. He asked how our experience was and my mom made a comment. He seemed genuinely clueless that anything wrong had transpired. He scrambled to give us a dining card for the experience as we were trying to leave and we gave him a basic explanation of the lobster mixup but we just wanted to leave at that point. I don’t even know with the credit if we would come back and I cant recommend this place unless theres a large change in staff behavior.

Overall, the restaurant seemed to struggle to decide whether it wanted to be elevated or casual. The service was bad almost across the board. If I was to give comparables, it reminded me of a Cheesecake Factory more so than a downtown...