The Café — Restaurant in Chicago

The restaurant went through a recent change in procedure, and the new one is bizarrely inefficient and awkward. Gone are the food stations where customers can order their own food. And gone are the touch-screen menus. Now, a long line (at busy times) await as you give your order to one of two attendants who punch the order into the same touch screens we used to be able to use on our own. You take a printed ticket to your table, and a server (when he gets around to it) picks up your ticket and writes your table number -- this is somehow intended to direct other servers to bring your food accurately...multiple failures observed. And they haven't figured out simple things like: when serving a coffee, bring sugar. And a spoon. (Spoons aren't included in the napkin-wrapped cutlery.) If you order a soda, it comes in a can (lukewarm) ... you have to ask for a glass of ice (it never arrived). Even a glass of water is hard to come by ... it would be so easy to let this be self-serve.

As for the food it tasty (roasted carrots side was excellent). But overpriced (not surprising, for a major city museum cafe) and comes in too-small servings. I had a chicken-salad sandwich, which was 90% ciabatta bun interrupted by 10% chicken salad (some bites just included a smear of the sauce and no chicken). Not a single garnish or anything else was along for the ride on the lonely plate. $65 for lunch for two people: a salad, a sandwich, a side, a coffee, and a can of coke. 20% gratuity is added automatically. The requested sugar for coffee and glass of ice were complimentary.

This is a shame. COVID knocked out a very good cafe that allowed people to take advantage of the glorious, European courtyard. Especially considering these prices, this new, chintzy cafe needs to be...

Thursday evening, I needed to get to a concert, thought this would be a quick place to grab a bite. Walked in, saw no directional signage leading to the bar, hot food and cashier - just a seemingly abandoned food case with some cold drinks and $10 pre-packaged sandwiches. Finally found my way into the dining area, no one at the hot food bar, again no clear signage. Finally a very pleasant woman came and explained the menu, I ordered and went over to the bar to get a glass of wine. The sole barrista (responsible for both the member's lounge AND the cafe) was engaged for about 5 minutes in making an elaborate cocktail from the poorly organized back bar - there was another woman in front of me, so I grabbed a (reasonably priced) hard cider from the cold case. The kind woman from the hot food bar brought out my order (which was delicious), but since everything had taken so long due to the poorly laid out and understaffed situation I had to wolf down my food and run. But the self-bus station is at the OPPOSITE side of the room from the exit. The management responsible for this dining area really needs to get their act together as currently it is an embarrassment to the...

Been four times this summer—the staff I've seen are generally positive and friendly. But the ordering system is very very bad. You have to wait in a long line to order at mealtime. Why did they remove the kiosks?

And then once you're seated it's like a crapshoot when a server finally sees you and tried to start hunting down your food. It took about 15 mins for me to get a side of chips today. I just watched multiple folks try to wave down servers saying they are waiting for parts of their meal—or even beverages like coffee—for excessive periods of time. Servers were confused between themselves who had been served.

To their credit many of the staff are personable, and were kind and apologized. You can tell this is a poor management / process issue.

Warm weather atmosphere in the central courtyard is unmatched in the Loop, with the bronze-green fountains, quiet trees, and flagstone. This space falls to the cliche that the better the view the worse the service experience.

It's too bad because the pre-pandemic "upscale cafeteria / food hall" concept was never amazing, but the food was tastier, had better selection, and the self-service worked better than this current...