The Walnut Room — Restaurant in Chicago

We've went for many many years and have never before been disappointed. It's been a family tradition of ours for so many years. We have someone in the family that's anaphylactic to dairy and nobody could tell us for sure if the dishes had dairy in it, not even the manager! They did have a little dairy-free menu they were walking around carrying but it was missing half the items for example I wanted to order the turkey which comes with a cranberry sauce, gravy, mashed potatoes, and stuffing, and green beans. They were able to tell me that I could not eat the green beans and I could eat the turkey and cranberry sauce. They could not however figure out if their mashed potatoes and stuffing had dairy in it or not as it was not on the menu and the staff didn't seem to know what was in their food because they couldn't tell me either. I ended up subbing it for the Walnut salad is that was something on the allergy menu but who knows maybe I could have ate it, considering I wanted it, but since they couldn't tell me I had no choice but not to. The service was beyond horrible. We sat down and sat for a good 40 minutes straight before she would take her order. We kept telling her to take her order cuz we were ready but she would make up some excuse like she had to grab our drinks first even though I said well can we just order while you grab the drinks, and she had to grab another tables drinks, then she had to go check with the grill even though I told her it was fine if we just put everyone else's order and at least while you wait for mine since everyone at our table was starving. It was one thing after another the table that got there before us was already served their food and eating before they took our order! Then there's the food. Like I said I've been going for years, I still check the menu for allergens though since I am anaphylactic because ingredients change. But over the years I always get the turkey with cranberries sauce, luckily that was something they could still tell me was dairy free so I did get that even though the sides were wrong. The turkey they gave me this time was completely different. He used to be these long fabulous beautifully laid out turkey slices. This year they were super thick short and very very dry. and the cranberry sauce, which was always my favorite thing definitely had a recipe change or was made wrong because it was horrible. Thankfully, I'm not a complainer so I ate my food even though it tasted horrible.

My husband on the other hand is someone that absolutely will not eat anything if it's not made right. They brought out his burger that was supposed to come with some kind of garlic sauce and lettuce tomato and onion. Instead they brought out a plain cheeseburger, no sauce, no lettuce, no tomato, no onion. We told the waitress it didn't have anything on it and was missing all the toppings she told us we were wrong and just to lift up the bun and left under the burger and look. Obviously, we did that already but we did it again right in front of her. She then tried to tell us that when it came out it was there they don't bring it out without it and was talking to us like we were lying about it. I don't know who would lie about getting toppings on a burger. As far as the atmosphere goes, the tree was beautiful as usual I can't complain too much about the atmosphere of I just think with the way everything else went everything just felt a little off.

Our bill came too over $160 and we all left and went out to eat after. The food was that bad and small portions as well. The only thing still good and the same about the place is the nice mug you could buy for extra comes with the kids meal. I don't know if I'll try it again next year or not, part of me wants to since it's a family tradition but another part of me doesn't even want to bother because it's just so expensive and far for something...

Very disappointing experience at the Walnut Room this past weekend on Saturday. I booked these reservations back in September and was super excited to go since it was our first time. I’ve always heard very good things about the experience and saw only good reviews. I researched online beforehand too and saw that it was advertised that every table has a view of the Christmas tree in the middle of the room.

So the day of our reservations, we made the trek into the city and got to our 630pm reservation. We weren’t seated until about 650pm, where we were walked past a good amount of empty/emptying out tables. The hostess took us to the very back of the room to a table by the windows that wasn’t even ready for us. She had us wait as they put on a table cloth and place settings and brought over a 4th chair. As this happened I asked if we could be seated closer to the Christmas tree as we saw there were available tables. Her answer, a simple NO. Our view was a big brown column and absolutely zero view of the Christmas tree or anything else.

We expressed our feelings to a waitress who told us to go back to the hostess stand and tell them we’re unhappy with our table and they have to reseat us. She mentioned tables are filling out and there are plenty available. So we did, and miraculously the same hostess found us a new table surrounded by multiple empty ones, right next to the tree. Great we were much happier now.

Now for the service- I gave 0 stars for the service. Our server’s name was Vincent and he rushed through the whole experience. We were seated at this new table at 7pm and within a few minutes we put in our drink order, then our appetizer order. He was back within minutes for our entree order. We told him we weren’t ready yet and he returned a few minutes later as we were still eating appetizers. We again told him we weren’t ready yet and this time he rolled his eyes and even checked his watch in front of us, at which point I asked him what time they closed and he said 7. It was 715pm at that point. Our whole experience was rushed and just felt negative after that. We were told they had “just ran out” of our entrees we ordered so we changed our order and within exactly 3 minutes our entrees had arrived. Meaning that they had plates already made and didn’t want to make more of what we had ordered, but just wanted to use up what was already made. Our whole dining experience ended at 8pm.

All in all, I was very excited for a wonderful Christmas experience to maybe become a tradition like so many others have. Needless to say, I will not be looking for future reservations and we will not be returning to the...

I was looking forward to the Walnut Room as it’s been years since I’ve been able to make it in for the holidays and have fond memories of the place so I’m sad to share my experience here. If I could give zero stars I would as the dining experience was terrible. We had to ask twice for an additional chair as the table they sat us at didn’t hold the entire party that we reserved for. We were sat in the far back left of the seating area next to the kitchen. What’s unfortunate about being seated in the back left of the seating area is that they leave all the giant bussing bins along side the wall in plain sight so the only view we had was stacked up dishes that smelled like old ketchup and were spilling over with food. The only thing we could hear was the waitstaff and bussers dropping dishes into the bins every few seconds—it was loud and extremely unpleasant. The tables were so close together in this area that a single person could hardly get through an aisle, let alone a waiter with food and definitely not someone with limited mobility or in a wheelchair.

There were 3 open tables further away from the kitchen and bussing bins that would fit our party. We asked the hostess if we could move tables so we could get some reprieve from the old food smell and the loud slamming of dishes every few seconds. The hostess said the kitchen was closed but said she’d ask the waiter. After 5 minutes and still no one taking our order, the waiter came to our table and we asked them directly. The waiter didn’t even have a chance to respond because the manager who was standing by the bussing bins heard us ask the question and shouted, “No! Sorry! But no! No one can move to a different table!”. The aggressiveness of the response left us in shock and was embarrassing —we should have just left, but we just froze. The group hardly talked after that. It ruined the whole night. After 30 minutes, we were finally able to get a food order in (they were out of pot pie and salmon). They gave us wet cloth napkins and one of our drinks came in a dirty glass that had lip marks, was sticky, and had finger prints all over it. We didn’t ask for a new napkin or drink because we didn’t want to cause any other reason to get shouted at. Like suckers we just put up with it and paid for an undrinkable drink.

Aside from the whole shouting incident, the floors were covered in food and trash. I don’t think they sweep up the dining area throughout the day. I bet the kitchen looks the same. You’ll have a better experience holiday experience at a Cracker Barrel. I will never come back again and wish we could get...