Duke's Alehouse and Kitchen — Restaurant in Crystal Lake

Terrible atmosphere. To get to the dining room you pass through a bar with two TV's, one was playing a fight, one was playing the Hawks game. The dining room was small, with 5 decent tables along the windows and remaining tables placed very close together, bordering a plywood stage that takes up half the room. Lighting is brighter than what I enjoy in a dinner venue, and the noise level made it hard for our party of 4 to share conversation. The crowd consisted solely of early 30 something hipsters - pretentious suburban Crystal Lakers. The staff were disinterested and cold, with an attitude like they were doing us a favor. I wish I could say the food made the trip worth it, but all 4 of us were beyond disappointed. We ordered 2 appetizers: Tempura Green beans - which were the only decent item we had, and pretzel and cheese, which were HORRIBLE - two 'pretzel' bread sticks that were salt encrusted to the point of not being able to be eaten. They came with two cheapo paper cups of dip... one with a cheese sauce that none of us liked, and one with mustard. I would have expected more from a middle school lunchroom. Dinner wasn't much better. 2 members of our party ordered build your own burger (one bison) with many extra toppings. The burgers came with the cheese melted on the patty, but the extras came in the same cheapo paper cups placed on the plate. 1 member ordered the catfish sandwich, which he described as "a train wreck", and you gotta know, this guy will eat anything!! I ordered a french dip sandwich. It came in two pieces, placed end down in a big bowl of Au Ju, the bottom part of the sandwich already soaked into goo when it arrived at the table. The beef sandwich was lacking in beef and was mostly (by that time soggy) french roll, and house 'giardiniera' which consisted mostly of raw carrot chunks (icky). The sides were small for the price charged - 2 of us had Parmesan garlic fries, which were okay, and 2 had the arrogant fries, which they did not enjoy at all. The fries come in a small glass bowl on the sandwich plate, I think so it looks like you are actually getting a portion when it is a very small amount. I also ordered a side of cauliflower and cheese, which was on the specials menu, and was SO SMALL of a serving it was shameful. If there were two flowerettes in total, I would be surprised. The cauliflower came in a tiny sauce dish, all broken up into specks. I was actually shocked they could charge for a serving this size. We all ordered a beer off the vast menu, which were enjoyable, but on the expensive side. The total bill (which was virtually thrown onto the table) was well over $100, with tip of course bringing it higher. All in all, the much anticipated night out ended on a very sour note. I can't understand the decent reviews this place has garnered, and you couldn't pay any of the 4 of us to go back, in fact we couldn't talk of anything else on the way home expect how pissed off we all were by the...

This review is for the dining part of this restaurant.

My wife and I decided to give this place a try instead of the mainstream restaurants. We were happy to be greeted when we walked in for it being a Saturday around lunch time and most attendants seemed to be enjoying themselves, however, there were a few like my wife and I who found themselves entertaining themselves while waiting for a server to take our order.

There looked to be 5 servers and to us they looked like they were scrambling about. It seemed as though there wasn't a sense of one server per table kind of vibe. We had been approached by three different servers, water boy, a guy who looked like a chef and finally our server. A few servers to me just seemed like they couldn't handle multitasking, which to me should be an important quality to have in a server for a restaurant (especially being so close to a Metra train stop I imagine they have lunch and dinner rushes all the time). The other reason being that it was a two floor restaurant. We sat on the first floor thankfully. I can't say for truth how the service was upstairs, but I can only imagine that it was even slower and more disorganized.

Finally after what seemed like an eternity, but more like 30 minutes, we received our food. It was their Mexican themed month menu, so I ordered the Chipotle Orange Chicken tacos because it sounded different and my wife ordered the Grilled Chicken sandwich with Chipotle. I must say my tacos were God awful close to the worst tacos I ever had. The chicken was very dry and distasteful. I got no orangey taste or even a hint of Chipotle from it. I had to use my wife's Chipotle mayonnaise sauce to give it flavor. The worse part was they were $3 a taco and they didn't come with any type a side like refried beans. I guess it's what I get for getting Mexican food from a place that doesn't normally make Mexican food. My wife's food however tasted spot on to me. Perfect texture and the kick was exactly what I wanted in my tacos. Unfortunately, for her it didn't sit well with her stomach.

After finishing our meal it took another 10 minutes or so to receive our bill. I can't remember a time I felt so trapped.

The decor was very drab, for the dining room first floor. Outside of sitting next to a window, the room felt very dark. There were ceiling lights that didn't provide much luminosity and they had nice Picasso style paintings on the wall. We liked the real flowers that were placed in each table.

On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the highest I would rate as followed: Decor, 5 Service, 2 Food, 3 Attitude, relaxed but friendly

Needless to say we will not be going there again, except for maybe when they have there regular menu back. This restaurant has potential with it being an all natural and organic restaurant with a great selection of vegetarian options, but it's safe to say that they've got a little...

I would like to first start off by saying that the previous 3 times I've been here I would have given this restaurant 5 stars. The food was excellent and I love the idea of locally produced food. Tonight however was different. I took my wife here for our anniversary expecting it to be as amazing as it was every other time we have come. The service was excellent and fast for as busy as it was. The drinks came out quickly (love the beer selection). We ordered our favorites, the tempura fried green beans and the inferno fries. The green beans were good, as usual, but the fries tasted like they had either been microwaved or the oil temp was too low. They had a mushy consistency when you expect them to be crispy on the outside and pillowy on the inside. I was dissapointed, but expected the main courses to overcome this. We ordered the meat loaf and the salmon. The meat loaf was excellent, although the corn on the cob that came with it was barely above room temperature, probably a result of bad timing, although I will say it tasted excellent. The salmon was a different story. My wife asked me to taste it and as soon as I started chewing I had to spit it back out, and I never spit out food. It tasted like it had gone bad. I almost couldn't believe it and took a few more bites, each one confirming my initial reaction. I'm a huge salmon fan and this was some of the worst tasting salmon I've had...ever. The waitress was excellent however and took the salmon off the bill. I am hoping this was just a fluke because this is my favorite restaurant in the area and have had nothing but amazing experiences before this. I just wish this somewhat bad experience hadn't happened on our wedding anniversary. We shall be back though, and hopefully the food is back up to the standard it was every other time we...