Bat 17 — Restaurant in Evanston Township

Consumer Beware! I am writing this review to help others avoid the Mistake that my wife and I just made. Avoid this place unless what you desire is to leave your meal with nothing more than utter disappointment and an empty wallet. I will elaborate...

My wife and I decided to give this restaurant a try based off of online reviews, word of mouth, and a supposed "best burgers in Evanston" rating. Upon parking and entering we were very shocked at how small and cramped the interior actually is. We found ourselves standing awkwardly right inside the door, touching shoulders with another potential customer for 5 to 7 minute with absolutely no recognition from any of the staff before finally deciding with said other customer that they must intend for us to seat ourselves.

Upon sitting at a vacant table immediately to the left of the door, we had suddenly appeared on the radar of the manager who promptly walked over to very rudely at the top of his voice inform us that "at least we could wait for him to clean and reset the table before we just choose to sit where we wish." Immediately taken aback we stood as the rest of the cramped customers looked over to see what the commotion was about. He took two swipes of a rag on the table, dropped two menus and without so much as an enjoy your meal left with a huff. The poor other customer apologized profusely for advising us to sit down and we tried at this point to just enjoy our meal.

We spent the time prior to our food delivery watching as this same incredibly rude, bearded man put almost every customer through the same ridiculous tirade of sarcastic "by all means do whatever YOU want" speech after they would seat themselves because they had been similarly ignored at the door.

Finally to our relief the food arrived, we could now eat and see what was so great about this food. I had ordered the Sunny Side Up Burger, medium rare with the egg over hard, my wife a BLT with a side salad. My first bite was absolutely shocking, not because this was a testament to mans ability to make an amazing flavorful burger, but because the barely cooked egg exploded yolk all over myself and the table. This was in complete contrast to the burger that had been cooked well done and had nothing that anyone could call flavor. Paired with the fatty undercooked bacon and the bland pointless potato side I can say that the best part of this meal was the pickle. My wife was privy to the same treatment with similarly bad bacon, flavorless not fresh tomatoes and coleslaw style lettuce that fell off the sandwich before you could eat it.

To top off this landmark bad dining experience, when our check arrived I realized that I had just been hammered with a 35 dollar check. Needless to say, we will not be returning to this restaurant. If you find yourself in the Evanston area and want a burger please head to Tommy Nevins or The Firehouse and you can enjoy an honestly great burger at 4 to five...

My Partner and I eat here quite often due to the consistency and quality of the food. All the bread used is locally sourced from an amazing bakery and the produce and meats meet a high bar as well. Almost anything you get here will be of high quality. Some meals in particular I recommend is the California Dreaming (Scooby doo sized sandwich, the RS is big but the FS is HUGE), the portobello sandwich (which has a great marinade), their salads and any of their burgers. Oh yeah their sweet potatoes fries are to die for as well. Seriously, this food is delicious and is worth every dime. Go check it out if you’re looking for a good local Evanston deli / burger joint.

Update 3/31/2035

Used to come here all the time when i lived in the area and adored this place. I came back while in the area to check out their new location and the renovations look amazing. It used to give college sport bar but now they really snazzed up the place, as the interior is gorgeous and it feels more like a sit down restaurant. Don’t get me wrong, they still have plenty of TVs and a bar if you want to watch games here. I got a classic, as I started with the pig skins. You can never go wrong with these - The skins of the potatoes are so crispy and they are loaded with toppings. The BBQ sauce and ranch that come with them compliment them well. The K2 burger was good - the meat was juicy but a small complaint is that there could’ve been more toppings to match the patty. The bacon was extra crispy and i’ll give them some points for that. The sweet potato fries are waffle style and are great. The staff was attentive and so friendly. After awhile they started i think open night mic or a singer was performing - not 100% sure. While in concept I love this - live music is wonderful for the community. In this instance, the mixing was pretty rough and the girls microphone was way too loud. We finished our food and we’re going to chill a bit but it got to the point where we decided to leave due to the issues. So while I hope they continue this, the sound really needs to be tested beforehand. (This was last month i dined in so this could’ve been fixed by now).

I appreciate the update Bat17 has done and will continue coming back here for a reliable meal...

I was really looking forward to trying this place as the reviews were good and the menu looked great. My friend and I went today. She ordered a draft beer and I ordered a bottled beer. When the bartender went to get her draft beer, he discovered the keg was out. So we waited 10 minutes for him to replace the keg only to be told that it was not the beer she wanted it was a different beer. So my friend asked if she could try it before she ordered and he got snippy and said well let me finish putting the keg on first. We let that go and ordered appetizers. We got the boneless buffalo chicken, wings and onion straws. While we were waiting for our appetizers, the bartender informed us that a private party would be coming in 20 minutes and we would have to move to a different area. We replied that we would move now so we wouldn’t have to move in the middle of eating our food. He then said the area we have to move to wasn’t ready yet, but it should be before our food came out. He walked away and came back with our food and set it on the bar in front of us giving us literally 10 minutes to eat it before we had to move to the other bar! The chicken wings were room temperature, but they were good as were the onion strings. HOWEVER… Before we were even halfway through with the appetizers, a giant Roach decided to run across the the bar right next to our plates!! Needless to say, I jumped up, grabbed my purse and stood away from the bar while the bartender killed the roach with a napkin! I said that’s it we’re leaving and the bartender handed us the check! When I asked for a manager, she took the food off the bill, but still charged us for our half drank Pints of beer. I understand that roaches happen but in my experience if roaches are running around during business hours with people sitting all around it has to be a severe problem! I’m...