129 Center Cut — Restaurant in Grayslake

I so wanted to love this place. Unfortunately it failed us on all accounts.

Our in-laws took us here for our anniversary. Right off the bat, we knew something was off. First off, there seems to be a bit of an identity crisis. The decor was very nice and the ambiance was cool, however I just wasn't sure where I was. Is it a sports bar? Is it a steakhouse? Is it a seafood place?

When we arrived our in-laws were already seated at a table for four so we just headed straight there and joined them. Upon sitting for awhile we were never approached to be given place settings or menus. We would up sharing menus and stole place settings from another nearby table.

The identity crisis continued as we read the menu. There are steaks and seafood on the same page a burgers and pizza. Yes Pizza! If I wanted pizza, I would go to the owners other establishment a few doors down.

Anyway, we were determined to have a nice "steakhouse" dinner. I ordered the pork chop and my wife and mother-in-law ordered filet. My wife asked the waiter what the vegetable was and he said broccoli, which is exactly what she wanted.

We waited 1 hour and 15 minutes for our food. Tables around us that came in after us and ordered after us received their food before us. One lady even received a pork chop. Our drinks were not refilled during this time and our salad plates remained uncleared because there are no bus boys in the restaurant.

We would have asked the waiter where our food was if he cared to come to us. However he pretty much was absent the whole time.

When our food finally came my wife noticed something immediately. There was no broccoli with her filet. Instead there were brussel sprouts. She asked the waiter why no broccoli and he said "Oh I guess the kitchen switched and didn't tell us". I guess customer service is not a competency that is looked for during the hiring process. I mean how hard would it have been to run back to the kitchen and order up some broccoli?

We were so hungry from the long wait that we decided to eat whatever sat in front of us. My mother-in-law's filet was bleeding red. She ate it anyway (later to her dismay.

As for me, I cut into my pork chop and realized that it was raw. I sat for awhile waiting to see if the waiter would come to check on us. Of course, he didn't. My wife had enough at this point and got up, went to the server station and found a millennial waiter and asked to speak to a manager. He looked at her and said "I'm not even sure there is one here tonight.". My wife stayed calm and simply asked if he could go find out for sure. One of his colleagues overheard and ran to the kitchen to find a manager. About 10 minutes go by and the "manager" comes out. He's a little older than the millennial waiter, but not by much. I showed him my pork chop and candidly said that if I would eat it I could quite simply die. He did apologize and ran back to the kitchen. He did not offer to replace my meal. He eventually returned to tell me that he spoke to the chef and that the chef promised that I would not be sick because he cooked the pork chop using a technique. My response was "Well that's good but I'm not eating pork that is cooked that way." The manager did omit the pork from the bill and did give a percentage off for a lousy dining experience.

The waiter returns with dessert menus. When he puts them down he says "Anyone interested in dessert? The only one we don't have tonight is the chocolate cake." I read the menu quickly and replied sarcastically with a chuckle "So out of the 3 desserts you offer, you're ONLY out of one?". He didn't get the joke or the sarcasm.

We paid the bill and left very unsatisfied. Our anniversary dinner was ruined.

To add insult to injury, my mother-in-law was up all night vomiting the under cooked steak.

We were really hoping this place was better. We really appreciate the effort to improve downtown Grayslake. Unfortunately, this is a...

We’ve hosted many get togethers throughout the years, most recently in Lake County and the majority have been a success. Recently, we’ve been doing our best, to patronize the local village eating establishments when we can and last night was one of those times. A week prior, we met with the GM Dan, to go over over our special dietary needs and accommodations we desired and we’re assured they could handle it. We vetted the venue and made our reservation. Our group was small; 2 tables (8). We had to wait 15 min for our tables to be ready. Hostess was less than welcoming and really didn’t do much to “move” things along. When we were finally seated, we needed to ask for more menus and received only 1 wine/drinks menu. We asked for more to speed up the drinks order, but we’re told there were no more. Sharing one menu slowed that process considerably. This clearly started the evening off on a bad foot. Our “first” server informed us that several wine bottle selections were out. She was not knowledgeable on the wines offered and was therefore unable to suggest a replacement or even suggest a sample of one. When asked where a particular wine was from, we got a “ I don’t know”. We now move on to ordering appetizers. We ordered the mushrooms, skewered shrimp, sliders and calamari. We then asked our server if the mushrooms and shrimp were dairy free. After our server checked with the kitchen, she returned and said indeed they were dairy free. Yay!! When they arrived, the mushrooms were covered in melted cheese. When we told the server “We thought the mushrooms were dairy free”, she responded “Well, they are except for the cheese”. Seriously, I kid you not!! After that, the person with the allergy didn’t trust that the shrimps were dairy free. The appetizers were good, but the “ fillet sliders” (listed plural, not singular on the menu) showed up as 1 slider, not 2 or 3 as you would think. This should have been that “red flag” warning but, we continued on with ordering dinner. One prime rib ordered med rare, came out very rare, one prime rib came out as a 6oz fillet, not accepted, 1 6oz fillet came out raw, and the burger ordered dairy free came out with cheese 🤦🏼‍♀️ We now talked to the GM who assured us it would all be made right. The server commented to the GM, that the 1 prime rib was ordered incorrectly and customer really ordered the fillet, in front of us. Now we asked for a new server and received a more experienced young lady. She immediately brought us the rest of our waters we had been waiting for all this time. We finally received all of the items “fixed” however, the one prime rib showed up cool and cold mashed potatoes. We were all pretty much done with everything and just wanted to leave the place. BTW, forgot to say extremely difficult to even hear our party’s conversation because of the high ceiling and bad acoustics. At the end, we received a couple of GC’s and some comps on the bill, but still, this fiasco cost well over 200.00 for a terrible experience and food not worth the price. We were expecting a high bill for the amount of people we had and knowing the menu however, what we received was not even close to a “high end food” establishment and the service was a best, mediocre. We don’t mind paying for excellent food, good atmosphere and quality service, just not here. There are plenty of restaurants on the north shore and Libertyville, that go over and above what’s required, to earn your patronage. In our opinion, 129 Center Cut has a very long way to compete. And one last comment…In going over our bill from last night, I see we were charged $38.00 for a bottle of wine we ordered but, they ran out of. Another 🤦🏼‍♀️ I...

Quick summary: Confusion at the door, poor planning on their part to handle customers reservations, very loud atmosphere, food was good.

The details: We had a reservation for dinner on St. Paddy's Day weekend. The restaurant was advertising live music -- "an evening of Irish pub tunes". The day before they sent a confirmation request which I promptly replied to. So, we get there and there's a line going out the door. The line was just to check in with the hostess! But we didn't see any hostess. We stood in that line for quite a while. Eventually we realized there were a couple young ladies acting as hostess that were running around, and were certainly trying but seemed overwhelmed to me. When I got to talk with one, she explained that they didn't have a table for us and would have to call me on my phone when one was ready. Really? I had confirmed my reservation with them - twice. When I pressed, she told me that the musician had reserved 34 seats for friends and family which was making it difficult for them to seat customers. I was incredulous. If Center Cut was hosting a semi-private concert for the musician's family, why did they oversell their reservations?

We gave our phone number and left to find a place down the street to sit and have a drink. About 20 min later or so we get the call to come back, so we did. We were seated in the bar area to hear the musician (Jon Babin, who BTW was very good). At first he was playing popular radio hits instead of Irish pub songs, which was the whole reason we were there in the first place. We looked at each other and decided to stay for one drink and then leave. After a while, though, he started playing more Irish songs and ultimately we decided to stay. The atmosphere was incredibly loud. The place has a high unfinished ceiling and that really bounces the sound around.

On the positive side, our server was attentive and quick and the food was good. However, not good enough to make us want to return. We know, of course, that St. Paddy's Day weekend is very busy for places with live music. Everyone knows that. But that's kind of the point. Center Cut should know that too, and prepare by coming with their A game, which they clearly did not. It felt...