Dawn A.M. Eatery — Restaurant in Hyde Park Township

TLDR: The Food was GREAT. The only Reason we didn't rate 5 stars is because of the servers service.

Tuesday, My friends and I came to this resturaunt around 1 o clock to celebrate a friends birthday! This was our first time there. We were seated right away. The place was cozy, beautiful, and we really enjoyed the atmosphere. Music was on point! It took our server a while to come to the table, but we were waiting on an additional friend. When the server, Khadija, did come over they ( dont want to assume pronouns) seemed to be rushing and wasn't very nice. They assumed we were waiting when we were indeed ready to order. We were sitting there for about 10 mins before we were even greeted. We ordered apps and Khadija walked away so quickly we couldn't order our drinks. Now, its been 20 mins of us sitting and we don't even have water as we watch our server clean up after a really big party. When our Apps came, we were finally able to order or drinks, now 30 mins in . Khadija took our order as if we were bothering her in some way. They didn't write anything down and when they repeated the order back to us, they got it all wrong... The food did come out correctly after we helped them correct the order. Maybe they could’ve used pen and paper... Now the food was 10/10!!!!! Shrimp and Grits were the best shrimp and grits i have ever had in my whole life!!! Raspberry Lemon Waffle was a 10/10. Salmon Patties was a 10/10. The Cornbread French Toast and Banana Pancakes weren't my personal favorites. But everyone else at the table loved them! After our food was brought out, we didnt see our server again. we were eating family style, we got no extra plates, no extra silver ware or nothing. Not checking in to see if we liked our food. The server forgot to bring a Lavender Lemon Tea and the additional Cucumber Mint Lemonade we asked for. When it was time to pay, we gave Khadija very clear instructions on how we wanted it split. One of of Shrimp and Grits on one Bill and everything else on the other. I do want to mention here that between coming to our table, we watched the server be on their phone and roll silver ware. We had to call them over at least 3 times. The final time we called them over, they proceeded to roll 2 more silverware before coming over to take our check to pay. When they returned, they had split the check and was handing the birthday homie the check. We were confused why because they haddent even spoken to Khadija about the bill. So I repeated to the server how we wanted our bill split, for the 3rd time. That's when the server got agressive and in a very nasty tone asked, "So just two checks, like i said" Only they never said that. That is when i completely disengaged with the server. When khadija did grab our check to pay, we decided to put the whole order on one check to make this all go smoother for them and Khadija snickered while saying " So 1 card?". My homie was already struggling to have a good birthday and I didn't want to escalate the situation by matching the servers agression. I am a known influencer in this city. I also own and operate a buisness and Khadija is the absolute example of how I would not want my buisness represented. The Shrimp and Grits were so Damn good that I just wanted to come here and leave this tip because I will be returning. We are not sure if they were having a bad day, if they are homophobic ( because we were all visibly queer), or what. What ever the case may be, their attitude should not have made it to our table of celebration. Shout out to the cooks! It felt like someones granny was back there putting that good elbow grease to...

We met one of my best pals who lives in Chicago here for breakfast before we started the drive home. This is a stylish restaurant on a corner; their website advertised free parking on the fourth floor of...somewhere. Unfortunately, we never found the fabled parking deck, but luckily there was street parking about a block and a half away and we were visiting during hours where we weren't charged.

We selected this restaurant because you could make reservations; we got our reservation for 9:45. We unfortunately arrived a little late because we didn't account for road closures due to a cycling event in the area, but my friend got there on time and they held the table for us. The table actually wasn't even ready when we finally rolled in at about 9:55. However, it was ready within a minute or two of our arrival, so nbd -- I mostly just appreciate they kept it for us, though maybe they wouldn't have if my friend hadn't been there.

The restaurant is a little nondescript on the outside but beautiful on the inside. There's lots of natural light and it has a sort of bougie/luxe feel without being super pretentious. It is rather echoey inside though, so speak up when talking!

Service was pleasant but a little slow. I think they were maybe a little understaffed or overwhelmed by the volume of people visiting. We had multiple different waiters and waitresses assist us throughout their visit; it seemed like they were all stretched trying to help each other.

My gal pal ordered the benedict, I got French toast and a blueberry lemonade, and my husband got the breakfast sandwich with a side of smothered potatoes. Overall, I think the food was decent though maybe not exceptional. I think the benedict was received the best, followed by the smothered potatoes. I liked the creative/southern spin on the benny though didn't try it myself. Husband gave me a bite of the potatoes, which were solid albeit a little on the cold side. They also were mainly just sliced potatoes cooked with onions, which was tasty but not what I think of necessarily when I hear "smothered." He liked his sandwich okay too, though it was pretty greasy. My French toast was cooked super well and still had a slight, pleasantly eggy taste with lots of vanilla and a semisweet syrup, but it was kind of dry (even with syrup). I didn't like the blueberry lemonade at all -- it didn't taste much like lemonade or blueberries, but was just slightly sour and watery.

I thought the portion sizes were weird too. My French toast was massive but my husband's breakfast sandwich was sort of small and my pal's "big Benny" was almost comically small to my eyes given the price and the advertisement of it as, well, big. C'est la vie? I'm sure I'm not used to Chicago prices or portions, just thought it was weird that my entree was so enormous I couldn't even get close to finishing it while everyone else's was easily polished off.

Again, our food wasn't disappointing, but maybe just didn't wow overall imo. I'd give this visit a 3.5 overall, but since you can't do half stars, I think it sits at a 3 for me. My friend who got the benny and actually lives in Chicago was pretty happy though and said she'd come back in the future, so perhaps that's...

Buckle up yall this is a long one but I believe it’s worth it. I want to start this off by saying I was so excited to try this place it was on my list of spots to try for months and with that being said I couldn’t be more disappointed. I took a group a friends visiting town for the weekend on Sunday without a reservation thinking we would wait a bit and the food would be so good we would forget all about it. Out of my group of 5 people no one gave this place a rating over a 4/10. We put our name on the list at 3pm and our table wasn’t ready until 5pm then after a 2 hour wait I hoped the staff would have some urgency in seating us and I couldn’t have been more wrong. There was a large party that stayed a while which is what took so long for us to sit however once they left it took at least 20 minutes for them to get the table clean and ready while we stood at the front watching them ignore the table. Once we sat it took another 20 minutes for water, we had to ask someone after watching the table directly next to us who sat AFTER us get some water. I don’t think anyone told the server we were her table, it was clearly unorganized but when she finally came we had our full order ready praying that would help speed things up. Wrong again. It took another 20 minutes for us to get the sweet tea’s we ordered and another 20 for PART of the starters, you see the trend? Lets not forget the sharing plates for the starters were dirty and after sitting down for an hour we only had our drinks and 3/5 appetizers. The first thing we ordered was a basket of biscuits and once again we watched multiple tables who sat after us get the same basket while we had none. We did a lot of watching because there was nothing to eat on the table and after waiting 2 hours just to sit we were all starving and dreaming of putting a fork into some food. We were pretty upset and the server seemed to be trying her best to avoid the table so we had to ask for a manager. It was so chaotic and I don’t think the server even put all our apps in because he had to retake the order and said the kitchen was in the middle of making our entrees meaning the missing starters would’ve never come. Then the entrees came out wrong, my eggs were scrambled when I asked for over medium, my friend got the wrong sandwich, and my other friend couldn’t enjoy her chicken because it was red at the bone and please tell me who in there right mind was gonna wait more time for it to be fixed. At this point there was no saving the experience, the manager did take care of some items but after all the frustrations it just wasn’t worth it and the food was overall mediocre. Point is don’t come here for the service, no one in the building has a sense of urgency or really cares, make sure you have a reservation, preferably only 2 of you, and be ready to wait a while for everything. I hope we had an off experience and this isn’t representative of how it normally is but either way I won’t be back...