Chesapeake Seafood House — Restaurant in Illinois

On March 16th my spouse and I called at 5:45 pm asking for an estimated wait time. I was told 20-30 minutes. We arrived at 6:00 and were told the wait was 30-35 minutes. Ok fine. We sat at the bar and had a drink. The bartender was fantastic! She seemed to handle that bar with grace and a smile. She didn’t miss a beat! At 6:45 we noticed several walk ins that arrived at the same time as (party of 4 )being sat down. Finally at 7:20 I went to the host stand and asked what our estimated time was, we were told an hour. At this point it was over an hour. The host was rude, he told us he never should have taken our name down when we came. He said he would try to have us sat soon. We waited another 20 minutes and decided to leave. When we went back to the host stand to say we were leaving, the host immediately said “I AM DOING ALL I CAN, YOU HAVE TO WAIT!”. He did not even let us say we were leaving.

We are not people to complain but definitely felt we were mistreat yesterday. Neither of us have ever been to Chesapeake. Not the best first impression.

I have reached out to Chesapeake managers several times and have had no response. I called on Tuesday March 26th to make a reservation for March 30th and I was told I could not make a reservation that early in the week and to call the day of. So how exactly do you get seated at this place?!

UPDATE! I called on March 30th and was told they...

It was definitely a mixed bag. My wife and I started with the Stuffed Mushrooms and they were excellent. My wife had a Chocolate Martini she said it was good, I had an Old Fashioned, it tasted like they forgot the Whiskey. My wife got the Lobster Tail and Shrimp Scampi she said they was very tasty. We both got the salad with Walnut Raspberry dressing also very good. We both got the Augratin Potatoes, they weren't bad just not what we expected. My entre was the Signature Black Angus Filet and Stuffed Shrimp. I ordered the steak medium, while it was tender, it was dry and bland, the stuffed shrimp was very good. All the wait staff was extremely busy. We didn't see much of ours, we saw him when he took our orders and when he brought out appetizer, drinks, and entre. He didn't ask if we wanted another drink, he never asked how everything was. He did refill our water when he brought out the appetizer. I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt, he was extremely busy, I tipped him $20, a little over 20%. From their website I was expecting a little more upscale experience. The prices were extremely reasonable, and as someone stated on here the clientele made it feel a little more like Captain D's, dang that sounds snobby. I told my wife I got the impression they at one time tried to be upscale and possibly during and after Covid had to lower the prices to stay busy and attract a...

I really want to give it 5 stars just because of the service but it just didn’t match the hype. It’s a super cool building and the interior is pretty neat, but even with reservations we got very familiar with the lobby. 45 minutes after our scheduled 7:30pm time we were finally seated. I’m guessing the kitchen or wait staff were short staffed because there were quite a few empty tables when we finally got into the dining room.

Our waitress was incredibly sweet and very attentive; kept our drinks full and the table clean.

Food took nearly another 40-45 minutes after we ordered (talk about being hungry once our meals arrived). Bread service was fine - miniature white bread loaf with margarine. Some real butter on anything other than white bread would be nice. But I also realize that is just the way they do it.

My wife’s salad was a simple lettuce salad, nothing “fancy”. Her lobster was a little chewy and her shrimp was room temperature. But after waiting almost two hours to eat, we just powered through. I opted for the au gratin potatoes for my side, but man they had no flavor to them. Fortunately I got the garlic and Parmesan shrimp dish - hot and yummy!

Go if you haven’t been and want to say you’ve been (and can get reservations). Like I said, it’s a neat place. But eat a snack...