Gale Street Inn Chicago — Restaurant in Jefferson Township

Had a really bad experience this evening trying to come in for dinner tonight. My pregnant wife and I were planning on walking in with our 1 year old son for dinner this evening and as we pulled into the parking lot I told her let me run into the restaurant to confirm they can take walk-ins since no one answered the phone when we called. I came in and stood around by the front desk and no one came to check on me after a minute or two so I walked partially into the restaurant to see if someone could help me. A member of the staff finally saw me and said someone would be with me and I asked if they had any tables open to accommodate 2 adults and 1 child and the guy told me 'yes' they had enough tables to accommodate. Based off that I called my wife and told her to come in and that they would take us. A minute later an older guy who said he's the 'owner/manager' tells me that the other staff member is a bus boy (I thought it was a server and referred to him as a server and he corrected me as if it really matters) and shouldn't have said that to us, but that it would be about 10-15 minutes. My wife then comes in and I tell her its going to be 10-15 and we had no problem standing around waiting, especially since there was on one else waiting we thought it would be faster. The owner then comes back over to us and my wife asks to confirm the wait time and he then changes it to 15-30 minutes. I tell him that he quite literally told me a couple minutes ago it would be 10-15 and then he says "I said it would be 15" and kind of started making excuses about how he probably estimated it wrong and is trying to cover himself in case it was longer. Seems like he was fumbling and making excuses and then tells us to take a seat, but we have a hungry 1 year old with us and his attitude just was not very kind and borderline rude/condescending. He even made a comment about some of the tables that had patrons exceeding their stay being there longer than they should be literally a few feet away from their tables. After that others had walked in and he said something along the lines of "oh and here we have people with reservations" almost kind of mocking the fact that we tried to walk in without a res. We told him we not going to wait since its too long and our son cant wait that long, and he tells me yeah tonights not a good night probably some other time and gave me a pat on the back as I'm on my way out. From the comments he made, to the way he treated us and then finishing it off with giving me a pat on the back as I'm carrying my son out was enough for me to decide to leave this review and let others know about this experience. The way he handled everything ruined our night and it did not need to go down the way it did. I did not appreciate it whatsoever and after reading other reviews its clear this restaurant does not want any sort of younger children in their establishment at dinner time. A lot of the 1 star reviews actually all seem to highlight an owner of the restaurant mistreating people so I am assuming it is this same person. You do not treat people like that especially my wife who is 7 months pregnant and we had our 1 year old with us trying to have a nice dinner on this holiday weekend. I certainly wont be coming back and for anyone who is planning on trying to walk in with children for dinner you should probably expect to receive the same kind of treatment so you're better off having dinner...

I've contemplated all evening about writing this review. Here it goes. We walked in, and it took about 5 minutes for someone to come to the host stand, which is fine. I understand, but there was a lot of confusion between people who walked in after us. First time here, and we loved the atmosphere. The ukulele guy was AWESOME . We got seated, and it took about 10 minutes for someone to come around and ask us for a drink order and to bring menus around. Okay, that's all fine and totally understandable. We ordered apps, and those were great! Asked for a drink, and the waiter completely forgot. He went off and started talking to the customer who was seated next to us as he was walking out the door. Finally, after waiting 15 minutes for our drink, my fiance had to go up to him at the bar to tell him we were still waiting for our drink. Once that came, the food came out. 2 filets came out. Both pretty rare I think they got swapped with each other. It was painful to eat meat that was that raw. 3rd dish came out. Filet kabob. Incredibly over cooked so we sent it back as we didn't want to eat meat that would be near impossible to chew or swallow. Fine. The pit boss lady came out and asked us to cut into the meat as if we were lying to her. We cut into every piece to show her. They agreed and made a new one. New one came out, even more raw than the filets. The meat was literally blue when we cut into it. Ended up being comped for the kebab which we didn't even eat. The poor waiter was left out to fend for himself as the oitboss lady didn't want to show her face a second time. Overall service was just awful, he payed no attention to our table at all. food had little to no taste what so ever($48 filets tasted like plain meat no seasoning whatsoever, au gratin potatoes tasted like a plain baked potato) the Brussel sprouts were great though. Overall won't be coming back and incredibly disappointed we've heard so many good things...

Ribs fall right off the bone..... Yes, but if the meat has no flavor then what's the point? But you say it's the BBQ sauce that makes the meal.... Well isn't that the same as eating the celery stick mearely as a conveyance for the peanut butter?? Please do not make the mistake in anticipating mouth watering smoked ribs because as the menue state's right under the"RIBS" section under the "Full Rack" and the "Half Rack" in the whimsically named "Porkapalooza" section "try a sampling of our applewood smoked pork". I thought, simply enough, why try a sampling, let's go with the full meal deal!! So I ordered the ribs and BBQ chicken. When the waitress brought it to me, my olfactory could not detect a hint of true smoked bbq. She asked how it was and, trying to disguise my disappointment, I responded with the question: " this is supposed to be smoked?". To this she replied, yes, they smoke it. I continued allowing the meat to fall off the bone and into my mouth at this point searching for perhaps a whisp of smokiness.... Even if it came from Jose, sneaking a few puffs off the Marlboro Man at the back door..... Still nothing... My waitress then re-materialized at my table and informed me that no, in fact only the pork was smoked.... Errrr.... I know that I'm only a farm boy in the big city, but baby-back ribs are also closely identified as being a pork product.... And though I had a full dissertation on the origions of bacon, chops and sausage mentally prepared to shock and awe the crowd with, I chose not to embarrass her.... In the end, I only ate a portion of the ribs and chicken.... asked for my forty dollar bill and left..... Now I know there have been several people raving about the ribs on this review, and not to belittle them, but if it's true slow cooked, smoked BBQ you're looking for, please don't be disappointed when you receive super tender, fall off the bone, baked, taistless meat disguised...