Jack in the Box — Restaurant in Lake in the Hills

I am honestly surprised at all the low ratings on this one. I am not one to leave a rating for fast food typically but I felt I needed to this time. We had our first experience here on Monday 10/6/25 around 12-12:30ish lunch time and frankly it was great! I went inside to order, I love the kiosk option to order and that it lets you pay at cashier with cash for this vs only card, most places like the Golden Arches don’t let you do that, you must pay card to use it (annoying). Anyway I had the single smashburger I believe it was called and it was pretty busy I will say, but it was lunch time. I felt the crew on shift that day did excellent. Everyone was working, place was clean and orders in my opinion came out in a reasonable about of time for being “made to order”. As I was waiting the few minutes for my order to come up, the lady calling the numbers was SO POLITE, like I was floored bc you don’t see this in fast food. Looked like she was the manager (had on a black shirt). She was just so nice. Anything anyone needed she was doing it, she was helping her team and customers, and SMILING while doing it! Again in my experience this is rare in fast food. Then one worker in particular (I do wish I had gotten his name) there was an older lady waiting for her food looked like she was on her lunch break and she wasn’t sure where to look on her receipt for the number when it was called, this young man behind the counter, not sure what his initial job was that day but it wasn’t at the counter based on the gloves and hair net but he saw her looking confused and took the 30 seconds to come over to the counter and said “ma’am can I help you?” She said oh yes please, can you show me what number I am looking for? She said of course I can (SMILING) he showed her and about 2 minutes later her order came out and he personally brought it over to her and smiled and said “is there anything else I can get you?” She asked for extra sauce or whatnot and he happily got it for her and wished her the best day. I saw this and it just literally warmed my heart, the employee had to be maybe in really 20’s late teens maybe…not 100% but it was just so nice to see, especially now a days. He made that lady’s day I could tell! Again it was refreshing to see. My order was up, I’d say I waited maybe 5-7 minutes; again not a big deal they were very busy at this hour and all working as fast as they could. The lady called my number so the a smile and I to was asked if there was anything else. I said no thanks and she wished me to have the best day. Again this was refreshing in today’s times especially for fast food. From my experience here everyone appeared to be happy to be there and working. The place was clean and seemed to be running as intended.

My burger was very good! Loved it! I only got the sandwich but it was tasty. Whatever the sauce was on it 100% perfection IMO on taste. I was full after eating it. I will stop in again, when I am in this area for my Costco runs. Again I was in awe how polite everyone was. It was refreshing, I repeat that bc you truly don’t see it much anymore; especially...

We drove almost an hour to this location (closest one to where we live) . Seeing that they opened over a month ago we were very disappointed when we arrived to a 40 min drive thru line and no dine in! If you go to the Jack in the Box website to see the menu for this location, Lake in the Hills doesn't show up. If you Google this specific location and go to their website, the menu still doesn't work. You can see different categories, but when you click on the category nothing happens. There was a person taking orders from each car, but he was nowhere near the menu board. We didn't know exactly what we wanted since we had planned on dining inside. The guy handed us a menu card that was barely readable and unless we could pick what we wanted in about a min, we were told we could go out of line and come back which would have made the long wait even longer. We had already been waiting in the lineup a while at this point so we threw together an order. When we finally reached the pick up window, we were offered 1 cup of water instead of the three we asked for. There were clearly three of us in the car. We were told they're supposed to charge for water! We were not told that by the person we gave our order to. We were given three waters, but we saw someone walk out to the guy taking orders and wondered if he was being corrected. Charging for water is in very poor taste, especially after making people wait that long in a drive thru line! After we got our order we ate in our car in the parking lot since we weren't driving an hour home with the food. It wasn't until we started pulling food out of the bag that we realized we weren't given any napkins. The tacos we remember come with sauce on them. These did not, which wouldn't be an issue, but we we weren't offered any nor were we offered ketchup for the other food. I don't know how they're going to last if they are this slow and unorganized after a full month. It'll be a while before we decide to go back any time soon.

Update: Jack in the Box responded to my review and sent a link to get more information about my visit. The link brought me to a survey which got stuck before I could pull up a location and fill...

First time trying Jack in the Box. We knew we were in for a wait when the line was all the way to Randall Rd., but we waited about an hour and 15 to get our food. By this point, they should be a little quicker, but I guess we did choose to stay, so it’s on us. They did have a guy outside telling everyone they were understaffed. Hey, maybe send that guy inside to have more staff and get the food out quicker? Just a thought, but seeing that he was basically just standing in parking lot doing nothing but giving that message seems a bit inefficient. Maybe make a giant sign “Drive Through Only! Long Wait, etc.” Now for an honest review of food. We ordered 3 of the classic smashburgers but customized two of them and unfortunately, both were wrong. The curly fries were fine but the regular fries were not hot and tasted like soap (hey, maybe that means hands are clean? 🤣). The curly fries had a hair in them, so that was unfortunate as well. We also ordered chicken tenders which were fine, but pretty standard, nothing crazy. The classic smashburger with no customizations was the best thing, so maybe that is the key, take things as they are. Drinks were pretty watered down and flat, but were drinkable. Would we go again? Probably not, but had to try it. We did find it entertaining to see all the people try to bypass the drive through line to go inside, only to be told no as drive through was only option. Watching that all unfold maybe made it all worth it. I think we have figured out the strategy. Create hype by making people wait in long lines; they will be so hungry by the time they get their food; they won’t care if it’s...