AV Anthony's — Restaurant in Lake Township

I used to come to Anthony's years ago when I lived in the area. Loved the classic big baby burger, so the other day when I was visiting the old neighborhood I decided to stop by for one. I hate to say it, but I was a bit let down.

I ordered a big baby with a side of cheese fries, a Chicago style dog, and a chilli cheese dog. First off the fries were very good, tasted hot n' salty, just perfect! The cheese unfortunately was never that great, kind of a shame to see it hasn't been changed to a different recipe, but I got it cause I love me some cheese fries. For cheese lovers, best way I can describe it is it's one of those flavors of cheese that has little to no flavor.. if that makes sense. Like yeah it's hot cheese sure, buuuut do you TASTE the cheese? Not really. Moving on.

Chicago dog was good, but the chilli cheese dog? Hoo boy. So the cheese is the same that comes with the cheese fries which is expected and fine I guess, but the chilli!.. the chilli was.. I uh never had chilli like this.. it tasted burnt, like the lowest grade gas station type chilli you could imagine. With every bite I was like "this is not gonna end well for me is it?..". Luckily and magically I was not effected that much by it, but uhhhh yeah.. not getting that again.

Now for a dash of positive vibes! For one the place itself is looking very clean and kept up with. Still has that vintage grease joint vibe, but at the same time a tad modern with the new led light signs. My girl was with me and she had a vanilla milkshake, now that was pretty good! Loved seeing how they added a lot of flavors too. Interested in the mint Oreo one. Mayyyyyyybe next time.. if there is a next time... Because... The next bit I'm about to tell you is undoubtedly the most disappointing part...

The big baby. You've seen pics in other reviews so I'm sadly not mentioning anything new I suppose, but their big baby is ANYTHING but big. What have they done!? I took 1 bite, no meat. A second bite, a little of the toppings. A 3RD BITE, Finally a sliver of meat. I was baffled, took off the top bun and was shocked. Again look at the pics of what other people are posting about this, but my goodness the Patty's are SUPER SMALL, squeezed together and pathetic looking.

WHAT.. HAPPENED HERE!? I know it sounds like I'm being dramatic, but for a place that I always loved back when I lived in the neighborhood, to come back after all this time and see how the mighty have fallen, the sight alone of this "big" baby.. was flabbergasting.

Woefully I took a few more bites and eventually finished it. While yes at the very least when you get to all the toppings and two miniature patties in there it is the same great taste that big baby's are known for, but the impact is so miniscule. I hate to give the food 2 stars, but gosh darn Anthony's fix this man!! You used to be better than this.

And with that I'm sorry to say that while the service was good (still charging for refills huh.. lol) and the atmosphere was clean and friendly, the food itself left so much to be desired. We showed up around noon, ya know lunch time and while we ate inside 2 to 3 people at most visited and left. That speaks volumes as well I suppose.

Please Anthony's, don't take this review to harshly. I want you all to improve and do better! Granted I did not taste a regular burger so maybe the patty(s) could be bigger on those, but still at the end of the day things could have been a lot more fulfilling.

Finger crossed for...

Me and a colleague of mine wanted to try a different restaurant, other than our regular restaurants in the area. We agreed to AV Anthony's after mutually agreeing on an item featured on their menu. Looking at the menu online, it reminded me of Portillo's Hot Dogs due to its similarities in items on the menu, which consisted of burgers, subs, tacos, salads, soups, pizza puffs, gyros, ribs, chicken, seafood, and hot dogs. And I was blown away to find that its restaurant sold beer which I did not catch while ordering online, but caught while picking up our order.

I called to place our order and was immediately put on hold for 4-minutes until the call eventually dropped! I called back immediately and waited an additional 4-minutes then I eventually hung up. Since that did not work, I gave it another try but this time ordering online which failed at first because it did not take my credit card. I then switched to the option to pay once I arrived which was timely but eventually went through. With that whole experience I recommend ordering from the website instead of calling to place your order unless you want to be placed on hold for who knows how long.

We ended up ordering 2 Fish sandwiches w/ fries after viewing pictures of it shared on Yelp. And we ordered with the preference of them being two separate fish orders w/ fries, but little did we know that we would receive 2 Fish sandwiches w/ only one order of fries. Prior to me leaving to pick up our order, another one of my colleagues added to the order which ended up being the BBQ Rib tips. The mind boggling part about picking up our order was the restaurant was empty and it did not look busy which does not make sense because of what I dealt with while trying to order. Very unsat!

In closing, yes! I would order from AV Anthony's again, but I would be very cautious of what I order because of this experience. This whole situation could have been prevented if there were some sort of a verbal confirmation after we ordered online, but how do you contact a restaurant that continues to put you on hold? I went from being excited to order from here to being disappointed with the process it took, and...

Been coming here since elementary days with friends, we would bike it here to eat. I’m in my 20’s now. Haven’t stopped by in year since the last time I came. Today I stopped by after work to get some ice cream with a friend, First thing that I was greeted to, “we can’t have bikes in here, you have to leave it outside” not even a hello or please. I would happily leave my bike out as well but if it gets stolen, then what ? I offered simple solutions, but was meet with more arguments about a bike ? Yet I’m a paying customer ? I offered can I just order ice cream and I’ll leave it in the patio, it’s semi locked up there or the corner section of the restaurant leading out to the patio and be the best out of people’s way if need be there was a sudden rush of customers. The woman at the register just wasn’t having it, and saying hoping the owner doesn’t call her complaining about the bike inside. Mind you it’s about 3 pm on a Sunday. I only seem maybe 3 or 2 other parties dinning in. Love the food, always got the big baby with grilled onions! But honestly after that I really didn’t want the ice cream anymore. We used to always be able to park our bikes in the patio since they didn’t put locks on before but I noticed today that it was a lock on the outside so I couldn’t really go through the patio and avoided this. Would love to have any feedback from the owner.

Update: with the response from the owner, will come back one day, and felt like a genuine response from Nick so thank you for hearing me out! I worked in the food industry at an Italian restaurant downtown Chicago and work in customer service (5 years to this day) I understood she was trying to do her job but compassion and understanding would’ve...