Willow Café and Bistro — Restaurant in Lake View Township

Had a horrible experience here this weekend and won't be back. We showed up at 12:30pm on Saturday and it was super busy so we weren't surprised when our order of smash burgers didn't come out quickly. What was surprising is they came out as breakfast burgers. We tried to tell the man who brought us out our food - not our original server - that we ordered burgers from the lunch menu but he didn't listen at all and just took the food away. 10-15 minutes later he brought out basically the same thing - burgers with eggs on them. Again I tried to tell him we wanted burgers off the lunch menu and they shouldn't have eggs on them when he snapped at me THERE IS YOUR EGG! I still said calmly - that's part of the problem! We didn't order breakfast!

He took the food away again obviously angry for no reason - it was a simple, honest mistake that could have been easily rectified if he would have taken 10 seconds to listen to what we were saying. Then he came back and put his hand in my face, yelling at me, "You ordered breakfast burgers and now you don't want them! FINE!" and walked away. We were FLOORED - it was so rude! For him to assume that we ordered something that we decided we didn't want once we got it was so wild.

Finally what we actually ordered came out and he dropped it angrily on the table over an hour after we originally ordered. Our original server then finally came back over and apologized for entering our order in wrong but by that time we weren't having it. He should have been over to clarify the order AGES ago. It was an honest mistake that could easily happen when you have two different burgers on the menu, and with a little patience and kindness from the staff I wouldn't be writing this review at all.

Our burgers were taken...

Other than sitting with family because we are from out of town, nothing was very pleasant. We got there at 2:40p, there was no paper towels in the bathroom to begin our visit. Our server didn’t seem to sure of much. He didn’t understand us speaking English very well either so that was difficult. We had 2 vegans sitting at the table so we ordered the vegan smash burgers, one with truffle fries one with regular. The truffle fries were served with a non vegan sauce. In general I would never order that burger again. I’m assuming in house made patties, unsure because the menu does not state that. They were mushy and lacked any flavor. It had a huge piece of limp lettuce that I took the majority of off. The sauce was just a spot on the bun but was also burnt because it was put on the grill after putting it on the bun, unsure of that process as well. In whole the burger was dry and tasteless, I had to use half a bottle of ketchup to eat only 3/4 of it with one patty, took the other one off. Luckily the fries were half way ok so I could eat those. I ordered a blackberry mule, which I didn’t receive until we reminded the server and then I got it and it was wrong. So when I told him it wasn’t the correct one, he didn’t understand until I explained it 3 times. The atmosphere was not great, the bathroom had a weird smell and it was so quiet in there everyone could hear every word we spoke at the table. I love trying new places and new vegan food but this left me totally bummed and upset that is what I ate during my trip to Chicago, I know there is such good...

This was probably one of the most disappointing experiences I have had in a very long time. The service that I received was appalling. I went right before 6pm on a week night and sat outside on a beautiful evening. The restaurant was not busy by any means, however the server seemed to rush us. I ordered a chicken dish and was not happy with it. It tasted like low quality meat hidden inside a sauce. When the server checked on our meal, I asked to order another entreé in addition to the one I had. I did not complain about the food, I did not return it, I simply asked for something additional. She put my order in, didn’t ask if I wanted another glass of wine (which I did) and she stomped off. 45 min would go by and she never returned to our table. The bussers were kind enough to get our items cleared and a to go box, but we sat and sat and sat. Finally, we asked another server to please close out our check and provided our credit card. About 10 min later, our server came to our table and SLAMMED the check with our CC on the table. She didn’t speak, she slammed and walked away. I was in SHOCK by her behavior. Lincoln square has a ton of restaurants, those staffed by people that care about their guests experience. They deserve business, not Willow. I recommend NO ONE...