Vault 232 Restaurant and Bar — Restaurant in Lake Zurich

The food is fantastic. You can choose an entree and choose a side. The most common and seem preferred type of meal to order there was to order fish. You get to choose the fish, the amount that you want, how it's cooked, the type of crust and a type of sauce to go with the fish. I ordered tuna very lightly seared with wasabi sauce. It was perfectly done It tasted amazing. In some cases you get to choose a side, and others hit comes with the meal.

The service is embarrassing. When we made the reservation, the hostess taking the reservation asked if we were celebrating anything, and we said that we were celebrating our anniversary. She responded with enthusiasm and said "Wonderful, thank you for telling us that!" Our anniversary was not acknowledged at all during the entire time we were there. I'm not saying we should have got anything free, but it wasn't even acknowledged as "Happy Anniversary" by anyone. It just made us wonder "why did they even ask if you don't bother to acknowledge it?" We were able to arrive about 20 minutes before our reservation so we decided to go to the bar for a drink. The bar area was not crowded, (there was one other couple) but we could tell the bartender was a bit overwhelmed as he had to also serve a table of eight along with tending the bar. We had to wait a little longer for our drinks, but that's okay. Another group of three came in shortly after us and they had to wait close to 10 minutes at an empty bar just to order a drink. The bartender just had so much to do. We had our drink and then moved to our table Right next to the glass waterfall wall. But only half of it worked, so half of it looked wonderful the other half was just cloudy mineral stained glass. We sat near the cloudy stained glass. The restaurant was near empty, and they put us next to the ugly glass. We ordered an appetizer and another drink before our food. We received the appetizer before our drinks. (We ordered calamari so I'm not sure how long that takes to prepare) When our food came my fish came on a plate with a lemon and sauce, but that was it. My side of citrus risotto did not arrive with the fish. My wife had the opposite problem. Her wasabi side salad came and not her halibut sandwich. We are waiting for the other half of our meal to arrive... And we're waiting... And waiting. After a few more minutes, our server came and we pointed out that we haven't gotten our complete meal. Our server mentioned that the "runner" was new. (No problem, we understand). We received the remaining halves of our meal. We had empty glasses for a significant amount of time during dinner. We had both alcohol drinks and water without replenishment or refills halfway through dinner. The bathrooms were not clean. The soap dispensers were empty, and there were no paper towels in the paper towel dispensers. They had different soap pumps on either side of the sinks, and soap stains on the nice stone counters. No one had checked/maintained it for quite some time. All these problems fall back to management. It was just poorly managed that day. We asked the hostess if we could chat with the manager and just mention some of these problems. (We were celebrating our anniversary, the bartender was overwhelmed, the appearance of the waterfall glass, the bathrooms, and the service) I prefer direct feedback face-to-face. I could see the hostess talk to the manager and the manager wave her away. We never had a chance to speak with the manager that night. It's unfortunate because this community is extremely hopeful for a restaurant like this in the downtown area. It's got a long leash and a lot of patience from customers. The food is amazing. The theme is unique and the decor is eye-catching. The service is terrible for a white table cloth type of restaurant that the owners want it to be. This all falls under how this restaurant is managed. This doesn't seem like an isolated incident judging by some...

Dined here with friends on a late Thurs afternoon. We came for happy hour at 4:15 PM. We chose to sit at a table in the bar area. Our server was efficient, but had a snippy attitude in general. She brought us regular menus and went over the seafood specials with us and told us that if we ordered fish, we could have it cooked any way we want it - blackened, with lemon and garlic, oven baked, etc. Took our drink orders. When she came back with our drinks, she asked if we had any questions about the menu. One of my dining companions asked if we could see the happy hour menu. Interesting that this wasn't brought to us until we asked. We could only surmise that this is done on purpose, to get you to order from the regular menu ($$).

My husband and I started out by ordering a salted pretzel from the regular menu (small plates). We were surprised when we were brought pretzel nuggets, not a large pretzel.

We then ordered our food. My husband ordered 1/2 lb of rainbow trout. He asked the server how this fish was best cooked out of all their options - what was her recommendation. She blinked at him and merely repeated the cooking options. Once we had our order in, she came back and told my husband they were out of rainbow trout. So he chose 1/2 lb of walleye.

Our food was brought out by runner #2 (pretzel brought out by another food runner). She was confused by mine and my friend's taco orders. My friend was supposed to have sour cream, but it wasn't on the tacos. My tacos were ordered and served without sour cream. She was going to take BOTH orders of tacos back. We had to tell her no, instead just bring a little cup of sour cream for my friend. Our food was very good - this is where I'd give 4.5 stars. The grouper tacos were delish as far as the fish, but if they had avocado on them (which I ordered), I didn't see any. Also, the tacos were served in a single corn tortilla, which kept falling apart. Learn from mexican restaurants - corn tortillas should always be doubled. One of my friends had the chicken waffle sandwich and he said it was one of the best he'd ever had. The side veggies were hot, crisp and flavorful. My husband said his walleye was good.

At 6:10, our server came over and told us that we were going to have to move to the bar; that our table was being taken down because a band was going to set up. We were surprised, because we had no idea this was going to be happening. We declined sitting at the bar and decided to leave. We were winding things up anyway and were going to leave soon, but we wish the host that seated us had've told us this in advance and perhaps we would've chosen somewhere else to sit.

Lastly, when we got home and looked over our receipt (we simply split it in half with our dining friends when we were there, since we were rushed at the end), we saw that my husband was charged almost $25 for 1/2 lb of walleye! We're assuming the server mistakenly entered in the price for a lb of walleye. He definitely was not SERVED a lb.

I would like to come back to give this place a 2nd chance for happy hour/date night because the food was good and we liked the ambiance, too. At least now we know to ask for the happy hour menu up front, where not to sit, and to look over our receipt...

Acoustically, it is very loud here (interior design did not take sound/noise into consideration).

With the exception of 1 dish (party of 12) the food was either bland or awful. The first glass of ale (tap served at bar) was cold & tasted good, the second served at the table was not (maybe the glass was just washed, but not rinsed well?). Waitress spilled a glass of beer on me & the seat next to me (fortunately that person had not been sitting there at the time), but did not offer to cover the cost to clean the clothing nor to get towels to wipe off the wet skin.

Mango Habanero Cauliflower was good.

Not good: Green Apple Goat - bland w uncooked dense/ flavorless flatbread Calamari - lots of so so crispy breading, little meat & oddly chunky bland dipping sauce Pork Chop - bitter char w awful aftertaste Pecanha Top Sirloin - so bland & overcooked Cold Lobster Roll - cold sweet potato fries (flavor was good). Roll was cut in half vs down middle (bad) & lobster mixture was small, wet, had 2 small shell bits & was nearly flavorless Grouper House Tacos - fish was whole, not diced, & dry/bland (despite one order requested as blackened) Scallop Risotto - scallops were ok, risotto was mushy, dry & bland Calabrian Pasta - was mushy

We were asked if we wanted dessert & a big NO from the table out of fear for how bad that might be.

Okay, maybe we should have known better: The first red flag was that we were able to reserve a table for 12 at 7p on Sat, Aug 26.

Second red flag was the sweet hostess looking confused about being asked about the reservation on her screen at 6:40p (thankfully we were early & there were a lot of open tables) & not having the reservation ready until 7:15 (we reminded her that everyone was there at 7p & were told "ok, come back in 10 min").

Third red flag was the small, dark haired man (one patron said the person that was shouting was the manager) repeatedly yelling "where the F is the IPad?" to the bar staff as we were heading to the bar to order cocktails & wait for our other fam members. The customers in the entire bar area were staring at this guy, and yet he kept yelling.

Fourth & fifth red flags were the spilled beer & terrible food/ drink experience referenced above.

fortunately the owners didn't open this place in an area like Arlington heights or St. Charles/Geneva, as they'd be closed in less time than it took...