Fratellos Hot Dogs — Restaurant in Lakemoor

Wasn’t going to write a review because i’ll never be back if I am in the area again but had to give a warning to others.

Do yourself a favor and taste test the water from their fountain drinks before you put pop into your cup. The water tasted like pure iron/blood and was nauseating. If you drink their pop you’re just masking that flavor with syrup. Idk if maybe they serve well water there and that’s where the flavor is coming from but I much prefer some sort of distilled/purified flavor.

Food is like a generic portillos, cheese sauce is identical to portillos, but the rest taste like a mix between portillos and pops beef. Yes it is cheaper but what you save is not worth the lack of quality flavor. The burger bun is very dense and although they are fresh, the size of the bun makes the sandwich taste almost stale. The beef meat is good, hot giardinera also good, bread was fresh but the au jus is lacking and had an off putting flavor. Fries were good. Drinks of choice were water, can’t imagine soda tastes much better since water is the base for that.

Service was very fast, lines inside and out moved quicker than i’ve seen at most places.

Overall, I am usually very open minded with food places and given the rave reviews I figured it can’t be that bad but i’d honestly rather drive an extra 20/30 minutes out of the way to get portillos quality and flavor than this dupe.

Either my taste buds are biased or the people who rave about this place are settling for less to save...

I know this sounds crazy... This is the one place that actually competes properly with portillo's, the one thing they definitely are losing on is the shakes, you can't beat the portillo's cake shake. Especially since fertile's doesn't offer that. However, the Italian beef is very juicy and fantastic and debatably sometimes better than portillo's. And I say this with no exception. However, as well, 2.0 however, the fries are definitely better at fratellos. There is no doubt about that. The fries are better at fratello's than portillo's. However, however, however 3.0, you all set to factor in the however of however, the cheese has improved very drastically at fratello's and is so much like portillo's. It's basically the same cheese now almost, but portillo's is still better because it isn't actually the same cheese however. But I give this five stars because it is the only other place that sells them time beef that I will say I sometimes enjoy more than portillo's which is absolutely insane and crazy to actually say out loud in my car which is where I am using voice to talk to make this insanely long, crazy whack. However, type of review this is. Anyways,...

Called no answer. Wanted catering. 2lbs beef and a pint of giardinara. My favorite place since I was about 10. 24 years later. Unlikely to go back. Called the next day. No answer. Says go online to order. I go online. Can’t order catering. I go 20 mins to go into restaurant and order. Wait in a ten minute line. They say they r too busy to do beef by the pound. I said I just want to order and come back later for it. They repeated they r too busy. Possibly the worst customer experience I could imagine. Absolutely no care for the customer. They r happy they r busy and quality and customer do not matter

In response to your response...how can i call three days in advance if no one answers. I drove 20minutes to place in person and they wouldn’t. Call says go online. Online says call for catering. Maybe you have some small info showing email but clearly it says call and go online. There is no excuse for not being able to take an order in person. They didn’t know I needed an hour. Maybe I would’ve waited three days as it was just for my family. No one even said that. Just made me walk out in embarrassment without saying a word other than they...