Hackney's on Lake — Restaurant in Northfield Township

I can never quite figure out how this place manages to stay in business. Walking into the restaurant on a Saturday evening on a holiday weekend, half of the rooms are empty. The clientele primarily consists of large family gatherings which can't possibly happen that often, and I don't see how that is a sustainable business model. The place is not the cleanest, with filthy ceiling vents and carpets which probably haven't been cleaned thoroughly in this decade.

The drink menu was barely noticable, just a small QR code in the corner of the paper menu which was nearly covered by the water glass placed at each seat. I had to point it out to other members of my party. With the clientele primarily being 70+, solely having a tiny QR code menu probably isn't the best idea. Plus, the drink menu isn't even accurate! There was no white zinfandel on offer, despite the menu listing as such. The laughter of it all is the drink menu is a Google doc which would take zero seconds to update. If you don't have something in stock, just delete it off of the Google doc. That simple!

The regular food menu wasn't accurate either. The website lists mini sliders being available, but upon trying to order them in the restaurant, the waitress said they weren't on the menu anymore. Only on the kids menu. Once again, a simple update to the website would fix this.

The food quality was mediocre, but I went in with this expectation. I didn't order a burger and I was glad that I made that choice, since the burgers are TINY for what they charge for them. Might as well rename all of the burgers on the menu to be mini sliders if that's the amount of meat someone will get. I ordered the tomato, avocado and cheese sandwich. Basically it was an overpriced grilled cheese, the type you'd get for half the price at a diner at 2am while drunk. It was fine, but not for what I got charged for it. The best part of my meal was the beer, as all food looks infinitely more appetizing after drinking. But I digress. Others at my table indulged in the famous onion brick, but I value my intestinal health and opted to obstain from eating this traditional Hackney's delicacy. It also came to the table with the order receipt still on the plate with the onion brick, which didn't really help with the overall presentation.

In my opinion, it would probably be best to close the location on Lake and keep the Harms location open, because at least Harms has a nice historical ambiance. I still wouldn't voluntarily go there, but I think consolidating to one location would be a better business practice at this...

As a member of a party of 4 who went to Hackney's based on a recommendation, I am highly disappointed. Right out of the gate, we were asked to place our drink orders and we hadn't even sat down, much less been handed a menu. Our waitress admitted she was new, but the foibles continued. I will not list them given we were trying to be understanding of her obvious lack of experience. We ordered the onion loaf and were not given a knife with which to cut it. By the time our server remembered our request for a knife (no less than 2 asks, I might add), the onion loaf was a lukewarm, gelatinous and crunchy mess. I ordered the sirloin and was served a chewy and rather tasteless steak. The accompaniments of potato and asparagus were barely, if at all, seasoned as well. The general consensus from my table was that our food was rather bland. The entire experience was uninspired and forgivable, until we realized our waitress had left. She hadn't checked on us after our meal was served by another, hadn't inquired after we were clearly done eating and basically ghosted us when we really just wanted to leave. We had to flag down another employee to ask for our check. She waived us off and said she didn't have time (the restaurant was almost empty at this point). We said no, we just wanted to leave and pay our bill. She begrudgingly returned and assisted with payment. Meanwhile, we see (from our window view) our original waitress heading to her car. That was the first we had seen of her in over 40 minutes. This dining experience was not one that will be given a second chance to be redeemed. We could have looked beyond the mediocre food as the kitchen having an off night. However, the server abandonment and attitude we received to pay our bill was inexcusable. The saddest thing was that 1 of our party had fond memories of eating at this restaurant in previous years. The taste and quality of the food was nothing as she remembered. Would...

My family has been going the Hackney's for 50 years. Grew up going to the Wheeling location, then switched to Lake Zurich when we moved up north. Over the last couple of years prior the the closing of the Lake Zurich restaurant, the quality started to go down hill, and the old timers on the staff seemed to care less. None the less, we still came for the onions. Much better when ordered "loose and crispy". After not going for a couple of years and now living in Wisconsin, we decided to make the long drive down and go to the Lake street location. I figured that it's been there for so long it would be like the old days. Boy was I wrong. Our burgers were terribly dry, and under cooked. I ordered mine medium well and it came out medium rare. The worst part was how over cooked the onions were. That famous rich, sweet flavor was completely absent and just tasted burned. We ended up having three servers help us. The first said our waitress was busy but would be happy to get our drinks and appetizer. She was very nice. Then our regular server came took our order. She couldn't have been any colder with the attitude. For the rest of our meal the third waitress helped us out. She was great and very nice. Finally the one that was supposed to be doing everything came with the check and we never saw her again. Two burgers, onion rings, small order of potato skins, and two drinks...$90.00 before the tip. You can get filets at some steak houses for that. It's a shame that a long time fixture in the north west suburbs, famous for their food and service, has sunk to this level. I guess the upside of our experience has shown they're no longer worth the trip. Sadly, I believe I'll never crave a Hackney burger again, and on this night we wished we would have gone to Super Dog in Wheeling. They still know how to do it...