Scratch On Lake — Restaurant in Oak Park

Scratch has lost me and my family as customers for good. Visited with my family of 4 over 2 weeks ago. Sad to say the quality of food has went down and the customer service unfortunately is worse.

My husband ordered a chicken sandwich (just ok) and my 2 sons order a burger each. (Their burgers are no longer thick like they used to be, just a 1oz thin smash burger for the same price). I ordered a scratch wrap which consisted of bacon, blue cheese and chicken tenders tossed in a Buffalo sauce. I asked for no cheese due to a slight dairy intolerance. The waiter explained how she wasn’t sure if the Buffalo sauce didn’t also have blue cheese blended in. I asked if she could check with the cook first. Instead all of our food was brought out and my wrap was just dry with no sauce. She explained that she told them no sauce because of the dairy but failed to confirm that with me at first. I asked if I could get something else. She agreed and said she would makes sure the wrap would be removed from the receipt. I decided to order the turkey burger. Had it before plenty of times in the past.

My turkey burger arrives and at this point my family have finished their meals. I again proceed to take a bite and notice a very pink texture. I open my burger and noticed that the meat is undercooked. Not just from the color but the texture of raw ground turkey. At this moment, I’m just ready to close out my bill and go. I alert the waiter, she apologizes and asks if she can get me anything else. I said no, my family is done eating, I haven’t eaten anything so I’ll just close the tab. She again stated she’ll ask the manager to remove off the bill.

She returns with the bill but both the wrap and burger (neither of which I ate) were still on the bill. I flagged her down to inquire and she apologized and said she would talk with the manager. Once back, my bill showed that the wrap was removed but only 25% off for the burger. I asked what happened to taking it off? She said the manager would not allow it and the most they could do was 50% off the burger. I asked to speak to said manager and out comes Johnnie(I believe that’s his name). He proceeds to tell me that they couldn’t remove the burger 100% because all their turkey burgers are pink on the inside and they have always been even though I remember them not but apparently I don’t remember anything 🤔. He then reveals he isn’t the manager, just the longest tenured employee there. They don’t have a Manager on site. 🤔 He said they spoke to a manager by phone from the FP location but he doesn’t know who or what their name is 🤔 After going back and forth to find out who so that I can email them, he finally tells me it is Caitlyn from FP. I pay my bill and leave. The email end up being wrong so I called the FP location and get another email which was also wrong. I finally emailed the info/contact email on their website and have yet to receive a response. It’s been over 2 weeks.

The lack of communication, transparency, customer service and quality of food has turned me off for good. After sharing my experience with other locals, I was surprised to hear similar experiences. Do with that information what you will but it’s a...

Update: manager has apologized and refunded meal for what it is worth. I would like to think that the surprise she had at hearing this news was because normally that dude is chill. I hope you find peace, regardless!

My wife ordered her birthday dinner on postmates for pickup. I arrived a tiny bit late, a few minutes after it was supposedly done, but was told by Evee that I had to wait because it wasn't ready and he was busy.

5 minutes later I checked back with him.

He was smelling food to see if it still was good or something.

He finally checked but seemed annoyed, reminding me he was busy.

They had received the order but never bothered telling the kitchen.

He told me hold on and grabbed a phone.

Attempt one? No one answered and he slammed the desk like an angry kid.

Attempt two got an answer but he then just complained to his real manager about a coworker getting off on time and that he was soooo busy.

(Every other employee was super calm and chill ftr.)

After the call, I had to bring the subject back up.

He offered a refund or 20 minute wait.

I asked for the refund.

He spent 5 minutes getting mad at the tech before admitting he didn't know how to do that either.

I then had a new set of options: Wait 20 minutes Call postmates and ask them for a refund, possible also taking 20 minutes

I chose to wait for the food at that point.

Then, the food was made...

This location is much nicer than the other on Madison is Forest Park. Usually they are very good, today not so much. I ordered a burger with cheddar and cheese sauce, and raw jalapenos, it came out with just the cheddar and grilled jalapenos. I pushed it aside and several minutes later they came over to ask the issue and promptly corrected the issue with the cheese. Sadly by then the fries were soggy and the burger was cold. Still they have a pretty good burger so it was somewhat worth eating. After lunch was over our server, who was very kind, noticed I had not eaten the jalapenos. I just said that I had expected them raw and he said they should have been. Urgently he rushed off to adjust the check. When it arrived they had credited my burger and my wife's Bloody Mary. This seemed a little over the top, but who is going to complain about being over compensated? So we handed over the credit card and waited to sign, then came the kicker. The server came over to apologize yet again, acknowledging they had taken too much off the bill. They sure had, we had assumed they were just trying to make things right. Finally they brought back the corrected bill which was twice the amount of the original, luckily they had credited fifty cents for the jalapeno, we signed and went on our way. Is this place generally good, yes. Today it just left a bad taste...