Buttermilk Cafe — Restaurant in Vernon Hills

Both my wife and I were very excited to give this restaurant a try. Sadly we won’t be back. The food is good, and HUGE portions, but the service and managements lack of response left a bad taste in my mouth. We Arrived at 9:00am for a 9:10am reservation, and were promptly seated.

The restaurant was busy, but no busier than any other place we’ve been to like WildBerry, Liberty, and the many other great breakfast places.

After getting seated, out waitress asked if we wanted anything besides water. One Diet Coke and a cup of coffee was ordered. 10 min later the drinks arrived. Then waitress walked away to give bills to someone else, at this point we had been there for a good 15-20 min and hadn’t even ordered yet.

We give our orders finally, a bowl of Yogurt(The Parfait), a side of bacon, and a biscuit and scrambled egg with breakfast potatoes.

Not in a hurry, we didn’t really mind waiting to a point. But after drinking my coffee and sitting with an empty cup for another 15 min all while the waitress walked past us at least 6 times and not once stopped or looked to see how we were doing or refill the coffee.

Eventually, after my wife made a comment about this being a bit ridicules and as the people are thinning out, tables becoming open and such, the waitress come up with a coffee pot for me and lets us know it won’t be much longer and sorry for the delay, it was busy.

So after sitting there for well over an hour, two cups of coffee served, the waitress comes back, blames the kitchen and new computer system, and eventually lets us know she let the manager know.

Another 10 min and the yogurt and scrambled eggs with biscuit are delivered with the manager saying sorry for the delay, enjoy. I make a comment about it was sad that it took almost hour and half to get a yogurt. He said what? Oh you should have let me know earlier. (Huh?! Maybe the manager should be more aware of the situation happening at his restaurant, I’m not one to complain, but that comment was a slap in the face blaming Me for not complaining to him)

Trust me, not one looking for a discount, and NOPE none given, nor any other acknowledgement by the manager to see how the food was, ask if we needed anything, nothing. The waitress even commented on how it was insane it took so long for a yogurt.

So needless to say, I left the waitress a 15% tip(been a waiter, and know they make living off of cash tips), paid our bill and left with a bad taste in our mouths about the experience.

I’m truly bummed as I don’t get out often and was looking forward to trying this place, so while the food is good, management and poor service ruined any chance of...

First visit w/spouse, I would give it 5 stars as loved the heated outdoor tent, food, and service as it was top notch. Food was the best, as was service. In particular, loved to be able to eat outdoors, given the pandemic.

However, I was excited to take our extended family of 10 to eat outdoors too! I called to see if they took reservations for a party of 10 outside and she said yes. I said I’d call right back after I confirmed w/my party of 10. After I confirmed with my excited party of 10 (who were mainly senior citizens who flew in to town and had to catch their flights back later that day), I called Buttermilk (Vernon Hills) right back and got a different lady who said they didn’t take reservations. She said I had to go on to Yelp later to put my name in to see about reserving a table but it wasn’t open yet on Yelp. I said that sounded so complicated (and I don’t have the app and Yelp always seem to make you download their annoying app) and asked why she could not just take the reservation for 2.5 hours later, but she said they couldn’t because it had to go through Yelp once the Yelp system opened and I would have to check in an hour or so again on Yelp. Really? However Yelp said to call the restaurant for a party more than 7 when I took the time to check on Yelp right after I spoke with the second lady.

I then spoke w/ a manager who said too the restaurant could not make a reservation outside even though I mentioned it was for mainly seniors who had to catch flights today and we were concerned for covid safety etc. so wanted to sit outside. I explained it would be a fairly large tab with a party of 10 but he didn’t seem to care, so I said we’d eat elsewhere. Actually glad another restaurant will be getting our money that gladly took our reservation. The Buttermilk manager mentioned indoor might be possible or something but I said we needed outdoor again because of Covid safety. Hence the 2 star review. So totally frustrated with this experience of Buttermilk making it so complicated to reserve space outside for a group of 10 mainly senior citizens (and they don’t use Yelp), that I’d give it 1 star but am being generous with the 2 stars. I would think this restaurant might want to think a little out of the box if it wants to retain, or get new customers, in these times given Covid, seniors, and we are all trying to figure pandemic thing this out. Directing someone to Yelp to reserve a table, when Yelp doesn’t allow for that (for a party more than 7), is...

This breakfast place is located in Melody Farm. We came here looking for a nice brunch place to eat at. The ambiance is very nice. Clean and modern and super cute. There is an outdoor patio for outside dining if you want but it was hot so we were seated inside. The hostess forgot to give us the coffee bar menu so we had to ask our waitress. She then took our drink orders. I ordered a milkacino, which is a frozen espresso beverage (like a frappucino) and I asked for coconut and white chocolate flavor. It was good. It wasn't icy, had good amount of sweetness and I liked the flavor. We then ordered the red rooster skillet and upgraded our pancakes to the cinnamon roll pancakes (2.50 upcharge). The cinnamon roll pancakes were so good! There's a cinnamon swirl in the pancake and it's topped with cream cheese icing. The red rooster skillet has a sweet potato base, chorizo, green pepper, onion, queso fresco, avocado, and is topped with 2 eggs. The sweet potatoes are cut into huge chunks which I didn't like and they were so soft and mushy instead of being like a crispy potato. It didn't really pair well with the rest of the dish and we found ourselves wishing we asked for regular potatoes instead. The avocado wasn't ripe but the eggs were cooked well. Overall the dish wasn't that spicy either. But the soggy potatoes really ruined it

My complaint is with their service. After being given our food, our waitress didn't check on us once. I wanted to ask for syrup for my pancakes, and so I waited until she would walk by but she never did, or was in such a rush that she didn't even see that we wanted to make a request. It got to the point where we had run out of drink and needed a refill, but still she didn't come. After finishing our skillet and waiting forever with our untouched pancakes, she made a quick stop to where I could ask her for syrup and when she came out, she quickly walked by our table, setting it down without even looking at us. We still needed to ask for a drink refill but she didn't even acknowledge us when handing us our syrup because she seemed to be in such a rush. And the thing is, the restaurant didn't even seem that busy. We were very disappointed with...