Lazy Dog Restaurant & Bar — Restaurant in Vernon Hills

I brought a group of 14 here for dinner, never having tried the place before. The place was packed on a Wednesday evening—a good sign. Clearly, it has a following. Turns out there were three parties from the afternoon who had stayed much longer than expected, commandeering their tables anywhere between 2.5-4 hours. (So rude to the servers, the restaurant, and folks coming in who need tables.) This made it impossible for the restaurant to seat us (and many others) on time—one of those things that's an annoyance when you go to the trouble of making a reservation, but not the restaurant's fault. The manager, Alex, set the tone by coming over to where my party was waiting in the bar for 20 minutes and repeatedly updating us on his efforts to get the necessary tables vacated, cleaned off, put together and reset to accommodate us. He was diligent and polite, open and apologetic about the situation he was in, and we really appreciated his candor. It went a long way toward helping the group remain patient and in a good humor.

Once we were seated, our server Jesus was fabulous. Genial, patient, knowledgeable, anticipating our needs—everything you want your server to be. The restaurant has a great system for groups. As he went around the table taking orders, Jesus entered them into an iPad and the order immediately went to the kitchen to start getting prepped. There was no delay with the server having to go back and forth to the bar for drinks, back and forth to the kitchen to deliver the orders; it was dazzlingly efficient. All restaurants of size should adopt this system. When it was time to calculate our checks, he went around with a handheld payment device and quickly/efficiently had each person key in what they had ordered (he actually remembered it and already had it called up!), pay, tip, and get their receipt. It took about a minute per person, which is so much faster than the average restaurant. All the meals arrived hot at the same time, no one was left waiting while the rest of us awkwardly watched our food get cold. Leftover boxes appeared almost instantly. Beverage refills were offered at the perfect time. So between the manager being so attentive, and the serving staff and runners being so well-trained and well-equipped, the service here is stellar. Everyone enjoyed their food, too, and asked to come back soon. A successful evening.

I do have two quibbles with this location (Vernon Hills, IL) which led me to withholding one star for "atmosphere." There was not nearly enough parking for the full restaurant, and the snarl of pick-up traffic and people circling around looking for an open space made things difficult for arriving patrons. Most of my party (who are on the older side) had to park far away, the shopping mall equivalent of a couple blocks, and walk back. Also, the huge inside room at capacity was very noisy, making conversation difficult. Aesthetically pretty restaurant with bad acoustic design. However, the pros of this place greatly outweighed the cons and I will happily host more gatherings here...

The best thing is that we did get seated at our reservation time I made a reservation and we were seated at that time. This was our second time here & will be the last. It went downhill from there… it took a while for the waiter to come to our table and ask us what we wanted we ordered we got our drinks and we also ordered appetizers and our dinner. We were brought two appetizers. We ordered two appetizers, However, we were brought one appetizer that we did order and one appetizer that we didn’t order. At that point, we told the server that we had ordered a different one and he was going to check on it now this was not our original server. This was someone else. We were brought our dinners without the second appetizer showing up. We also were not asked if we needed another drink until the very end of the meal. We were also never asked if our meal was good or to our satisfaction. We finally received our appetizer while we were in the middle of our meal. I actually had to get up myself and get appetizer plates because we didn’t have any at our table and no one provided them to us. The food was good. We enjoyed the food. We felt that the one appetizer the bacon and cheddar biscuits were a little hard. The fried deviled eggs were OK. They are spicy if you like a little heat. We proceeded to ask if we could take home two frozen meals which of course they were both out of. We proceeded to order our dessert and eventually got our dessert and then we eventually left and we will not be back. I did not like that they automatically put a 20% tip on the bill. They did take off the deviled egg appetizer because it came so late, which was nice and the other appetizer that they tried to give us the bacon candy. They took off the bill as well. Lastly, if you have to go to the bathroom, expect to wait the bathroom only has three stalls and when I went to go to the bathroom, one of the stalls was locked and no one was in it. The parking is very tight. I had to park behind the building, which is not a big deal. It was a nice evening but just know that when you’re going there, you’re probably going to have to circle around for a parking spot. Sidenote, my husband and I were right next to an area where there was plates, servers, constantly, and management and not one time. Did anyone come to our table and ask us if we needed anything? Lastly, they do provide you with these sauces that you can use on your meal. No one ever explained the sauces to us and the ones that they provided to us we’re not even full. They were half full and did not look very...

I had an extremely distressing experience at this establishment that not only caused me a panic attack but also raised serious concerns about both legality and racial discrimination. As an Asian individual living in the U.S. legally, I was shocked and upset by how I was treated tonight.

During my visit, my server took my only form of identification — my passport — without my consent, claiming they needed to show it to their manager. This is both highly inappropriate and, frankly, illegal. I did not give my legal consent for my passport to be taken away, and I was left at my table for what felt like an eternity without any communication. It was extremely unsettling to have my identification removed and walked away with, without any explanation or assurance that it would be returned.

To make matters worse, I’ve been a regular customer here for months, and I felt completely discriminated against during this visit. The same server would not even allow me to place an order for a beer for my boyfriend — a customer who has frequented this restaurant for years. This behavior was not only unprofessional, but it felt deeply racially motivated and completely unjustified.

The combination of the legal violation, the refusal to serve my boyfriend, and the general hostile attitude created an incredibly stressful environment. The anxiety from the situation eventually led to a panic attack. It’s beyond disappointing that a place where I have felt comfortable in the past would subject me to this kind of treatment, especially when I’ve been a loyal customer.

I would caution others, particularly people of color or individuals with immigrant backgrounds, to be aware of how they might be treated here. It’s unacceptable to have your legal identification taken without consent or to be treated in a discriminatory manner based on your race. I won’t be returning after this experience, and I sincerely hope the management takes steps to address this serious issue.

ALSO the manager was extremely dismissive about this entire incident when I brought it up and had nothing to say to me. As a person of color talking to a white manager that runs a predominantly white restaurant with mostly white customers, I feel dismissed as if how I felt didn't matter at all. I would advise anyone of a person of color to avoid this location as even the manager...