Club Lucky — Restaurant in West Chicago Township

I’ve been to Club Lucky a few times now, and overall it’s a great spot. Martinis are a signature, the Italian food is comforting and consistent, and the old school vibe is charming.

I did have a minor issue during my most recent visit that I need to call out just so this can hopefully be avoided in the future: if CL is going to close as early as they do on weekdays, they need to be more discerning/upfront about when they allow dinner reservations to be made so that it doesn’t negatively impact the dining experience.

We made a reservation for a party of 3 for 8:30 this past week for a business dinner, wrongly assuming the restaurant probably closed at 10 at the earliest and that it would give us a solid 90 minutes to eat and talk. I would have never done this had we known we’d be rushed through our meal to have everything wrapped up by an early closing time, which is apparently at 9:30 on Mondays. This could just be me, and if so feel free to roast me in the comments, but I think 9:30 is a bit of an unexpected time for a sit-down restaurant with a full bar in a major city to close down. I respect that Club Lucky is completely entitled to operate this way, but if that’s how they operate, I wish they simply didn’t offer out reservation times an hour from closing in the first place, or were more upfront with their customers about their unique closing time so they could prepare accordingly.

In our situation, we were never informed of the 9:30 close but were aggressively pushed through our meal to the point where it was difficult to enjoy more than a minute of conversation without being interrupted. On top of it, one of us ordered the lamb and it arrived severely undercooked, another sign that again they were rushing to get us out the door even though we ordered everything within 15-20 minutes of sitting down. We spent over $50 per person but still constantly felt like we were inconveniencing the restaurant in some way.

I’m still giving CL 4 stars because I understand we were still the ones who sat down an hour before closing time, and I would never want to be that ignorant customer who overstays their welcome and makes the staff wait around. But all it would have taken was a little upfront communication from our host or server that the restaurant actually closed at 9:30 and we would have completely understood…or we would have simply picked another place to eat with no hard feelings at all. Instead, we were treated to a passive aggressive serving style throughout the entire time we sat down, which made it very difficult to enjoy our food or...

Obnoxiously Pretentious…. an old-school Italian restaurant would never be run under this pompous a standard. Al Capone is rolling in his grave…

Sorry, that sort of attitude in what’s supposed to be a fine-dining experience is a deal breaker for me.

Excited about and in the mood for the touted old-school Italian mid-century dinning experience, I brought my date who I knew would appreciate, to check this joint out. Definitely not the vibe when entering the bar area, but ok… let’s give it a chance.

Went to the host stand to put in my name for a table for 2. Her attitude was a bit crude and I felt a bit scolded for not having a reservation, but I understand… they were very busy and in a time when many restaurants no longer take reservations, I just didn’t have one. But I don’t mind waiting anyway. Was arrogantly told it would be at least a 2 hour wait. Overlooked her tone… despite my date being a little taken-a-back by the attitude from the hostess… and ordered a couple glasses of wine. Bartender was awesome and had a great attitude.

After an hour, we walked into the dining area to check it out. On-point aesthetic for sure, but the main thing noticed was that literally at least half the tables were empty! This with a jam packed bar of waiting patrons. When we spoke about that out loud to each other, an overseeing manager overheard and sort of pretentiously stated those were all for upcoming reservations. I understand reservations, but to have that many tables empty at the same time in such a busy place on a Saturday night seems like they’re trying to create a false demand… either that or they’re just really inefficient at running a busy dinning room.

Checked in with the hostess just to see where things might be. She quickly said something I didn’t understand. When I asked for clarification, she got purposefully condescending. NOPE!… UH-UH, thank you very much but take us off the waitlist sweetheart.

Tipped the bartender and took my business to a real Italian restaurant… will never give Club-Unlucky another look! Such a shame as the idea for this concept is great. Just that they’re not at all pulling off the old-school professional Italian hospitality standard which is half the...

Being new to the neighborhood, my partner and I thought we would try something new for Friday night date night. We found Club Lucky on line and read the outstanding reviews and thought we would try it. We showed up around 8PM without a reservation. We were in shorts and t-shirts and were given the once over by the hostess. There was a booth in the bar area and she said we could have that. We were seated and perused the menu before our server approached us. We ordered drinks and an app. Our drinks were delivered followed shortly by our app. We enjoyed our conversation drinks. A short while later the manager came over and introduced a waiter and said he would be taking over as our server had and apparent emergency. The new server said he would be back. This is where everything goes down hill....The server came back about 15 min later and asked "what do you want"....We were beyond ready to order a second drink and not so hungry for dinner at this point. We decided to order and entree to go and that second round of drinks. We observed managers and bartenders doing shots behind the bar while we sat hungry, thirsty and unattended to. Several minutes passed and our second drink showed up and the person delivering proceeded to remove everything else from the table. Our bread plates, bread, silverware and water glasses. STILL NO ENTREE. A few more minutes pass (10-15) our to go order shows. We wait for our server and/or check to come. The manager who introduced the server is now sitting at bar by the host stand within reach of our table. I finally get up and ask him if he might find our server for our bill. He says "oh yeah". He brings our check back and says i took off a few dollars for your wait. $100...2 drinks each and app and entree to go that took almost two hours. NO THANK YOU! Overly disappointed.

I hit submit to this then proceeded to read other reviews. 5 Star reviews are great for your business, but it is unfortunate those are the only ones that "owners and management" chose to respond to. SATISFIED CUSTOMERS TELL 3 PEOPLE DISSATISFIED...