Fulton Market Kitchen — Restaurant in West Chicago Township

Where to begin? First let me make a few things clear. We had no choice but to cancel our wedding. The venue at which the ceremony was going to be held canceled due to safety concerns over Covid-19. That same day Chicago officials announced that anyone traveling to the city from hotspots such as South Carolina would have to quarantine for 14 days. We cannot afford to spend 14 days in a Chicago hotel nor would we want to, plus how is a 14 day quarantine supposed to mesh with a wedding? This was all on July 6th, the same day we notified you of the circumstances. Your customer service throughout the planning of this event has been abysmal. Every time we've had to contact you it takes 3-4 emails before we get any sort of response and when we do it's only to find out that the coordinator we had been dealing with has been replaced without any notification to us. Yet you, as one of the owners sees fit to cite a "Thank you" in an email as unwavering proof of how pleased we are with your services, rather than what it is, which is just basic human courtesy on our behalf. Now, on the issue of contracts. Yes, the hold the date amount agreed to was $750, which has been paid and is not being disputed whatsoever. What is being disputed is thee amount past that which you see fit to keep without providing any service other than saving the date. I will also kindly point out, again, that you advertise your peak wedding season hold the date fee as being only $500 on several different platforms. If your policy has changed you should correct that on said platforms to reflect your new position on the matter. At no point during continuing to pay towards the event did we realize the contract was being amended to keep that money as well regardless of not providing any extra services beyond holding the date. I will ALSO point out that you are only one of eight separate businesses involved in this wedding. Every one of those eight businesses has contracts with us as well stipulating that refunds would not be given upon a cancellation of the event. However, every one of those contracts were also missing a policy or clause pertaining to a GLOBAL PANDEMIC. Therefore, because of that, and because those seven other businesses are owned and operated by understanding and reasonable individuals, every one of those contracts were amended and refunds were given. Fulton Market kitchen is the only one out of EIGHT to refuse to work with us on this situation. Now, to the point of you being just "a small business trying to get by"... You're the largest entity involved in this event out of the eight businesses. The salon, baker, photographer, and florist are all extremely small businesses and were still gracious and willing to work with us on this matter. You are a hospitality group in Chicago with at least 9 locations. On the matter of safety and precaution; you encouraged us to go through with the reception despite travel restrictions and having no place to have the ceremony. You even encouraged us to have even more people attend while shattering Covid-19 records on a daily basis. This being a wedding, many of the guests in attendance are seniors and people who are immunocompromised. Now, while you as a business might be willing to move forward and put these people at risk, I am not. Just a few days ago the United States Center for Disease Control recommended against gatherings of over 10 people, but you're comfortable with more than 50 people in one place including your own staff. As of this very morning, the Mayor of Chicago has announced that bars will not be able to serve alcohol indoors as of Friday, also indicating that further restrictions may come in the future. Does that sound like a fun wedding reception to you at all? I will now end on this note... I have given the most honest and accurate review of my experience with Fulton Market Kitchen. For you, as one of the owners, to now turn around and accuse me publicly of it being nothing more than slander is both shameful and irresponsible to the...

We were really excited to have a nice dinner here for my friends bachelorette weekend and we were unfortunately very disappointed. We made the reservation for 16 people at least 3 months in advance, so they knew we were a big group coming for a big celebration with plenty of time to be prepared. We arrive (to a very cool and different atmosphere) to be greeted after sitting for at least 5 minutes by our server… who we told it was our friends bachelorette (and point out the bride to be) and it took over 20 minutes to get our first round of drinks. And to stay on the topic of drinks, the server never came back around asking if anyone wanted another round, especially the bride, and we all had to wave him down to ask for another drink. Mind you the drinks are around $15 so you’d think the server would be on it and not let us all sit with empty drinks all night. Then we had to ask about how the menu worked and what the portions were like and the server seemed to not have a clue, he couldn’t clearly explain the portions and how he would recommend us ordering. Then he proceeded to tell one person (who told the rest of us, because the server was like whispering to each person instead of ever addressing us as a group) that they were out of two of the main meat dishes, and the menu is not large so that literally cut the options almost in half for the main courses. Our reservation was for 7pm and like I said we made this reservations months in advance for 16 people, it is expected that they would be prepared to have everything listed on the menu available for us. I am a waitress in a restaurant in California and have a lot of experience with these kind of large dinner parties and for a restaurant of this scale and specialty this experience was completely ridiculous and dissatisfying. To really top it off, the Brussels were all undercooked and hard, four orders of them. And then when we were all done we didn’t see the server for a good 15 minutes and when he finally came back I asked for the check and then he disappeared for another 15 minutes and came back with a stupid dessert with candles for the bride, and not the check!! We wanted to leave, everyone barely enjoyed their meals and pretty much had one drink in the two hours we were there. One of us had to literally go find the server to pay the bill. And of course it was auto gratuity because of the size of our party. But the service was horrendous, the food was subpar and overall the experience was really disappointing. I expected way more. They do not handle large groups well, maybe it’s different for smaller groups but they need to know what they can and cannot handle and just shouldn’t have let us reserve our party of 16 because they could not handle it. I likely won’t give them another chance,...

I did not dine at this establishment, but my brief experience wasn't very pleasant. No one was rude to me, but the circumstances were all very weird.

A friend reserved a 6:15 table for us on a Friday. When I walk in, there's a lady sitting on a stool near the door and I literally didn't know she worked there. I thought maybe she was waiting on an Uber or something. Anyway, she very quickly said something to me but I couldn't tell what she said; I thought she said are you dining at the restaurant and I said yes then kept walking. As I'm waiting to speak with who I thought was the restaurant host, I see QR codes on the countertop for something called "Dining in the Dark." I was confused but figured I would get clarity when getting to the host stand.

I get to the host stand and he asks if I filled out a waiver for the Dining in the Dark, and I was like no, we're not doing that. He seemed confused as was I. He mentioned they don't have any open spots, it's reservation only. I said we do have a reservation. I show him the screenshot of our reservation then he goes, oh you have a reservation with the restaurant! I don't work for the restaurant. Let me bring someone over.

Restaurant person (maybe manager?) comes over and asks for the name on the reservation and I give me friend's name (she was still trying to find parking which was dang near impossible in this area). He seats me at a table in an intimate room. I remembered that we selected to sit on the 2nd floor so I thought it was odd he seated me there but figured maybe he didn't look.

Server comes out and I mention we're supposed to be seated on the 2nd floor and are says unfortunately it's closed today because of some heating issues. Honestly it was cold where I was too; didn't even take my coat off while I waited for her to come to the table. So anyway then I ask for the Chicago Restaurant Week menu because that's what we came there for.

She's confused and says she doesn't think they're doing that... I say, it's on the website... Then show her their menu on the Chicago Restaurant Week website. She says hmm let me check with the manager. Manager comes over and says there seems to be some confusion. I tell him about Restaurant Week and show him the website too. He says he's not sure why it's showing up because they decided not to do it this year, so maybe it's from last year. I say hmmm okay .. then he walks away.

At that point I don't even want to eat there from their regular menu so I called a nearby restaurant, Swift & Sons, who WERE participating in Chicago Restaurant Week, to see if we could go there at that time and they made space for us last minute.

Just based off this weird experience, I have no interest in going back to try the food at Fulton...