Kitchen 17 — Restaurant in West Chicago Township

I didn't take any pictures of the food, but here's how I'd rate our first-time experience.

1. Service 5/5 Our server was super friendly and attentive. We were the only table there on a Wednesday afternoon, so we had their full attention.
2. Appetizer: Nachos 4/5 My family of 5 was able to share this for a small portion each. It's a giant dish and is meant to be shared. The cheese sauce was decent. Chips, no complaints. The chili/"meat" sauce was also tasty and had chickpeas in them, which is unique. What was also unique was the large sprink mix leaves tossed into the mix. These made it difficult to eat as you would typically eat nachos. (Suggestion: finely shred the lettuce before dressing the nachos!) A small cup of Pico came on the side, which we were thankful for because one of us doesn't like tomatoes (It was also spicy).
3. Jalepeno Popper Pan Pizza 2/5 My husband and I were so excited because we loved bacon-wrapped poppers before we went vegan! However, we were ultimately disappointed with it. Firstly, the tomato sauce dominated the flavor, and since there are no tomatoes in jalapeño poppers, this killed the profile of the dish right off the bat. (Suggestion: this pizza should have a cream-cheese based white sauce instead!) Secondly, way way too many seeded jalapeños made it extremely spicy and difficult to eat. Perhaps the spice level preference should be asked upon ordering. Thirdly, the cheddar/Colby jack cheese used had no flavor at all. Fourth, crust was pleasant but very thick, even for a pan pizza. Lastly, the seitan bacon, which I'm confident is home made, did not have a "bacon" flavor at all. (Suggestion: marinate your seitan in a hickory smoke sauce!) So overall, the pizza tasted like really spicy tomato sauce.
4. Mac and Cheese pan pizza 2/5 My daughter ordered this for herself. Crust was super thick. The Mac n cheese had no flavor, very bland... the dominate taste was the dill ranch sauce drizzled on top. She was disappointed.
5. House salad 3/5 The same daughter ordered this salad. Came with mixed greens, cauliflower florets, and onions... lots and lots of raw onion. She could barely eat it. Ranch dressing was decent.
6. Side of Mac N Cheese 2/5 My youngest daughter ordered this as her meal. It was a very good helping for the price. However, the noodles were mush (not sure if it was overcooked gluten free noodles?) and as with the other dishes, the cheese sauce was bland. My daughter didn't eat it, and she's not a picky eater. 7)BK burger w/Impossible and Chili Cheese fries 5/5 My third daughter, whose birthday we were celebrating, had the best dish, hands down. Hand formed (and generous) Impossible patty, with perfectly stacked burger dressings. Special sauce was delicious. Bun was perfect. The plate was dominated by fries- some of the best fries we've ever had (though they were not salted). The chili and cheese were brought out separately due to a kitchen error, but it was the same cheese and chili we had on the nachos. This plate was easily big enough to share between two people.
7. Atmosphere 3.5/5 It was mostly a bar with 4 or 5 4-seater tables. Games were free to play while we waited, which the girls adored. It appeared they were undergoing some redesign and rearranging in the adjoining room that was used for the nightlife scene.
8. Dessert ?/5 We chose not to buy dessert only because we had a cake from another bakery in the car. However, I spent some time pursuing the dessert cooler and was salivating at the variety of options available. From cake to cheesecake, to cookies, to multiple brownies, to fudge, to vegan candy bars... they had just about something for anyone's taste in there.
9. Value 2.5/5 The final bill for 5 was nearly $160 including gratuity that included all of the above, plus two craft beers. The amount of food they give for these prices is definitely worth it. The lack of proper seasoning takes away from its value.

We may go back one more time to try some of the sandwiches... but if we end up with a similar experience, we...

For the record I think this place has amazing food and our problems have never been with the food itself.

We used to come back when there was a restaurant side and never had an issue but soon after that changed it just got problematic.

I remember not being familiar with the bar area shortly after the restaurant side closed and choosing the wrong door while doing a pick up order. I had a laugh over my confusion and told the woman behind the bar "haha I tried the wrong door, silly me" Her cold response as I left?

"And next time go through the right door."

The next few times we came, the service was just poor. No communication, poor basic attitudes, and an unwillingness to work.

One time our sprite was all soda water, no syrup. I asked nicely if they could get us a new one. (Expecting them to change the syrup packet as one does In a bar when it runs out) But no - they just... Gave us the same unflavored soda water. If they were out of syrup, they could have just said so. It wouldn't have been a big deal. We coulda gotten a different soda.

We explained it was the same, asked for water - and were charged for the soda anyways.

Another time we ordered a dessert and sat around waiting for 15 minutes, making awkward eye contact with the server before they said

"It's self serve. You grab it yourself." ..Why didn't they just say that earlier?

Ive been a busboy, I've been a server, and I currently work in customer service - I don't expect perfection, hell I don't even expect people to like their jobs. You can be miserable at work - I won't judge you, but I do expect basic service protocol.

I never made a scene, I still tipped despite my wife's insistance that I shouldn't. And we decided not to pester this small business with a bad review. We just stopped coming in. That was about a year ago.

We recently decided we really wanted a pizza from there and decided to grab a frozen one to go as a compromise.

We came in, walked up to the bar and the bartender did not acknowledge us for 10 mins. We then sat down at the bar for another 10/15 mins.

The whole time I gave him the benefit of the doubt "maybe he hasn't seen us, lemme try making eye contact, lemme try flashing a credit card." - nothing.

We got up, left - and will not be giving it a second chance. It's as if there is a severe lack of basic problem solving/rationale skills in their service staff and for that - I really can't recommend this...

As a long time vegan who loves supporting & trying all different local vegan places everywhere I travel, who was visiting from out of state for just the week, who also wanted to like this place so bad seeing it was a metal bar (I’m a metal vocalist) AND an all vegan place, I was very excited to try this place. First red flag was the unsanitary set up of the silverware just being bare in a bin for people to grab instead of it being kept clean or wrapped was a turnoff. There was a knife just laying on the floor when we got to our table. Ordered the Mac N Cheese, 2 Pizza’s, and the Fried Chicken Seitan/Fries between me & 2 of my non vegan friends (1 of which who has liked every place I’ve brought him to for years both in Chicago and where I’m from in Florida) The Mac N Cheese had good cheese consistency but had absolutely NO flavor, like I didn’t even know Mac N Cheese could ever taste that bland, I had to use their Salt, Pepper, & Red Pepper Shakers & constantly mix it for it to taste like anything. The seitan chicken was my friends but he didn’t like it and didn’t finish it, I tried one piece and similar problem, weird to no flavor. But then the pizza…. By far, the worst pizza I’ve ever had in my 8+ years of being vegan. Never in my entire life have I thought a pizza was so bad that I couldn’t even finish one full slice. My friends with me felt the same. While I’m friends with tons of vegan biz owners all across Florida back home & have tried a bunch of amazing vegan places here in Chicago when I visit and love promoting/sending my friends/fans to support these hard working local places, I sadly had to leave this bad review with just how bad everything was. We all lost our appetite and left about 1 1/2 of the 2 pizzas behind. I told the bartender which was awkward and didn’t feel like there was much care about our experience, but he did discount us 25% off our $65+ bill, but it definitely still hurt paying for something that was so bad, left us still hungry but with a loss of appetite at the same time, & gave 2 of my non vegan friends such a terrible experience with vegan food, which definitely didn’t help the cause, and is a big misrepresentation of most vegan places that...