Lola's Pizza & Tiki Bar — Restaurant in Wheeling Township

*edited after owner response The good: decor. The bad: rude random server, bad smelling/tasting water (according to owner it’s well water that is tested regularly but that still doesn’t change the fact that it smells and tastes bad and you shouldn’t only offer $4 FIJI water in response.), gross/super sugary sweet kid drinks, food is meh and they add tip without telling you so make sure to look at your check!!!

I’ll give it 2 stars for the nice decor that is unique in the burbs. But that’s the only thing this place has going for it. The worst part is a rude woman who is a server at the place.

The tap water they serve tasted bad (yes, the water had a bad taste!). I thought maybe it was the cups but we smelled the cups and they smelled fine. The water just tasted gross so I had to buy $4 Fiji water after asking them if there was water at the bar they could serve me. Nobody at our table drank the water they served us because it was so bad. Owner responded saying I should remove my questions of safety of water but I’ll keep everything else. Water tastes and smells bad and if it were my restaurant, I wouldn’t serve it. No other restaurant in the area has water like this and I’ve eaten at plenty of them.

Food is passable. Not the worst but nothing we had (burgers and pizza) were good. Fries were really greasy.

Kids drinks are pure syrup and gross. The kids didn’t mind it because of course they don’t, it’s sugar. But a Shirley temple at any bar would taste much better. You can tell it’s mostly syrup as it settles at the bottom. A regular coke probably has a lot less sugar than these kid drinks. Would not recommend.

The place is dark (which isn’t bad but it leads to my next point) so if the menus happen to say somewhere that 20% gratuity is added to your tab automatically, I missed it. I don’t mind this business practice as I’ve been a server before. But I didn’t see it posted anywhere. Plus we were a table with 4 kids and 2 adults. I’ve never had a “family” place do this so I was caught off guard. I would suggest they post this somewhere you can see it as it’s not easily visible on any menu and the place is so dark. (Owner says it is posted at host counter but we didn’t spend time at host counter, and as I mentioned the place is dark, the menu is crowded so I didn’t see it).

But the worst is the some random woman server who wasn’t even serving our table. This is practically a family restaurant until 8 PM. We went at 5:30 and almost every table had children with them. The server came over at least twice to tell us “your children must remain seated at ALL times.” The kids we had with us had been calmly looking at the decor in the place and then were just standing around the table. If the space was tight or my kids were around other people’s tables I would understand. But my 5 year old son was near nobody, just near his chair standing up. He was energetic and I wouldn’t have faulted someone coming to us and saying “hey can you just make sure they don’t bother anyone or don’t act up too much”. They weren’t even acting up but i wouldn’t fault someone for wanting to make sure they were kept under control. But she literally just stalked over to us to yell at us twice about it. The second time I said “my kids are allowed to stand up” and she just walked away. I just can’t understand how you tell someone “your kid cannot get out of their seat” at a family restaurant. Again: if my kid had been running around, by all means, feel free to even kick us out. But my kid and my friend’s kid were literally just standing by their food. I wouldn’t return, mostly because the food was not great, the water was gross, they charged tip without telling you and the drinks have so much sugar (without being food) that you may as well just resign yourself...

My god, I don't even know where to start and I'm really not exaggerating or coming for this business in any way besides my honest opinion/review. I came here with my friends at dinner time and we ordered drinks, appetizers, and entrees. Service was beyond slow, only 4-5 tables were seated yet the server was no where to be found. Drinks might be the only thing worth coming here for due to the scenic tiki-vibe. We ordered five different appetizers; garlic knots, wings, cheddar-bacon fries, fried onion strings, and mozzarella sticks. Garlic knots were cold bread rolls with straight up oil drizzled all over with garlic thrown on top. Mozzarella sticks and wings came out semi-warm but truly mediocre frozen food. The fries and fried string onions came out cold and completely over-fried, it was very hard to eat. After appetizers, we ordered 3 different specialty pizzas (what they're known for) and my god please just get Digiornos or anything else because it was just flavorless and COLD. I really thought the pizza would save the whole experience but they couldn't even do that right. After this we were just done and wanted to close out, well to fetch our server took about 45-50 minutes, he didn't even glance at our table or ask if our food came out okay. We told him we would have separate checks in the beginning mind you, so when we asked for our split checks at the end he ROLLED his eyes and then brought out the checks which had 20% gratuity included. Not once did he mention that split checks would have gratuity included, the menu states that parties of 5 or more would but not with split checks. THEY ALSO include a 3% convenience fee for using debit/credit cards. I've never had this horrible of an experience eating out and I love food and I love going to new restaurants. I really can't explain to anyone reading this how much I really would never recommend...

While the atmosphere of this place is interesting, I don't think I'll be coming back.

For starters, it took WAY too long for the people to notify me that my food was ready (they said it be ready in about 20 minutes but it took over an hour). In fact, it was taking so long that I went up to the front desk and kindly asked them to give me an update on my order, and the lady who took my order looked at me as if she had forgotten altogether.

I ordered three things—the BBQ chicken pizza (small), garlic parmesan boneless wings, and a slice of key lime pie—all totaling around $56. All of this was NOT worth over $50. The only thing I genuinely liked were the wings and it's not as if they were spectacular or anything. Compared to the pizza, which I didn't enjoy as much as I thought, it was at least better in that regard. Although for how much I paid for the wings they didn't give me nearly enough.

The key lime pie is by far the worst offender. It cost around $10 but the size of it is honestly pathetic (you can find a picture below). I can buy a whole key lime pie at the store for the price of this one slice of key lime pie from Lola's Pizza and Tiki Bar. And it's not as if its taste makes up for this; it tastes like your standard key lime pie.

Frankly, I was disappointed all around. It was my first time coming here and it seems it'll be the last time too. I'd only recommend this place for the half decent atmosphere. If you're coming for exceptional food with good portions (besides maybe the pizza, which had a good portion despite me not liking the pizza itself) you'll likely won't find it here.

Also, slightly unrelated, but parking here is utterly terrible. You'll be hard-pressed to find a place to park given the limited spots and how cramped the immediate...