Dear Chicago Eaters –
When I first moved to Chicago, the first establishment I would say I frequented was Clarke’s on Belmont.
I am breaking up with Clarkes on Belmont (and the one on Lincoln Avenue, too, but more on that later.)
Frankly, it’s not an enjoyable place anymore.
Not that it was ever great, but five years ago as a Chicago beginner, I thought it was a blast. The location and being open 24 hours can’t be beat, but I’ve come to realize it’s downfalls.
The food has stayed the same – though prices have gone up. The food has never been that spectacular to begin with, and to think of paying more for it is ridiculous. I’ve never had sunny side up eggs there that weren’t runny, and for some reason getting an iced tea seems to be equitable to astrophysics.
The service at the Belmont location just gets worse and worse.
There used to a waiter there we called “stoner dude,” who would inevitably get about 75% of your order right – then do something random like forget a persons order, or bring cake in place of soup. He did all this with a completely plastic look on his face.
There was also an incident with a terrible waitress. Three friends and I went to Clarkes for dinner one night, and – though it was hardly full – had to wait a while to be seated while the servers sat talking in a booth in the back, not paying attention to us. Finally seated, we were handed menus and about fifteen minutes later our drink order was taken. After what must have been another twenty minutes, our drinks arrived and we ordered out food. DECADES later, our food arrived and our waitress seemed to vanish. We didn’t see her again for ninety minutes and had to grab other waiters to get missing silverware (there were four of us, and she only gave us three sets of silverware), and drink refills, until one of my friends grabbed another waiter and asked for our check. We left a very standard 15% tip and left – and this waitress chased us out of the restaurant, offended that we gave her such a terrible tip.
Really?
I’ve only been to the other Clarkes – on Lincoln Avenue – twice.
The first time was after seeing a show, and I only had tea, so there wasn’t anything to complain about.
Last week, I stopped there for a pre-show dinner with friends.
Our rude server immediately rubbed us the wrong way. You’re a server, smile. Don’t act like I should be grateful to be seated. There were all of four tables full when we arrived.
One friend ordered an omelette, and it arrived literally brown. Like, burned. When he asked to send it back, nicely, the server responded “You don’t want it that way?” to which my clever friend replied “Burned? No.” With a sigh, the server took the omelette away and – after a while – returned one that was only slightly less burned, which my friend just dealt with. (It was also noted that the Diet Coke tasted really off, but by that point we were just over it.)
And, at both locations, you cannot split your check. It’s 2009. Come on.
In a city like Chicago, where there are literally thousands of food options, why deliberately go someplace terrible?
I’m saying no to Clarkes from now on.
