Chicago Chop House- is awful

I had dinner this evening with friends at the Chicago Chop House. What an over-rated,disappointing and over-priced experience.

First of all, we arrived early to have a drink while waiting for our friends. The hostess was openly hostile and mumbled directions to the bar.
the bar area is wedged back by the serving and wait staff area. There are 4 seats total- and already 6 people at the bar. We were stuffed uncomfortably in a corner in the way of servers coming in and out of the kitchen.

Steaks were dry and all of us were disappointed - they appeared to be slightly overdone.

The service was slow and inattentive. Again- the hostess was hostile and unaccomodating.

Perhaps you all already know this- but this place is a waste of money.

RedC

Hostile is a strong word for describing restaurant service. What happened?

It has been quite a few years since I have been to Chop House (even before I lost my PD budget), but in my experiences there, I find the place oddly mixed. And I found myself not liking the place even though they served some excellent, nay awesome, meat. While I never found the service poor in the sense of being poor, what I found was a sense of disrespect, of being treating like I was comin' in to the big city, out-a-towner, spend a lot, tourist. It just did not match the great food. It really showed that service can often trump food.

This has been bandied about, but I would be curious and interested in doing a LTH steakhouse run-down. Say once a month (or so) to get the current state of affairs of these places.

Rob

Rob, I couldn't agree with your assessment of the chop house more. On my one and only visit to the place, the steak was actually good. But, it was a warm summer night and the temperature in the upstairs dining room must have been 95 degrees. It was all we could do to finish our dinner and scurry out of the place to the coolness of a bar some where.

I can understand if I go to the corner taqueria and their places is a little warm. But, to torture patrons who are paying among the highest per person tab prices in Chicago by not having sufficiently made leasehold improvements to insure that they can eat dinner in comfort is completely inexplicable.

I swore then and I swear now that I'll never darken the door of the place again. You're right. It's exactly the kind of thing that one would expect from a place that has earned the title "tourist trap".

Does anyone remember when (if?) the Chop House was good? I ate there a few years ago and had a bad experience. Service, atmosphere, and especially the food were all solid D-'s. And the intangibles--you know that that overall gut reaction that you have to a restaurant when you first walk in the door? Let's just say that I should have followed my gut.

Vital Information wrote:This has been bandied about, but I would be curious and interested in doing a LTH steakhouse run-down. Say once a month (or so) to get the current state of affairs of these places.

Yum. I'm in.

I've never actually had dinner at the Chop House, but at my last job (with a very lenient .com expense account) it was a frequent lunch destination for us.

We'd always sit downstairs and it was never more than half full. The food was always exceptional and the service was incredibly attentive with an attention to detail that's often found with a bored server - every visit. (Which makes sense, if I was a waiter that only had a couple of tables I'd be hoping to make a good impression on them as well.)

I almost feel guilty now, hearing the complaints about dinner there. I've wholeheartedly recomended it to friends on many occasions - based upon my lunch experiences. I hope I haven't been giving them a bum steer all along.

trixie-pea wrote:Does anyone remember when (if?) the Chop House was good? I ate there a few years ago and had a bad experience. Service, atmosphere, and especially the food were all solid D-'s. And the intangibles--you know that that overall gut reaction that you have to a restaurant when you first walk in the door? Let's just say that I should have followed my gut.

I have been there more than my share of times over the years. Usually at someone else's request. Ther sereivce has run the gamut from rude/brusk to "King of the World" treatment. A lot of times it depends on who you are or who you are with in a place like that. The steaks have never been to my liking, though. The quality of the meat is excellent. I just don't care for their "tasteless char" preparation.

I've certainly never been treated in an openly hostile manner. If I had I would have walked out. As to the comments about the bar - it's a small bar, yes. Most folks don't go there for the bar. The best bar in a Chicago steakhouse, imo, is Keefer's.

As to the service - it tends to be formulaic; the server follows a script and I'm not real wild about it. I've found that it's easy to adjust the server's approach by saying "we've dined here before". Should that be required? No. Does the Chop House do a lot of out of town expense accounts? My guess is yes.

I am most surprised by the OP reporting that all of their meat was overdone. I'm not that wild about the ambience of the Chop House - but I've alwasy found the meat to be superative. I would certainly have sent back any steak that was not prepared to my liking. REDc can you pleae expand on your post as to how the Chop House responded to your complaints about the doneness of the meat? I dine there on occasion with a group that likes their meat from rare to well done (wasted meat, imo but to each his own) and haven't experienced the issues you report. While I've never had an issue to cause me to have the server take my meal back to the kitchen on a doneness matter I would expect it to be professionally handled. Did they not do that for you? Please add to your experience for the benefit of others.