270 Degrees

My review is based solely on the space. Last fall I attended a cocktail hour at 270 Degrees and I thought the space was very accommodating. The party was catered by Top Chef winner, Stephanie Izard. I was even able to pop into the kitchen to meet her. The room is adjacent to the McCormick place escalators and our present in the room created quite a buzz outside. Overall, the bar service was outstanding and the staff was very courteous.

I’ve typed up our experience here (kinda long), but if you want a summary, scroll down to the bottom.
We were meeting at this restaurant with some clients who’d flown in for the convention and we had a 12:30pm reservation. When we walked in at 12:25, we were told that we were the 3^rd 12:30 party to check in. So we stood around the crowded area waiting for our table. After a half an hour, we started wondering what was going on. Tables were starting to clear up, but no one was being seated. 30 mins later, other smaller parties were being seated, but no one even came to check on us. After 45 minutes of waiting, a female member of our party went to the maitre’d and asked her what was going on. The maitre’d was incredibly rude and told her that she had no clue what was going on with our table, and when she asked for a manager the maitre’d replied that she couldn’t leave her post to find one for her. About 10 minutes later (55 minutes after our reservation time, still no table) another member of our party went in search of a manager. All he could find was a busboy, who told him that they were clearing our table right then. I’d like to note that by this point half the tables in the place were empty, but there was a huge number of parties still waiting to be seated. About 5 minutes after he rejoined the group, the maitre’d (the one that had just told us she couldn’t leave her post to find out what was going on with our table or get a manager) grabbed a bunch of menus and WALKED AWAY to seat some people who had just walked in. We were starting to get very angry at this point, since our clients had another meeting to go to and time was running out, but we couldn’t go to another restaurant because we had no reservations anywhere else. We waited about another 30 minutes (for a total wait of an hour and a half) before we were finally seated. Luckily, the restaurant has a buffet option, so we all grabbed plates and began to eat and discuss business. Since we had no waiter or waitress to bring us drinks, we just drank the water sitting on the table.
When we were eating our dessert, the waitress finally came to our table and asked us if she could get us anything. We all just kind of looked at her, not really in an angry way, just surprised that she would even ask. One member of our party told her that we didn’t mean any disrespect and that we were looking at her that way because of the long wait we had to get our table, and now just as we were finishing our meal she appears. The waitress apologized and took our drink order and told us she would see if she could comp us one bottle of WATER (we’d already gone through the 2 on the table and needed a third). She was gone for a while and we were all pretty much completely finished when she walked up with the bottle of water, the drinks ordered, and the check… and informed us she *couldn’t even get the bottle of water comped for our long wait*.
But before the waitress had returned, one of our clients (who if you remember had another appointment they needed to get to) decided to call the people they were meeting and ask them to come down to the restaurant and they would hold their meeting there so they could finish their meal. When we got the bill, we noticed something funny… we had been charged for too many people. Turned out that the waitress had charged us for the people who had just walked up!
Also, the waitress explained that the reason it took so long is because we walked in right at shift change, and since it was the first day the restaurant had been open, everyone was in back trying to cash out… and no one could figure out how to work the register.
I have no idea how much our meals cost because it was covered by the company, but I was informed that the bottles of water cost $ 6, so you can guess how much the rest cost. The food was pretty good (so far as the buffet was concerned though, there was turkey, tri-​colored tortellini, salad, potato wedges, rice, and some desserts, so it was more like a one-​choice self-​serve meal than a buffet). But the food could be ambrosia and it would not make up for the terrible service. I know it was the first day and all, but did no one in management think of bringing the wait staff in the day before to at least show them the place, much less give them any training?
So to summarize:
— 90 minute wait time, even with a reservation
— Incredibly rude maitre’d who did not even attempt to help us; indeed, flat-​out told us she couldn’t help us
— Did not see a waiter or waitress until we’d almost finished our buffet meal
— Completely untrained wait staff
— Despite the wait time, they would not even comp a BOTTLE OF WATER for us!
— AND we were charged for people who hadn’t even eaten with our party.
If you have an afternoon to waste and are curious (and slightly rich) then go right ahead… but if you’ve got an important client (or even a good friend) to entertain, I recommend stay FAR away.