Alonti Cafe

I rely on Alonti heavily when I cater in lunches for my office. The sandwiches are always fresh and have a homemade touch to them, as opposed to a «chain» sandwich store, and the presentation is nice enough I don’t mind serving their lunch boxes to my clients.
I’ve ordered a variety of items of their menu and it’s a home run every time.

I ordered the buttermilk chicken sandwich. Unfortunately I did not care for it, it had too many conflicting flavors/​did taste like what I expected. Perhaps if I ordered it custom I would have enjoyed it more, so three stars in case that was the case.

Catered this for lunch for the office and it was a big hit! We will definitely order from them again.

I love this place. The food comes quick and the workers are very friendly. I think the prices are very reasonable, you get large portions. I wouldnt recommend the pasta if you are a true pasta lover but the soup sandwiches and salads are all so good!

I work in riverside once in a while and asked a coworker of a cheap good place to grab something that wasn’t fried. They recommended Alonti. I really liked it! huge portions and very reasonable. Definitely worth a try.

There is a sign in the restaurant that states this place is «Fresh Food Fast». I disagree with all three of those statements. It’s not fresh, it’s sitting under a heating lamp for a good couple hours, It’s not food. not even real eggs…, and it’s certainly not fast. I stood in line for a good 10 minutes after ordering waiting for my hot plate of garbage…
AVOID THIS PLACE!

This place used to be great. I’ve came here for salads for the past 3 years. Now that they have new employees that cannot get a salad right I am never going to this place again. I gave it two tries and it was a terribly disappointing.

Uh Oh. I went here for lunch the other day for the second time ever because I was feeling healthy and wanted a salad. Little did I know that the special Du jour was romaine with a side of insect.
Unfortunately for me (and anyone else who ate there that day) the minute I walked up to the counter I saw a bug in one of the salad bowls. Yes. a bug. A bug big enough for me to notice standing behind the counter, happily crawling all over the leafy green lettuce. GROSS!
I told the guy behind the counter and he looked at me like I was crazy at first. Then he pretended he didn’t hear what I said. I don’t like to make scenes, so I said «Um…there’s a bug in that salad bowl,» just a little bit louder the second time, and pointed to the bug. (I repeat, it was a fairly LARGE bug so he had to be blind not to see it.) At least I showed the café some courtesy and tried hard not to let anyone hear because I’m sure more people than me would have walked out if they had known, and the people currently eating salads would have been even more grossed out than I was.
So the guy behind the counter takes the bowl that has the bug in it and simply puts it behind him and proceeds to ask me what kind of salad I want… was he kidding? He didn’t throw the bowl of lettuce away, or cover it so the bug couldn’t get out. And keep in mind that there was even more open food on the counter where he placed the bug bowl, so who knows where that bug ended up. He didn’t even act or look grossed out or appalled, and he certainly did not apologize. I was so disgusted. Obviously cleanliness is not one of the top priorities at Alonti Café. That, or the employees are not taught that bugs don’t belong in salad, or around any kind of food at all.
I definitely would have given them a better review because they do have a really great selection of pastas, sandwiches and salad ingredients, but it was the guy-behind-the-counter’s reaction to the salad bug that makes Alonti deserving of many negative stars, but unfortunately Unilocal ratings don’t go that low. ha ha ha.

Great lunch selection of sandwiches, panini, soup, salads, pastas, etc. Food is good quality, fresh ingredients — and the prices are very reasonable for downtown Chicago.
Room to have a seat and eat your lunch, or carry-​out.
I highly recommend giving this place a try if you are looking for a good lunch spot with a variety of choices in the loop.

Really a one and a half.
Way overatted. The food is a notch below panera cosi and corner bakery. I really just like the soups and tacos. Everyone has a thing for the tequila chicken but they reuse that stuff for days. I know.
The service is a joke. Don’t even bother asking them the most basic question or they’ll screew up, give you the wrong answer or stare atbyou like you propsitioned them.
They’ve also messed up my orders which were straight forward a few times. Just cus they were distracted or somthing.

Solid lunch place! All the food here is great tasting and of good quality! Price is very reasonable.
I make my way here once a week for either the Chicken Cesar, Chicken Tequila, or a Big Al Sammie. Never disappointed.

I used to love Alonti. Until the woman who ran the place stopped working the register. Service became slow, salads became worse, and the newly hired employees became rude.
Even the $ 2 off coupons they sometimes hand out on LaSalle don’t keep me coming back often. The only thing worth getting is their Thursday taco salad. but if there are more than 2 people in front of me, I may waste half my lunch hour in line, so I usually go elsewhere.

Alonti came to me courtesy of a Lunch and Learn meal. If you follow my reviews, you know that I’m a fan of non-​traditional «ethnic» meals for Lunch and Learns so I was pretty dissapointed about this company ordering boxed lunches.
HOWEVER, I was pleasantly surprised to actually enjoy my Monterey Chicken with Avocado on Jalapeño Cornbread with Jalapeño chips. The bread had that stiffness that slightly stale bread flaunts, but the flavors were still decent. The Cranberry Turkey and Swiss on Ciabatta was decent too, considering that I normally hate cranberries on my turkey. I traded my cookie for my coworkers Andes mint– horrible, horrible decision! Luckily, some health nut left their cookie «for grabs» in the kitchen. In a moment of weakness, I took a bite of that chocolate chip cookie and never looked back.
Seriously, Alonti!!! No, but really, though? What did you do to those cookies? Why are they literally melting in my mouth? Why are they buttery and sweet and so fulfilling that I don’t even need to eat the entire thing? How is this the perfect partner for my afternoon cup of nespresso? I just have questions.
Oh, and one more thing, when I’m craving a box lunch, guess who I’ll be coming to? Just guess… that’s right, you, Alonti!
Thanks for exceeding my low Jimmy Johns, Panera, and Cosi etc expectations.

I used to work down by Washington and Lasalle and used to get Alonti for breakfast. Alonti is conveniently located since it’s just around the corner from Washington & Wells. Funny how things work since now I am working a few blocks away from Alonti yet again! I stopped in at Alonti on Friday to check out their new setup and see if their breakfast sandwich was still the bomb diggity.
I was greeted by very friendly employees who hooked me up with my breakfast sandwich. They were incredibly polite even when I asked about what the various options were for the sandwich options. I got a nice biscuit overloaded with scrambled egg and some crispy bacon. I had my sandwich nuked up and even the cashier was super friendly for so early in the morning.
Alonti still owns the best breakfast sandwich from any of the places downtown. All of this checks in at less than $ 3, so if you like biscuit, egg, and bacon that actually has some flavor, you’ll wanna roll through to Alonti ASAP!

Sunday Funday always leads into Carbo-​load Monday and today, while recuperating from a particularly long Sunday Funday, I went in search of some pasta to help bring me back to life. I used the handy Unilocal search function and found Alonti.
Alonti is confusing. They have different stations, much like Cosi, Soprafinna, and Tuscany, but there seemed to be only one line for salads and another line for everything else. Whereas with the other restaurants, you wait in line at the station you want. The signage could have been better, or maybe the workers could have called out «hey, hungover girl over there that is eying the pasta… wait in line over here!»
Unsure of where to go, I waited in the sandwich/“everything except salads” line. I’m not sure how elaborate these sandwiches are, but there were two guys working feverishly behind the counter and the line didn’t move for 10 minutes.
I had already eaten up too much of my short, but precious, lunch break waiting in line at Alonti and went someplace else. Bah!

This review is based on the breakfast tacos and nothing else. Five stars. Friggin’ delicious.

Awesome breakfast and friendly staff! Come patronize this place, they need the business! The breakfast taco has tasty rosemary roasted potatoes and scrumptious sausage and eggs and cheese… You do need a fork to eat it, plus the grease kinda seems through the paper…
They say the salad station is very popular during lunch.

I am super stuffed right now. I’m just leaning back in my swirly capable chair, and typing this review, half alert and half suffering from a food coma. I just had this Alonti’s for lunch, and it was delish!
I couldn’t decide between the lasagna and the tortilla chicken, so I asked «the lady behind the food» which was better, and she said, the tortilla chicken, but they were both good. So, I follow her advice. This creamy goodness with chicken and penne pasta dropped in the water to ensure hotness when you order it was soooo yummy. The garlic bread, however, was mediocre, just some not so soft bread with what tasted like garlicky butter dashed with parsley flakes. However, that pasta was good and FILLING. All that yumness for less than $ 7 bucks! I’m a fan.

I was starving the other day and a co-​worker and myself were wondering what the hell we were going to eat. He started talking about this sandwich he had here called the Big Al.
We went over and ordered a Big Al, which includes ham, bacon, roast beef, lettuce, tomatoes, mayo and mustard on your choice of bread.
The Big Al was great!

So I was sick of going to the same places for lunch in the loop; so I decided to try something new. Alonti is indeed that ‘random’ place people go to when they have exhausted everything else.
That being said… it’s not a bad place at all.
Food: I ordered their popular chicken tequila pasta (~$ 7 large). And as other Unilocalers attest, it’s good despite me not being a creamy pasta kinda guy.
They had your standard fair of soups and sandwiches, but they also sold… dinner food. When I went, they have rotisserie chicken, mashed potatoes, and corn on the cob. Alonti’s is primarily a catering company, so for some reason I trust them on making ‘real’ food. I will have to try it next time. But the chicken tequila was good, and the garlic bread tasted like it had been ‘sitting around’ They had a water cooler for fellow dieters and cheapskates out there. So that’s always a plus for me. They use cavatappi noodles (hollow corkscrew)! Which is the best noodle ever!
Atmosphere: ample seating, pretty damn clean place I must say, and the decoration is very corporate chain looking
Service: Food was fast, service with a little sass.
Overall: Worth coming back. Seems breakfast is J-​money over here as well.