Alonti Cafe

Ehhhhh… The food is all very fatty and gross. If the rating was based only on staff, then it would be five stars. The cashiers and people making sandwiches, salads and pasta at the counter couldn’t be friendlier or more accommodating.

Decent food, horrible service. Often call in an order, is never ready in time (which defeats the purpose of calling ahead), and have messed up a handful of my orders. Used to go here often 3 – 4 years ago, but has gone steadily downhil

Alonti feels a little tired and overpriced. I found the soups too salty for my taste, and the salad ingredients somewhat wilted. The dressing choices are uninspiring.

I’ve never eaten here, but have ordered catering from this Alonti location many, many times. Corey and his team are so wonderful — they helped me when I was in a pinch and showed up (to Hyde Park!) with breakfast within 40 minutes of my panicked call one morning when the other caterer didn’t, refunded sales tax on about 8 orders when I forgot to let them know about the tax-​exempt status, gives me a very adequate lead time if they are running late (this has only happened once in 20+ orders). The service is fantastic. Along with how reliable and consistent they are, this is why Alonti is my first choice when catering lunches. The online ordering is such a breeze, and being able to order 3 hours ahead comes in handy when a meeting with hungry colleagues has slipped your mind.
The catered food is great, and Alonti offers a big variety — you can order snacks, desserts*, box lunches with salads, sandwiches, or wraps, and hot entrees too.
The best part is that all your invoices are saved under your Alonti account, and you can name each order, so when it comes time to reconcile expenses, all that information is there (they update the tip on the invoice too!) in a well-​organized fashion.
*I will fight someone to the death for the lemon bars.

Good selection of salads, samiches and pasta. The prices are outrageous for everything. They have a lot healthy items which is why I keep going back. There are not too many healthy restaurants in the area so my options are limited.
They just remodeled the place recently so it’s much nicer inside also.

This area of the city does not offer many great lunch choices. You’re stuck with $ 2 pizza, Subway, way overpriced pork chops, Americanized burritos, or the myriad of fried chicken places down Clark St.
I really wanted to like Alonti. It’s on the same block as me and is a 60 second walk from my office. It has a nice varied menu and when it’s fresh, it’s good. I’ve tried it a few times for both breakfast and lunch now and I just can’t bring myself to give it more than 1 star ultimately.
Breakfast is a disaster. I come in at 8:45AM and there’s always a wait for sausage. Today, I was shocked there was actually sausage in the pan and had hopes of actually getting a sausage breakfast taco. I was told there’s no sausage available for breakfast tacos. Ridiculous. Why is this so hard? Hey I understand, things run out sometimes. Here though, it’s a daily occurrence.
Lunch is a bit better but the sandwich station is obnoxiously slow and the Build your own sandwich is an exercise in patience. You constantly have to repeat the order. Nothing is written down and the person behind the counter constantly forgets what you asked for on your sandwich.
Prices aren’t bad for the loop. A build your own sandwich and 1 cookie is $ 7. Compared to Subway, that seems pricey for a smaller sandwich but the quality blows Subway away.
I’ll echo the comments about the décor. The place looks like a dump and needs a complete remodel. The white tile everywhere makes you feel like you’re eating in a hospital.
This place could be so much better and a solid 3, maybe 4 stars, if they fixed their disorganization and staffing problems.

I actually really love this place, and unfortunately it’s located right by my office, so I’m there about 2 or 3 times a week, which is more than my budget should allow.
My favorite things there are their amazing Italian dressing, their tequila chicken pasta, and their chicken club sandwich (when adding avocado) is one of the best club sandwiches I’ve ever had. I think it’s the bread. The foccacia bread is to die for.
It’s usually not packed, the people are friendly, and they play great music. The only two things I’m not crazy about is that they’re a little on the expensive side for fast food (although maybe only on the upper side of average for the Loop) and that their Muffaletta needs a little work to hold up to a real New Orleans Muffaletta. They need to work on their olive mixture in it. It’s not bad, just not up to Muffaletta quality.
Aside from that, I have yet to find something I don’t love there. Also, it’s great for bringing lunch dates.

Lime vinaigrette and jalapenos on the salads. I don’t know anything about the rest… but I’ve had lime vinaigrette and jalapenos with their salads dozens of times. I crave, they provide, I’m full.
I’d give it more stars but the place looks kind of like a crack den. Conveniently located south of the board of trade and under a train station, it’s not hard to image. The food’s better than it looks.

Why have I been to this place more times than I can count? Well, I hate to admit it, but Alonti’s proximity to my office of employ is about 80 percent of the reason. That being said, there’s still 20 percent of the equation to work with.
This place ain’t bad for your middle-​of-​the-​day meal. You have options that range from grilled sandwiches, made-​to-​order salads, soups and a plentiful salad bar with all the fixins’. I often opt for one of the salads — the Cobb is pretty awesome (and I highly recommend having it with the lime vinaigrette… that stuff is to die for), or you can «pick three» or «pick four» toppings and make your own salad. The ingredients are always fresh, and most of the staff (especially the guy at the register) is super friendly. They take credit cards and cash, which is always a plus (me who often lacks the green stuff on many occasions) but the prices are a bit high, though not unreasonable. Quite honestly, the $ 8 – 10 range for grub+soda is consistent with other food joints in the area — there are a lot of hungry businesspeople in that area, and they gotta eat somewhere. Alonti’s can certainly scratch that itch for you.