Clarke’s Bar and Grille

On Sunday, 1÷24÷16, we had a group of 10 people for breakfast at 8:30am. When we arrived, there were no other patrons at all. We thought this was great — we’d get served quickly! Unfortunately, that was not the case. It took 45 minutes to get our food. When we finally did, the food was hit or miss. Mine was hot and tasted good. My mother’s was cold and her toast was not toasted — it was just a raw piece of bread. The cinnamon roll pancakes were good, but not enough frosting/​syrup. Very dry. It took a long time to get basic condiments like butter. The half and half had globs in it that looked like body fluids that come from noses if you get my drift.
The waitress had a pleasant attitude about all of the problems, at least.

Out of all the diners I have visited, this is the one I always keep coming back to. I will miss this place when I graduate! I have been coming here for 4 years and always love what I get. My favorites are the chocolate chip pancakes, the California omlette, and the classic french toast. Oh, and always get their hot chocolate! It’s one of the best!

My friends and I came here on New Years Day, hungover af, and the staff couldn’t have treated us better. The food arrived promptly and it was some solid diner cuisine. Amazing!!!

Great service. Pretty good food. The hot chocolate was excellent and so were the cinnamon roll pancakes.

My boyfriend and I ordered food to go. The servers were very nice, but the burger I ordered was supposed to come with jack cheese, guacamole and salsa. When I opened my container at home it had Swiss cheese and jalapeños. My side of onions rings consisted of 5 onion rings. Needless to say, I was very PO’d and disappointed. I will not be making the same mistake again.

One must have truly low standards to enjoy food from Clarke’s. Never in my life have I been offended by the sight, smell, and taste of a restaurant’s food. I’m pretty sure the ‘boneless wings’ ($ 10.95) were a 12-​piece chicken mcnugget meal. For your own good, if you have any integrity for the food you put in your body and the service you expect, do not go to Clarke’s. Please.

Was there for lunch. My water glass has several lipstick lip marks on it. Gross. Burgers were dry and over cooked. Wrong buns on both burgers. Vege wrap was the worst wrap I’ve ever had. I never knew you could even make a bad VEGE wrap (corn out of a can, American cheese, no dressing of any kind. Very blah. BLT had no mayo on it. Who doesn’t put mayo on a BLT. only about 4 beers on tap and 2 bottled beers were offered. I’d never go back there again. Sorry.

What a waste of $$.
APPLE PANCAKE ($ 9.99) — it only took 20 – 25 mins to prepare instead of the printed 40 mins, yet… the edges are burnt. No flavor. Crunchy apples. No flavor. Sticky dough that occasionally sticks to your teeth. All I tasted was sugar. Server offered non-​functional slices (should be a wedge) of lemon (my first to add that is apparently common in this joint). I still don’t know why I would need add globs of butter.
BOTTOMLESS COFFEE ($ 1.99) — good price. The only Kona Blend house coffee in the City. Unfortunately, I see the bottom of the cup too much.
SERVICE — perky, sincere smile with an attractive accent. IF ONLY my hunger would go away when she smiles.

I had a burger and sweet potato fries and it was great! Tasted amazing and was fresh. We were about the only customers there and the service wasn’t anything to run home about but overall it was good. Cheap, good food.

Environment is nice, but food lacked a lot to desire. Never did get my orange juice. I would most definitely go somewhere else. Unless all you want is cheap beer.

This is a college bar. Nothing more. If your not in college you will not have a good time here. Even if you graduated college 3 years ago, you most likely will not have a good time here.
Friday night they play country music. Kill me now.

This place was weird.
Went there to watch the Blackhawks with my boyfriend since their website advertised $ 2 Corona bottles on Tuesdays. When we got there, the first thing we noticed was that the bottles were $ 3, not $ 2, which wasn’t a huge deal, but still, false advertising is never fun.
The music was blaring so loudly we had to yell at each other across the table. It would have made sense if they had a dance floor, but they don’t. So you can’t dance, but you also can’t talk, so you just have to awkwardly sit there and endure the bar’s poor music taste (expect lots of overplayed top 40 and songs about trucks).
During the games, the bar fills up with college students who spend as much time taking group pictures as they do actually watching.
The bartender also dropped my boyfriend’s credit card while bringing us our check, so that was also a fun adventure (we found it, thank god).

I am only giving it two stars because the service was so bad it was funny. I cannot begin to describe how bad it was. I will try. Wife ordered an omelette with rye toast. My son and I finished our meals and the toast hit the table. Mrs K. was a good trooper and ate her toast. I go to pay the bill. I give them my credit card. Swipe, Swipe, Swipe not go. Whoa there cowboy don’t swipe it again. I give him cash in the form of a 100 dollar bill. He could not count change nor did he have the correct change. He had to go next door and get the change. Really true.
Good food will trump bad service every time. But the food was average at best.

Went there on a Thursday… Spent the majority of my time waiting to get a drink. Definitely a massive amount of underage kids in there drinking. It’s pretty pathetic and illegal. On to the next college bar!

So I thought how bad can the service actually be? A lot of reviews mentioned how horrible it was, but I couldn’t believe that it would be as abysmal as is stated in these reviews. IT’S WAY WORSE!!!
On a sunny Sunday brunch, the restaurant was busy, but we got a seat outside right away. And we ended up sitting for 10 minutes before I first attempted to get the attention of a server. She ignored me. As she and another server passed by again offering coffee to the tables around us, I spoke loud enough or the table 10 feet away to hear. She still ignored me, but the guy didn’t.
Another five minutes and we got up to leave. Thinking we needed to tell them why we were leaving, we walked in and they scattered. So speaking loud enough for them to hear we explained. The apologies came flooding out. But talk is cheap. So we left, walked two blocks south to John Barleycorn. I suggest you do the same.

Clarke’s is where plaid shirts and khaki shorts apparently go to die. It’s the type of place that makes anyone over the age of 24 feel old. The fact that I was finishing college when most of the crowd was probably at Macy’s picking out something to wear to their 8^th grade prom is not lost on me.
However, live band karaōke on Fridays is fairly entertaining. And even if it’s Bud, Miller, and Coors, who can argue with $ 1 domestic bottles? Perfect for those broke as a joke but still want to party nights I remember from undergrad.
It works pretty well for us not broke, just cheap, but still want to party folks too.

I went to the Clarke’s on Belmont years and year ago so when a friend suggested we go there for a bite to eat I was all for it. However, the minute I stepped into this location I changed my mind.
First and foremost, I’m all for going to bars, but I’m not for listening to the loud bar/​club music while I’m eating at what I consider a breakfast place… it was too much if you ask me. Second, the food was just okay. Not as good as I remember it being from all those years ago. Lastly, the restroom at this particular location was disgusting and gross, which I was warned as the case however if you gotta go ya gotta go.
Next time someone suggests this particular Clarke’s locations I know for sure I’m gonna pass!

This is another place that is what it is — a bar that you would go to if you were with a DePaul crowd, or looking to meet drunk undergrads. They do karaōke which is cool, and they’re almost always packed on Thursday nights for their specials. But it’s so packed that the bar is too overcrowded and you’ll waste time trying to get a drink when you can just go to Forza instead.
The 4 ft. midgets at the door try and enforce a ‘line’ against the wall, even though there is NOBODY in line; it’s hilariously stupid having to walk back through an empty line just to hand them your ID. Which they then bend and do a quick-​take of you + the ID 2 or 3 times like they’re just learning how to read for the first time (go DePaul education!)…What a power trip for them to feel special :)
It’s even more ironic that they do this whole process of checking your ID, when it’s clearly evident there are high school teeny boppers that end up inside. One girl not only looked like a 16 year-​old, but the braces were a dead giveaway; and the worst is that she even admitted it when I asked her. I hoped that after all the extensive work done by the hard-​working bouncers, there wouldn’t be jailbait trolling inside.
Rick said it best — the bar and the diner both probably won’t suck as much if you walk in drunk. Just don’t expect their underpaid staff to give a shit about service.

I went here on a thursday for their $ 2 pitchers.
It was a great deal but the bar was very packed and it was the youngest crowd I had ever seen at a bar. I don’t think I saw a person over 26 who wasn’t behind the bar.
Would consider going back for the cheap beer but there are other spots in the city on a weekday that can offer similar deals with a more diverse crowd and more personal space.

Great place for an $ 18 breakfast. That may sound a bit pricy for a diner, but, considering that it will take FOREVER to be served, that’s not bad on an hourly basis.
The service is somewhere between «why are you here» and «go screw yourself,» without the charm.
Ordering can be a wrestling match between you and your server: «i’d like a side of ham.» «Your omelette has ham in it.» «I know. I like ham.» «But there’s ham already…» «GIMME A SIDE OF HAM, MAN!»
Outside of the breakfast menu, everything is standard Sysco mediocrity.
It probably doesn’t suck as much if you wander in drunk.