Rocks North Center

2.5 Stars. if you classify yourself as a «Burger Joint» then you should have a hell of a burger, period. Especially with the competition right down the street! The description of the «El Gordo» sounded great but totally fell way short across the board. First off, the meat is not of great Q and seemed to be pre-formed…flavorless & thin! Secondly, the cook couldn’t cook it MR instead it came out grey and MW? Come on. Exhibit C: The fries were pulled from the fryer about 2 mins short. limp and no good! To top it off, these burgers are at the top of the price spectrum/​I really couldn’t figure it out. Good service and +1 for the great beer & tap lines are CLEAN! Get dat did

This place is terrible. Went there on Wednesday for their wing night. It wasn’t very crowded. The server was nice but she took forever to take our order and when our order came, it was incorrect. Also, the menu says the wings come with celery or carrots and a side of ranch or blue cheese; we got neither. We ended up asking for the ranch and was charged for it. When we finally got to eat the wings, the flavors were meh. We ordered the chipotle bbq, some other bbq and buffalo garlic Parmesan. I was underwhelmed to say the least. The person I was with said it was the worst wings he’s ever had. We won’t be coming back.

I ordered my food at 5:25. It’s now 8:25. At 6:20 some of my food appeared. Cold. And my chicken strips had wierd random bone fragments. But all the food was not there. So I called. And they said they would deliver the rest. 45 minutes go by and I call Grub Hub. They were helpful and said that the rest of the food was 20 minutes away. So I waited. And it didn’t arrive. 40 minutes go by and I called back and they tried to say I cancelled my order. So they Grub Hub guy said nope. Deliver it. And promised 30 more minutes. Still waiting. It’s been 3 hours. Half the food was cold to begin with. What does reheating matter at this point. But. It’s now been over the new promised 30 minutes as well. Disappointed. The food has always been good in the past.
It is now 9:16. The food wasn’t showing up. So I gave up. Called and asked for and got a full refund at 3 and a half hours. Let’s be real. Just now, THE REST OF ORDER APPEARS AT MY DOOR. Apparently if you cancel your order it shows up 20 minutes later. And the delivery chick had the balls to ask me to tip her again!!! 4 hours have passed. We aren’t hungry. This has put such a bad taste in my mouth. Don’t. Just don’t.

Ordered delivery that showed up over an hour and a half later. The driver had picked up the food more than 45 minutes prior to making it to our location, which is 6 minutes from the restaurant. The food was completely cold and had missing dips. The burger was okay but definitely not worth the issues. I would not order again.

Really great place for burgers. Additionally, the «Mac’n’Cheesus» — hard to beat. Laid back, casual atmosphere.

Was looking for a good burger place to fulfill a pregnancy craving, and told the hunny I wanted to go to Red Robin, but he wasn’t totally sold. He went online came across Rocks.
After looking at the menu, I was pretty excited about the burger selection and was eager to try it. We were bringing our two kids, so we made sure to check out the kids menu to be sure it’ll be a place that they’d like also. On the bottom of the menu, it said, «Kids eat free on Monday.» For us, that was a bonus.
We decided we were going to give it a try since the burgers all sounded amazing. Sounded is the key word. Once we got our burgers, although the presentation looked great, the actual burger was pretty dry and tasteless. It wasn’t the worst, but definitely not the best.
We asked the server about kids eating free and she replied that it was until 7pm. (Coincidently, we had arrived a quarter past 7) We informed her that no where on the website or was it posted anywhere in the restaurant does it specify that. She replied with a simple OK. When we got the bill, we noticed that we were still charged and brought it to her attention again. She did nothing. So we suggested that they updated the website as not to continue to mislead customers. We never asked for them to be removed off of our bill. We paid for our entire check, but a simple apology for the misinformation would’ve have been a little decent.
Traveling from River Grove, we could’ve easily stayed in the neighborhood, but we’ll travel for a good burger. Unfortunately, we were completely dissatisfied with the whole experience. Needless to say, but we will not be returning.

We had a Groupon they decided not to honor. The server was nice and quite apologetic but the only reason we were made aware of this establishment was because of the Groupon. The food was just ok. I’d give the server an A but the food would get a C. They feature burgers but they very ordinary. Lot’s of better choices for food and especially burgers close by. Might be a good place for drinks and pool but won’t be visiting again.

Love this place! The food is above what you would expect as normal «bar food». I’ve been there for dinner and brunch. My favorite is the Leroy brown sandwich. The combo sounds strange but it’s like a party in your mouth. It’s difficult for me to order anything else. When I do, the homemade soups are surprisingly fantastic. They have trivia on Tuesday nights. The host is really funny and I think comes up with the questions himself. It’s not your cookie cutter «geeks who drink» trivia. Definitely a great local hangout.

Came here with a friend. It was quiet for a Friday. We had eaten earlier, so we decided on drinks. Since she and I are kind of inexperienced when it comes to whiskey, we asked the bartender for help.
He was extremely helpful. He made us wonderful Hot Toddy’s. They were fantastic. He was extremely nice and gave us pointers when ordering whiskey and what to look for.
We did end up splitting dessert. The deep-​fried Snickers Bar. Which was very good. Definitely will be back.

Good burgers and good beer. Enjoyed the night and we’ll be back

Summed up in one word, horrible. To start, the order was wrong. There was supposed to be 1 regular mashed potatoes and one loaded mashed potatoe and they gave both regular. They gave me Sprite instead of lemonade. The quality of the food was no better than the service. The mashed potatoes, despite having chives, was bland and dry. The Mac and cheese on my Sandwich was also extremely dry. My girlfriend stated that the grilled cheese was also disgusting. How do you mess up grilled cheese? Finally, the cranberry swirl was the worst. It was extremely tiny but besides the shady sized slice, it tasted like a sponge and the frosting was rubbery. Will never be ordering again.

This has been a neighbor go-​to for us. However, I have an outstanding Groupon that they just decided not to honor. Plenty of similar choice in this area. Disappointed and will be going somewhere else.

Came here for a couple beers with my husband while we were deciding what to do the rest of the day. I’ve been here before meeting people, and it’s a great bar for groups. My husband and I sat at the bar for some brewskis and immediately had great interaction with the bartender. Dave was the best combination of attentive and talkitive, while still not hovering or interrupting our personal conversation. The beer was cold, the whiskey was delicious, and the wings were cooked perfectly. I don’t know why we don’t come here more often!

My wife and I love all of the Rocks locations. Great place to watch sports and their Thursday wing deal ($ 0.50/wing) is great. My suggestion is to order the Garlic Chili, which is only served on Thursdays.

Well, sat down, ordered, waitress never came back to the table… Not one time. Sat there for about 50 minutes waiting for wings and fries… Finally flagged her down and asked if our food was coming soon. «It should be, I’ll check». Went to the bar and waited to fill another tables drink order. So all in all, we spent 55 minutes of our Sunday night sitting in their establishment and were never served anything but water, so we left.
Will never go back, and pretty sure manager was having a fantasy draft at the table behind me, so at least he got his beers

Burgers and wraps for lunch, whiskey deals Thursday nights, a blended atmosphere of after work casual and sports atmosphere. This place has a decent whiskey selection, including GTS, ORVW, Lagavulin 12, and whistlepig, to name a few. I’m not much into beers but they seem to have a decent selection of taps.

I miss when Rocks was in Lincoln Park, but then again I miss being in my twenties. The new North Center location feels like the suburbs, I’ve been in there when the average age is 12. The official Rocks burger is awesome, I’ve gotten it several times. Most of the other food is fryer crap. They specialize in whiskey, but it is way over priced. If you order it on a rock, they over charge even more saying its a heavier pour. Whatever. The only thing that bumps this place to a three is the burger.

You definitely wouldn’t assume that a place like Rocks would take reservations for dinner during a Blackhawks playoff game — we certainly didn’t. But we gave them a call anyway, just to see. To our surprise, they let us make a day of reservation for half an hour before the game just before 11am. Great! We found a bar to go to.
Not so much. When we got there we were told by the guy at the front door that they didn’t have a table for us. Not only had we made the initial reservation for 6, but we had called back to add 2 more to it around 1pm, essentially confirming our reservation once again. The guy at the door couldn’t really help — he was apologetic, which I appreciated. He got us a manager and even said there would be a table for us.
After 5 – 10 minutes of waiting for the manager, we got our table. The problem was that it was for 6, not 8. We once again had to ask for a manager and brought up the reservation issue. The manager came and told us «tonight’s a Blackhawks game and we function as a bar, so we don’t usually take reservations.» Well, that’s great, and I probably would’ve assumed that too until you took our reservation when we called. There was noting resembling a real apology in the manager’s statement, and certainly no attempt to offer us any kind of compensation for something that was clearly a mistake by the bar staff. Mistakes are one thing, but being totally unapologetic and effectively saying «it’s a Hawks game, that’s the way it is» about it… naw.
Certainly won’t be coming back to this or any other Rocks location.

Went here with a bunch of friends for a Bulls playoff game. The game was on but the sound wasn’t so we asked them to turn it on and the waitress said «there isn’t enough people in here to turn it on.» The bar was full and everyone was watching the game along with the 6 of us. Seemed a bit strange since its playoffs and our team. So we went next door to Tavern On the Little Fort and they not only played the sound but had amazing food and service.
Rocks does have good food but we for sure won’t be back to watch a game.

Live just down the street from this welcome addition to North Center!
Nice variety of the standard pub fare on the menu. The burgers are clearly the star and definitely worth trying.
Their whiskey menu and cocktails set Rocks apart from the rest of the competition in the neighborhood!
Glad to see that Rocks appears to be doing well and I certainly hope they make North Center their permanent home!

Great burgers at a good price, idk why other people have bad experiences here. I really never had a bad experience at this rocks or the one in lakeview. If you go here get a damn burger for crying out loud, that the main thing on the menu. The burgers i would say are better then kumas and even Lockdown bar/​grill most times and for the price you cant beat it.

A hidden gem on North Lincoln, they have a very fun bar trivia on Tuesday. They have an interesting beer menu that is updated regularly, and an affinity for small batch distillers.
I ordered the buffalo chicken wrap «angry», and it was actually pretty hot– im a fire eater and this one gave me pause. Tasty and hot, dont get that much these days.
My only complaint was the bar was chilly Tuesday… almost needed to put my coat back on.

This is clearly my first review. I have worked in the industry for most of my life, and my experiences, great, horrible or indifferent have never compelled me to hop on the bandwagon that is Unilocal– though I do consider others reviews, always with a grain of salt.
We went to Rocks on Sunday to watch the Lions game, it was snowy and we didn’t want to venture far so we went to a standby for burgers and beer.
We sat down and ordered a couple beers and some snacks. A group of 3 and an additional group of 6+ came in and were told they would not play the sound for the game, and immediately left for the bar across the street. Since we had ordered, we thought it would be fine. After about 20 minutes we realized that every single person sitting at the bar (about 8 – 10) were employees (which is not usually an issue, duh, its Sunday, staff discount? whatever) and they as well as the other 5 people in the bar at the time, were all watching the game.
While our server was busy talking and texting, our beers disappeared, and when she came over about twenty minutes later, we asked if, since everyone at the bar was watching the game, we could turn on the volume. We were told that she would ask, and then watched her walk over to the bar (5 ft away from us) where the bartender loudly denied our request, followed by 20 minutes or so of ranting by both employees at the bar AND behind the bar about shitty customers and their demands.
I am sorry, but in this industry, the customer and their needs IS their job, wether or not they like the Lions, the customer is shitty, or whatever their (and I mean THEIR busser, waitress and bartender) problems are. We walked across the street and joined the literally 20 – 25 other people who we had previously seen at Rocks.
Its safe to say we won’t be back, and this experience will most likely deter us from the Lakeview location as well. I hope someone cares about the ridiculousness we saw at their business.

A decent neighborhood option for a bite to eat. My fiancé and I came here for dinner recently and while we weren’t blown away by anything, we enjoyed our meal and the beer of the month special.
I ordered the french onion soup — loaded with cheese, can’t go wrong. I also ordered one of the dinner salads with salmon. The salmon was overly charred which was disappointing, and the salad size was smaller than I expected, but it tasted good.
Service was pokey at first, but picked up a while after we were seated. I wouldn’t seek this place out specifically, but I wouldn’t mind going back for a weeknight dinner special.

Wings, White Trash Nachos, Rye of the Tiger IPA, Anthem Pear Cider, Angel’s Envy 2013 Rocks Exclusive Edition Bourbon all together made for a perfect Monday night out at Rocks North Center.
Rocks, you knocked off my socks! Fifty cent wings on Mondays with a plethora of flavors to choose from. BBQ, Jerk, Buffalo, Parm, Hawaiian? You want it, they got it. White Trash Nachos equals everything thing you wanted to do to nachos, but are too afraid to. A pile of jumbo salty Fritos topped with their Black & Blue Chili (Guinness «Black» and PBR «Blue» are added to their chili for a boozy kick), jalapeños, queso cheese and sour cream. Garnished with scallions. Delicious and a perfect accompaniment to their awesome drink selection.
I started with a couple pints Rye of the Tiger IPA which was part of their $ 4 Select Draft special on Mondays. I followed those with an Anthem Pear Cider. And now the pièce de résistance of the evening, their Angel’s Envy 2013 Rocks Exclusive Edition Bourbon.
I got it served on the rocks, or on the (large single) Rock in their case. It is their namesake after all. About the bourbon. Immediately I was hit with some pretty intense notes. Vanilla, Maple Syrup with malty Waffle scents that continued after each sip. Then it finishes with a good rounded sweetness with a nice burn on the tongue, it’s not overpowering, just smooth and delicious! Best dessert I have had in a while.
Rocks North Center, you’re great. I will be back to try your burgers and maybe some more Bourbon. See you next time.

While I’m very excited to have Rocks in the neighborhood, our first trip was just OK, and even a bit of a disappointment. When we arrived there was no host anywhere so we were unsure if it was ok to seat ourselves or if we should be waiting to be shown to a table.
Once we did sit, our waitress arrived and informed us that draft beers were half off on Mondays. We decided on our drinks to order and then a different waitress came to take our order. We noticed that the drink menu stated that select draft beers are $ 4 on Mondays. Nowhere did it mention half off. We asked this new waitress to confirm and after running and checking with someone else, she confirmed that they were indeed half off. We placed our drink order, and then a few minutes were informed that the drinks are NOT half off, but $ 4 as stated in the menu. Now, I don’t have a problem with $ 4 as this is a good deal, but it’s NOT a good deal when you order a Bud Light, expect it to be half off, and then find out that the regular price is $ 4. No special savings at all.
So next we were interested in ordering some wings as they are 50 cents on Mondays. An OK deal, but not great when other places in the hood offer a much better special. Either way, we are told that the wing menus can’t be found and that they are being printed up. Another 10 minute wait to get the wing menus, then finally we can order some food. The food took a VERY long time to arrive. Once we finally got our wings it was another good stretch of time before our meals arrived. I noticed other tables wondering what was going on as well. The wings were good, my burger was dry and over-​cooked, and somehow the chopped salad (which seemed to have a lot of dressing) lacked flavor. They were also out of french fries at 5pm. Really? Out of fries??? At least the waitress was nice which helped the overall situation.
**My very biggest problem with Rocks is that every item on the carry out menu is a dollar more than on the restaurant menu. THIS IS RIDICULOUS!!! I was excited to have a place close to home where I could pick up dinner to go. That option flew out the window as soon as I saw the inflated prices. Just seems greedy on prices that are already above average.
I’m really hoping that Rocks gets its act together and things will improve. I plan on giving it a couple more chances before writing it off completely, and if things improve I will update this review to reflect that.