Labemi’s

Walk in they said. Have a drink they said. It’ll be fun they said!
4 hours later I stumbled out… BEST birthday ever!!!
Lots of fun, stiff drinks, cool bartenders, and very friendly patrons.

For what it is, it’s not bad. Burger was good, chicken sandwich was passable. Quick friendly service. The iced tea needs to be brewed somewhere that is not the coffee pot.

This place is one of my favorite bars in downtown Crystal Lake. It has an old 70’s bar feeling inside and feels home-​y. Most places like that feel old and dated, but here it not only works, but it works wonderfully. It’s almost got a Wisconsin cottage feel to it.
The bar is usually full of happy people and I’ve never seen any of the bartenders anything but cheerful. Good music, good drinks, good atmosphere. I’m always glad to go here with friends. Whether you want an IPA, mixed drink, or just a Coors, you can get it here.
If you’re looking for a bar that’s a little more relaxed and less upscale than other downtown CL bars, this is your place. People of all (legal drinking) ages and all backgrounds can enjoy a nice drink here with plenty of other good people.

This bar turned from a local favorite into total dump. The bar has completely changed since the passing of the previous owner. I recently went with some friends and stood by the bar for over 15 minutes before another person tried to get the bartenders attention for me because he felt bad that I’ve been waiting so long (the bartender focused on getting drinks for the same three groups of people, drunken girls) when he noticed me waiting he rolled his eyes and pointed to the person next to me (it was humiliating). Everyone in the bar thought I did something wrong. I tip well. I’ve been going to Labemis for almost 5 years. Overall Labemis is a local watering hole for young drunken people that are constantly over-​served with a very rude unfriendly bartender (the tall one) with no personality. Rude staff members shitty drinks, and an incredibly cramped environment.

Are you kidding. My friend and I visited this place on Friday night around 9:00 pm. We originally wanted to go to Dukes Ale House but it looked a bit too fancy for us. So we walked pass Labemi’s and it looked just like what we wanted, we were really excited to go in, so we walk in and got our IDs checked, and found a table.
15 min later (I did time it) a waitress FINALLY shows up asks us if we wanna eat, we were both starving so yes we wanted to eat. She responds «Well make it quick the kitchen is about to close» and she walks away. I look at the clock its 9:28PM so we have at least 30 min before the kitchen closes and IF YOU WOULD HAVE BEEN HERE 15 MIN AGO THIS WOULDN’T BE AN ISSUE. Any who its just seafood, ribs and burgers, nothing exciting. We both order burgers, med-​well. They arrive to us and the middle is RAW!!! by this time we have been informed the kitchen is already closed (we didnt even have time to send back the under cooked burgers, and it was only 9:49) At 10 o’clock exactly we were given the check and told we had to pay now (I thought it was really odd because we did get drinks, but even if we did need to pay our food bill we could have simply been asked in a nice way, not rudely told.) We payed our check, chuged our drinks (which tasted awful) and packed up the other half of our gross burgers and got the hell outta there. I WILL NEVER GO BACK! HORRIBLE SERVICE, HORRIBLE FOOD, HORRIBLE DRINKS.

Great food! Friendly atmosphere and courteous staff. Daily specials including German night!

What a dump. Food stinks. Service is bad. People are real dirt bags here. And there is more bad things that are bad as well. BAD!

Food ⁴⁄₅:
The food here is cooked well and comes in decent size portions. I got the burger here which was a little smaller than expected but still filling enough. There wasn’t much flavour to the burger except for a very meaty taste (which I enjoy in my burgers). Was cooked well to my request and wasn’t dried out or crispy. The meals and cooking style feel like something you’d come to expect when eating your best family dishes.
Ambiance ⁵⁄₅:
It depends what type of environment you are going for. For a pub/​tavern this is great. When you enter the place it feels like your going into a friends basement. It’s definitely not an ‘romantic’ dining place but its a great place to meet with friends and to engage in some friendly bar talk.
Service ⁵⁄₅:
Friendly staff that act like real people. They were by to take our requests as needed and didn’t hover around to much.

Due to the unfortunate passing of the owner, Labemi’s is going thru some changes and most are for the best. The food has been a bit of a roller coaster ride in recent years but it definitely appears to be on the upswing again. Recently had the same fish fry combo that was sooo bad in my last review and it was far better. The ribs also were much better and a new duck a’lorange got high marks. Service was friendly and solid. Definitely worth another visit if you recently had called it quits.

Visited for the first time and it won’t be our last! The food was outstanding! Everything was made from scratch, including the soup! Portions were very good. Was told the chef does an awesome job with fish. Definitely will be back to try the fish fry and Crab Legs!

This rate is on the waitstaff. Slow slow slow!!! Friday night and we were here two hours to eat. Order the fish fry which was good but the waitstaff are a joke on Friday night. Please improve them or retrain them.

Clean, friendly and comfortable. Good value for money (e.g. $ 4 wine vs. $ 9). Maybe it was just because the British Open was on, but good place for golf fans, too.

Best of the bars in crystal lake! Great drinks, the bar tenders are friendly, funny, and treat you good. They want to make you happy here. The crowed is a young but more mature group. They play bags out on the huge back patio. Breakfast in the morning and all sorts of events for sports. They do a real good job here.

Like a few others have said, eating here is like if a good friend or relative of yours had a really killer basement with a few kegs and some dartboards. It was a fun place to be inside, because of the ambiance, and the food is pretty good too.
We came here for a Friday night fish fry, which was very good. Good portion size, and the fish is done pretty nicely.
The only real reason I don’t come here very often is because I greatly prefer the beer selection across the street at Duke’s.

The reason I would give this a four is because the prices could be better. The thing that I like about it is that there is a great atmosphere, there’s a mix of all age groups, and there’s music. The music wasn’t crazy loud and the place wasn’t packed. We went when they were still serving food, but didn’t get any. There are all sorts of tables to choose from and the décor was nice. As far as the beer selection, it was good. It wasn’t the best, but there was a wide variety of domestic, import, and microbrews.

In search of cheap eats and something new, we were lured here by some seriously stellar Unilocal reviews. And, much to our chagrin, we were pretty disappointed.
On the bright side, it’s like hanging out in your friend’s grandparent’s basement. Totally old school and totally comfortable. The staff is beyond friendly. They make you feel like family. That’s why it pains me to write this review…
The food was not that great. The walleye and ribs that came highly recommended were both subpar. The walleye was littered with bones. The fish fry batter was strangely sweet. The ribs were dry. And, in the end, the bill was higher than we had anticipated. Sad :(

We went out here after a great dinner at Duke’s. I had never been here but being recently single after 9 years I wanted to go out and have a good time and did we ever! This place is pretty laid back — clean with younger people (25 – 30). The bartenders were very hospitable — basically this place is like your best friends basement with some really fun people.
I dropped $ 220.00 that night there alone and it was worth it! Next we have to try the food.
If any of the folks out Saturday are members here — thanks for a completely kick ass night!

This is the hidden gem of the town. I used drink a lot of my dinners here back in the day, so yeah, the food’s great.
It’ll take a hundred years to get the nicotine off the wood-​paneled walls, I’ve seen a man stop-​drop-​and-​roll while his pants were on fire (a victim of a great prank), it’s so dark you can’t see who you’re making out with, there’s always some monkey pissing in the sink when the only men’s toilet is being used, the bartenders purposely skip the shitty songs on the jukebox, and they pour the most honest drink in the state.
I love it.

Labemi’s is my favorite bar in Crystal Lake. They aren’t trying too hard like the other bars in town. My main reasons for loving Labemi’s are as follows:
The staff is friendly but sarcastic/​funny.
Phish and the Grateful Dead are the top played bands on the jukebox.
The crowd is usually a little older, more calm and relaxed.
They serve the best fish fry I’ve had outside of Wisconsin.
The drinks are simple and reasonably priced.
The atmosphere is that of an old dive bar with fake wood paneling and orange-​colored tiffany style lighting.
If you’re sick of going to Dukes where you pay city prices for drinks/​food while having D-​bags rudely scream in your ears at bar time, try Labemi’s. It will be a refreshing change of pace.

Not bad at all… good food and appetizers. Decent crowd of regulars at the bar, nice bartenders. The prices here are a bit lower than the other bars around. I like the fact that you can still smoke inside here, which is becoming more rare these days.
Also nice to see more adults in here, where a couple of the other bars nearby tend to attract huge crowds of wanna-​be tough guys, loudmouths, clowns, etc.
There are a lot of bars in this area so you could start here and if you get bored it’s just a short walk to 8 or 10 others right nearby.