Lake Forest Bar and Grill

I went for the first time. I had a good experience. Staff was lovely and the food was alright. My only complaint would be that my bottom burger bun got soggy very quickly so it was falling apart when I was trying to eat it. Otherwise food was alright. Sweet potato fries were good, tasted like they come frozen not fresh. But still ate them...lol.

Steak salad and key lime cheesecake. Delicious! The ONLY thing that gave it a 4 star is that I specified med-rare steak and it was almost well done. But tasted good so I didn't mention it. Great service, as always. Great food, nice atmosphere! We go often and will continue to do so. ( The cheesecake COULD be a touch larger for the price...but omg....it was AWESOME!) 👍

My son and I went to this very nice restaurant to celebrate Mothers day early. Very nice atmosphere, a little dark but that's just my opinion. My son loves going there and that is why we chose it. Customer service was awful. I work with the public everyday and I always go the extra mile to avoid reviews like this one. Our server Cierra needs a few more lessons in the "good customer service" category. I recently had bariatric surgery and I can only eat small (egg size) portions and non sugar items. I had asked for a kids menu and Cierra was quick to say "we will have to add additional $2.00 adult charge". I understand if I was an adult with a normal size stomach I would have to pay that charge. I paid $10.95 for a price of chicken that was the size of my palm female palm) and a quarter inch thick. Really "Cierra"! Good customer service would be more understanding to the customers situation and not charge the extra charge. That was your discretion and you chose to charge. I have uploaded pictures of the chicken pieces that I took home because I couldn't eat the whole piece. My son showed her a 25% coupon and it was only 2 days past the expiration date. Cierra with attitude put it back on the table slid it towards my son and told him its 2 days past the expiration date. Now, this is what I would do. I would tell the customer that I will check with the manager to see if they would honor the coupon. Cierra, it's called "good customer service"! I didn't want to tip Cierra but she did bring us silverware, our food and water. I tipped the minimum amount for what she did do. I do plan on coming back to the restaurant again I just wont sit in Cierra's section. I would recommend this restaurant to everyone.

It comes down to this: -It's overpriced bland food served in a dark environment with bad lighting and bad TV positioning all while trying to disguise it as a ~classy place. -If the food/recipes aren't great then you need to be large portions or lower price. -If the atmosphere isn't great then the prices need to come down to make up for the inconvenience or your food needs to be amazing. -If you're going to serve small glimpses into other cultures like hummus make sure it's authentic. The rant: We ordered hamburgers with french fries. The hamburgers were half as good as kid valley at twice the price. We literally had to salt and pepper each bite as we ate the hamburgers. We also ordered the hummus plate as a starter. It just didn't taste like real hummus. Also was very small and $14. My youngest ordered the fish and chips from the kids menu. It was also extremely small and didn't look good but I didn't try it because I didn't want to take any food from the already small plate. We can forgive the kids menu item because they are always dumbed down recipes. Why do we, as americans, do that to our kids? It's cheaper... Is that worth not expanding our palate when we're young? Not a lot of palate expansion on the main menu either.. Ok so maybe the atmosphere is really great. Well it's not. The light above each table glares in your face. We decided to unscrew the bulb for sanity reasons. Now it's too dark but better than squinting the whole time. If you paint your walls black lighting is tricky... Some of this would be forgivable if it had that family owned feel but it doesn't. Ok maybe people come here to watch sports. Well the TVs are in really inconvenient positions for customers to watch. It's almost like they put the TVs up for the bartender to watch. Ok, ok, we don't drink so maybe the bar is awesome and I just don't know it. Our service was just fine. Nothing that stood out to make you remember your american family owned experience but was attentive and polite. Didn't make you WANT to tip but I always do. One of the cheapest meal options on the menu is a $19 hamburger and fries. This becomes $21 after tax and ~$25 after tip. That better be a great hamburger and fries. What separates your expensive hamburger from fast food comparables or other so-called american restaurants? I really want this restaurant to be great. It's nearby and would be really nice if the food and atmosphere were good vs price. I'm not writing this review to turn people off to the Lake Forest Park Bar and Grill. I'm writing this review because I want whoever's in charge to make changes so we and other families in the area want to eat there on a regular basis. This isn't our first time at this restaurant and it isn't the first time we've been disappointed with this restaurant. I understand that expenses are more expensive these days for businesses. So many of our restaurants these days are chains and franchise driven and need to bend to rules etc. So when there is a restaurant that isn't held to these limitations I get excited and hope to have an authentic experience. How can I justify this experience? To spend this amount of money the food would need to be way better or the atmosphere and experience at the restaurant would need to be way better. I understand restaurants can't afford to have cheaper prices. Fine, then don't, but you can't sacrifice flavor and cooking. You can't just take so-called high quality ingredients and have boring recipes if they're going to charge the amount that they do. I wish I wanted to go to this restaurant once a week and enjoy favorite meals and new seasonal options.

I’ve already made my sentiments known to the staff at LFP Grill. Dining in has never been an issue at this location. The failure in food quality is when ordering TOGO. Before COVID, my partner and I both had jobs and the disposable income to show for it, therefore, even though quality was never what I imagine the company wanted it to be, we let it slide. Now, having both been laid off for 15 months, and not able to treat ourselves, our most recent visit to The Grill was a splurge. When placing the order, I simply asked for fresh fries. I purposely arrived within five minutes of placing the order and waited for ten minutes for the food to be prepared. I live within one mile of the restaurant and to my dismay the food was, as we say in the biz, ‘DEAD!’ I now know I was entirely waited on by a manager. The bill was $40 for two entrees only and I generously tipped 25%, as I know it’s been trying for the restaurant industry of which I am an alumnus. Unfortunately, this was probably my last visit to this restaurant. When you can get a fairly decent burger & fries from Kidd’s for $10, why would I pay $20? There aren’t many restaurants in LFP, so it’s a wonder that food quality is not attended to with more care…it’s not that hard. It simply takes an effort.