Very new. Bob has built a nice, unique restaurant and lounge with a touch of upscale....but still friendly and quaint. Plenty of room between you and your neighboring diner...unlike the cramped dining areas of some Italian places on Veterans Parkway-but not overly loud here. Good food both times I went, and good cocktails. Worth your time to give it a try. Staff is pleasant and attentive. Food was good and fresh. Decor is very nice! Christmas decorations out now! 3/2020. Back again for a birthday. Gets better each time. Give it a try! read more

It is a joke compared to any better quality restaurant in a large city. The decor is outdated midwestern. My food was horribly salty and smothered in butter. Won't be back. read more

Great atmosphere, came here with the fam. Service was awesome, highly recommend the s'mores martini!

Excellent food and service!! This was our first visit and we will definitely be returning!! My husband is hard to please when it comes to ribs and he said they were so tender that the meat just fell off the bones!! I had the salmon special and it was very delicious!! read more

Good food, great service! Our lunch salad was plentiful and served promptly. The room is warm and inviting. Beautiful wood.

An upscale restaurant that serves the regular American fare. The service is excellent. The decor is great. The food is just ok. Nothing outstanding. read more

Restaurant was very loud, even at 4pm. My steak was really good, but two other people ordered chicken piccata and it was lukewarm at best. Server gave us a free dessert to split after we asked. read more

Certainly enjoy the classic dining of Rob Dob's. Enjoy seeing the owners visit at the table. Had Eggs Benedict once and the eggs were not soft poached, but yokes were hard. They took it back and brought be a fresh plate! DELICIOUS!!! Was perfectly done. Not sure what happened with the first plate - I mean, I have never had hard cooked eggs Benedict, but I haven't been everywhere. The breakfast potatoes were seasoned wonderfully ! I also enjoyed the German food during Oktoberfest! read more

Came here with a large group of 18. The staff was very attentive and gracious. Whenever you come with that many it is bound to be difficult. We ordered several dishes and enjoyed them family style. The accoutrement on the plate could have complimented the steak better, but that was my main negative. read more

Food looks better than tastes. Service is below par For the prices, it does not meet expectations Ordered steak, wasn't seasoned Won't be on my list of restaurants to go out of the way for read more

Expensive and terrible food. I've tried 3 times and each time was more disappointing than the last. Never again.

I had a Seafood Cobb Salad that tasted good with fresh lettuce, however it was overpriced for the content. The only seafood included were three puny shrimp and maybe 1/8 c of canned crab meat. Other than that, portion size was definitely smaller lunch size (on lunch menu), including bacon, eggs, avocado, tomatoes. Overpriced at $24. A small salad at that price should come with rolls/bread. Would still be overpriced. read more

Absolutely fabulous food and service. I've had the prime rib, sea bass and lamb chops. The spinach salad is fabulous too!

Went here for my 21st Birthday with my parents and it was absolutely an amazing place to celebrate at with a great dine in experience! The place is big and you definitely have your privacy wherever your table is. We had great service and not to mention fast and responsive service as well. Words cannot describe how good and delicious the food was so much that dessert was not going to get passed up this time! read more

Rob Dob's Restaurant & Bar - Lobster tail and Filet mignon with asparagus and mashed potatoes - Steakhouses Near Me - Bloomington, Illinois

See all

Ambiance was nice. Good place to have conversations. Food was good, but expensive.

I might go for dinner sometime, but I would definitely NOT recommend this place for breakfast. We paid WAY too much for less-than-Denny's quality. Sorry, I really expected better. read more

Hi Michael, You say that it is common practice to charge for a garnish in a mixed drink. I have never experienced that before. Please name one restaurant besides yourself that does that. read more

Rob Dob's Restaurant & Bar - Steakhouses Near Me - Bloomington, Illinois

A great attempt. Beautiful restaurant. Service needs training but was very friendly. Wine is cheaper by the bottle than by the glass by a tremendous margin. My wine by the glass was $11 and by the bottle $24. Makes no sense. Ordered oysters Rockefeller. Oysters were fried. Manager swears they're flown in fresh. Then serve them raw, grilled, baked Chicken fried steak was chewy but other bytes were delicious. Restaurant need direction. High end or comfort food. The jack of direction translated in the flavors read more

Please do not waste your money. Very expensive and not worth it. The food was very bland and the service was terrible and they weren't even busy. If I could give it zero stars I would. read more

The RD cinnamon roll was incredibly dry, we waited 15 minutes for waitress to come take our order for breakfast. Usually a great experience, not today. read more

Soo good! Love this place and the atmosphere!! Wonderful staff and delicious food!! Will definitely be back soon!! read more

See all

Great food, service, and atmosphere. Never had a bad experience at Rob Dob's. I think you'll like it there too.

The Place Very large dining area with ample tables and booths for seating. The large bar is very inviting and provides a delightful cocktail experience. The Menu Very complete menu offering. We enjoyed scallops, fillets, and southern fried chicken, salads and appetizers. Our food was very good. The Service/value/Experience The service was very good. The menu pricing was fair. Very nice dining experience. We had a barbershop quartet singing at the table next to us which was excellent. The piano bar music was also a very nice touch. I would gladly recommend Rob Dob's!! read more

First trip to this place supposed to be high end and interior reflects it very clean and new. Tried the Memphis ribs for an appetizer and they were fall off the bone good. Sauce was tasty too. I went for the steak truffle pasta and loved the taste but disappointed in the grisly steak in it poor quality for a $28 entree. Buddy had the meatloaf and he said it was really good green beans looked nice with it. Had the Tierra misu for dessert was excellent. Service was friendly and fast no complaints here. Will be back to try dinner menu as it seems to have lots of good food. read more

When first walking inside, I thought "wow this must be a nice restaurant as it seemed more upscale compared to other restaurants in Bloomington-Normal. My dad made a reservation for my family to eat and what shocked my dad was when we were told that we were going to sit at high tops when there were plenty of tables open. Fortunately, they sat us to a table quickly looking at my dad's reaction. Our server was attentive and the service was good. We ordered a couple appetizers to get us started and our favorite was the spinach dip. We loved how there was cheese on top. It was a good touch as we love cheese. My sister ordered the liver and onions which was good but for me personally I cannot way it too much. I ordered the linguine and shrimp which was okay. It was not anything special. We ordered bread pudding for dessert and that was delicious. It was warm and cold at the same time with the ice cream. Overall, I would have to say it was just okay, nothing special. read more

See all

I love Rob DOB's I highly recommend it for a change. If you like Jazz music make reservations for the bar area. Live music

Tuesday night dinner and I was really impressed by how much effort went into this place Had a bottle of good red wine (Machete is delicious) a burger and some Calamari and my wife had a really good pasta. Much needed addition to the Chili's filled wasteland of Bloomington Normal Thanks for bringing something unique and local, we will be back read more

The best I can say to start with is, it's just ok. The food was just ok, but was -WAY OVER-PRICED- for "just ok". And the service was just ok. The place: The appearance and atmosphere of this place is very nice; looks nice on the outside and the ambience and decor inside are very nice. The service: We met some friends for dinner and had made reservations in advance. We were seated promptly and the other couple arrived approx 15min late. In the time we waited, the wait to get water and to have a drink order taken seemed too long. The wait to have our food order taken was longer than expected, but our waiter was very good with reviewing signature entrees and helping with deciding on what would fit our taste. During the meal, our waiter checked on us once early after food arrived, which was fine, but then didn't really check again to refresh drinks. The food: In my opinion, prices are WAY too high for the portions and quality. The food falls short in taste. I ordered the fish and chips ($23). It was 3 pieces of fried fish and 4-5 potato wedges. The fish was cooked well and had a decent taste, but the tartar sauce seemed to have a very strong citrus/sour taste and the wedges were dry. I can't speak to the other dishes other than to say that they were reported to be "ok" or "decent". The cost: For 1 appetizer, 2 drinks (1 draft beer and 1 glass of Port), and 2 entrees, the bill was just shy of $90. In my opinion, this was WAY too much for the quality and portion of food and drink. Overall, our experience was just mediocre. It feels like Rob Dob's wants to be a very upscale dining experience (at least that's what the prices seem to suggest), but it just falls short. If aiming for upscale is not the intent, then I think management should STRONGLY consider re-evaluating price vs portion and quality of what is being served. There are LOTS of sit-down dining options in the immediate area, some that I would say have better food, for notably less cost. All that said, we had never been here before, and I can say we tried it, but we don't have any desire to try it again. read more

Very underwhelming and disappointing after all the pre-opening hype. First, our table was VERY small and next to an awkward wall. We were NOT offered bread, even though there is complementary bread available; we had to ask for it. The bread was small, run of the mill biscuits. Not even home made. We waited over an hour for our food. When we finally got our food, they had forgotten the fries with my entree. Worst of all, the fish n chips were 95% breading! There was literally almost NO fish. I waited OVER AN HOUR to be served very greasy fried breading. I'm going to stick with Outback Steakhouse. read more

Food is excellent. Service is usually wonderful. But today we were forced to listen to the owner spout his political views to an older couple behind us. Everyone has a right to their opinion, but hearing the owner say, "Stop feeding them. They will learn how to find their food. They are getting used to getting too many handouts" was too much. We will no longer eat here because of the callousness of the owner who so rudely intruded into our meal. read more

We went for our anniversary dinner expecting a nice dinner to celebrate. Our service was subpar but the food is where we really were disappointed. It was hard to hear what the server was even saying as the "live music" was blaring. I ordered a six ounce steak medium rare but received a much smaller portion that was completely rare aside from being seared on the edges. Our pasta dish came with a few hairs in it that my boyfriend had to pull out of mouth. Overall, we would not go back again and left hungry. read more

this food was delicious, the service was amazing, they kept offering us things we didn't even want. I recommend this restaurant 1000%

[Updated on 3/8/2020]. Went to RD's on Thursday and I'm happy to say there has been great growth with their staff and service. The young man who waited on us was very engaged, welcomed us, asked us questions, thanked us for our business and asked about the quality of food/service throughout the meal. I had a ribeye cooked rare and she had the salmon. Both dishes were well done. My steak came a little more cooked than I would have liked, but before I even said something our waiter proclaimed "that doesn't look rare, it looks medium well!" He sprang into action but as it turned out (for both he and I) the steak in the middle was quite to my liking, it was the edges that were a little more cooked. I must confess, this is actually the second time I've enjoyed RD's since my review in November 2019. The previous time was also good and I had the Prime Rib. Thankful to see RD's mature. I look forward to more steaks and entertaining clients there in the future. Changed from 3 stars to 4. [Updated on 11/13/2019]. Visited Rob Dobs for Dinner. I confess nothing has changed and in this case the overall experience was again unimpressive. We had 6pm reservations and sat down quickly. Our waitress was very nice, but she warned us that she had never been a waitress before. That probably softened us as we knew she was feeling the stress of the night. Drink orders took 20min, appetizers came at 35min, dinner orders weren't taken until 652pm! Food arrived at 815pm. I had the RD Prime Rib, which was quite good. They had a very salty, anchovy, herbed crust but it was cold and at room temp. My companion got the scallops which were a tad over cooked. No good. Our waitress was working very hard and was very nice. Unfortunately she couldn't keep up and we saw her about every 20-25min as she scurried about from table to table. My observations: parking was awful (we parked two lots away), Drinks weren't refilled, food was cold, they had a pianist playing but were playing competing music over the speaker system (that was very distracting) and again not a single person asked us about our experience. We did see the owners wife milking about, but she skipped our table (which was totally fine), but no manager or service staff even approached us. Between my two meal experiences (team lunch and date night) Ive already given RB nearly $300. I'm not keen on spending $40-50 on cold prime rib again even if they use salty anchovies in the rub; ithink my money is going elsewhere until word of mouth improves. It's a shame as it seems like people from church, work and even the gym are all having the same experience. read more

I am always reluctant to give 5 stars to any place but Robdob's earned it. Stopped by on a Wednesday night. We ordered the meatloaf and ahi tuna (custom ordered with Parmesan crust). All was delicious. Couldn't have asked for anything better. Hint: substitute the Brussels sprouts for your vegetable. Really good! read more

Rob Dob's Restaurant & Bar - Steakhouses Near Me - Bloomington, Illinois

See all

I've eaten or three times and keep thinking that they will get better but they do not They have the worst food and service in town and it's hard to believe that they are still in business read more

Service is great, friendly and always looking to see what they can improve. Bob always finds time to stop and check in and make sure all is good. Thank You!! read more

We really enjoyed our meal at Rob Don's! This was our first time here. I ordered the filet entree and it was cooked to perfection. My husband had the liver and onions and he said it was the best he ever had! The cosmopolitan was not as good as I have at other places. Our waiter was great and the ambiance was very relaxing. read more

Rob Dob's Restaurant & Bar - Cosmopolitan (not as good as it looked) - Steakhouses Near Me - Bloomington, Illinois

See all

Our experience was pretty good, Our food was awesome, Coming back today to have lunch, my only thing was it did take awhile for food, but was really good, want to try Cuban and chowder today, try to post my pics but guess don't know how read more

Rob Dob's Restaurant & Bar - Sooooo Soooooo Good - Steakhouses Near Me - Bloomington, Illinois

See all

We chose a Sunday night and there were several large parties and staff was still attentive. Sat at a desirable table instead of being outcast with a 4 & 6 year old which was appreciated. Kids loved having steak on their kids menu, ice cream for dessert and being given crayons. Very nicely appointed and the bathroom is super cute. Extensive wine selection. Scallops were very good with the lobster citrus cream and the bacon onion jam really complimented the roasted brussel sprouts. I also appreciate the a la carte menu since sometimes I just want a steak. We'll be back! read more

See all

The food and atmosphere is great. I had the French Onion soup which was great plus a burger. I forget the name but it was the one with Ann egg on top. One of my pet peeves of a restaurant is when they ask how you want your burger cooked oh to bring it dry and we'll done. In ordered medium and it was perfect. Their fries are fresh cut and the best in town. read more