Walked over to Scratch for lunch on a Saturday. It was pretty crowded but found a table to sit at. It took awhile to get a waitress to take our order but the place was pretty crowded. Two of us ordered the fire burger with fries. It was good no doubt. I actually expected it to be spicier but it was pretty tame. A nice heat from start to finish. The fries were good. The place has plenty of tvs and a full bar to watch games. Definitely worth checking out if you are in the area. read more

I have hesitated writing this review as I always try to see the best in people. However, after part of my party (4 people) waited 40 minutes for a couple of beers and soft drinks and the rest of our party (14 people) got drinks almost 50 minutes after we arrived I feel the need to indicate how poor the service is. We are regulars. We wait to be seated, we wait for menus. We move tables to accommodate our party.Some people order 2 drinks at a time because it's easier than having to wait. I cannot tell you the number of times I have been brought a can of beer without a glass. Tonight I was served a turkey burger that was pink and then was told by my server that the cook said it was done even though it was pink because that is the way their meat is. I am a chef, cooked turkey isn't pink. I did get a replacement burger which is still pink. We go to many many brew pubs in the area and I have never experienced such poor service. Not even when things opened up during the pandemic and every place was short staffed. It is almost comical how poor the service is and it's a shame because when the food is cooked properly, it is delicious. They used to have some of The best fish tacos I have ever had. Another frustration is when you walk back to the rest room and multiple staff members are sitting on the side shooting the breeze or eating while customers are going unserved. I want to like this place but I haven't been given a reason to so a zero star review seems appropriate but Yelp won't allow it so one it is. read more

Scratch On Lake - American Near Me - Oak Park, Illinois

wish i could give 0 stars. my family and i ate here yesterday 1/2/2025 around 7-730pm. we came for trivia and only had the scratch house salad with grilled chicken. at around 3am this morning, all of us have been nonstop vomiting. Either the chicken wasn't cooked fully or the lettuce wasn't washed. Only 1 person in my family did not touch the salad and they are perfectly fine. BEWARE WHAT YOU EAT HERE YOU WILL GET FOOD POISONING THEY ARE NOT HANDLING THEIR FOOD SAFELY! i will be telling everyone i know and posting on every platform about the poor food handling and food poisoning. UPDATE: i called the oak park health department and they stated that this restaurant has been a problem. BEWARE SECOND UPDATE: update: My mother and I posted the reviews to allow the public to understand our troubling experience on 1/3/2025. The owner of this business looked for my mothers information and sent her a private message harassing her for telling the public the truth about the poor food handling this restaurant practices on 1/4/2025. I will be providing a screenshot for everyone to see how the owner talks to anyone who leaves a bad review. if the owner cannot handle truthful negative reviews then maybe he shouldn't be owning a business. Beware everyone! if you leave a bad review the owner will stalk you and message you PRIVATELY and harass you for leaving HONEST NEGATIVE REVIEWS ABOUT THIS DISGUSTING PLACE! read more

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It is 930 p.m. on a Friday night and I wanted to grab a burger and a glass of wine. Imagine it taking 5 minutes to be greeted in an almost empty restaurant. Ordered red wine. No offer of water (pretty standard in the industry to offer). Asked if kitchen still open. Bartender said yes and presented me a menu. Took another 5 minutes for her to recognize i had made a decision (too busy chatting with other employees). Order a scratch burger. It came so over cooked it was almost inedible but I was starving. Never got a check back. Had to ask for water. Watched the BT spray down the bat next to me eating. I guess they close at 1030???? To say I am disappointed is an understatement. I eat here every few months and normally enjoy myself. Whomever is responsible for the p.m. shift needs to understand service. I know this place caters to a young crowd but they deserve to know what good service should look like. Tonight was NOT it. Alot of years in the restaurant business makes me a harsh critic because I know what it should look like. Bummed it was such a disappointment. read more

Came here with friends after a long day of day drinking and everything hit the spot. The tater tots were a perfect start. For dinner, I ordered the Cheeseburger Bowl because I hadn't seen a vegetable in 24 hours and it was delicious. Completely inhaled it. One of my friends ordered the Buffalo Chicken Mac and Cheese in the smaller portion and there was so much food! She doesn't do leftovers so I took it home and it was amazing on day 2. Definitely will be back! read more

The food is so good here. Scratch burger has a truffled arugula that is wonderful if you out an egg on it. Problem: Pepsi products. It's the reason we don't go here more than once a year. It's just too awful. read more

Service was amazing. Your staff is very friendly and professional. I had a Cuban that was really good, the rest of our party seemed to enjoy theirs as well. Great drink selections and nice atmosphere. My wife comes here a lot, I may be joining her more! read more

drinks were good , food not so good, we got the buffalo Mac n cheese and it was one of the most disgusting we have ever tasted super watery no flavor don't know what that was but it was not cheese the "buffalo chicken" didn't have buffalo sauce it was like a dry rub but the chicken was super dry read more

Scratch On Lake is one of Oak Park's best restaurants in the city. The Scratch Burger and fries was the best and the brownie with ice cream and whipped cream was a delight. The staff made sure that customers were happy with the service. The flatscreen TV sets has every sporting events there is. The surroundings is something out of Cheers and I love it. Scratch On Lake is perfect for a night on the town. read more

Scratch On Lake - Scratch Burger And Fries. - American Near Me - Oak Park, Illinois

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Scratch On Lake is one of Oak Park's best restaurants to go for night out on the town. The burgers are delicious and you can watch many sports on their flatscreen television sets. The staff are friendly and the service are top of the line. I recommend Scratch On Lake to those who love to eat a great meal. read more

Scratch On Lake - Scratch Burger with fries. - American Near Me - Oak Park, Illinois

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Homemade Pickles and House Fries were delicious. My burger was prepared medium just right very juicy. I ordered the Down South Burger, Fries, & Pepsi bill total was $22 even...little pricey just enough portion size. I almost never finish my entire bigger and fries at a restaurant. The music or band wasn't there when I arrived but chill atmosphere. My server was training a new member friendly staff overall. I want togo back order truffle fries or pork fries, fish fry. read more

Scratch On Lake - Receipt - American Near Me - Oak Park, Illinois

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Excellent service, speedy service time, and mouth-watering American style cuisine. Nestled on the edge of the Frank Lloyd Wright historic districts Scratch on Lake provides an excellent place for travelers to refuel after architectural tours. We loved the gravy fries. read more

I ordered the chicago combo "burger" Ill leave pictures. I understand i ordered garlic butter fries with it, i just didnt expect the entire thing to be dripping in butter. read more

Scratch On Lake - Chicago "combo" "burger" - American Near Me - Oak Park, Illinois

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Yummm!!! Ordered to go from this place before and yesterday my boyfriend and I came in for indoor dining. Clean, fast and friendly service, delicious food, and hand sanitizers on the table. Yesterday we ordered the prosciutto pea Mac and cheese for an app- DELICIOUS! And we got 2 burgers I got the fire burger (instead of pork I got regular beef patty) and BF got the buratta special burger-DELICIOUS! Previously we also got the Chicago combo burger and the Texas burger and 5/5 would recommend!! read more

Cuban sandwich was far from the mark and inedible. Stale bread and toppings thrown on haphazard with a side of soggy fries. Replaced it with a cup of chili. Equally unappetizing. I will continue my search for a good cuban sandwich. read more

Just had dinner here after a long work day. Scratch is a nice casual place to enjoy a drink and a simple meal. I especially like the cheeseburger bowl. The service was more than rushed, like McDonalds rushed. Our server, Ben, demonstrated no awareness of social etiquette. From getting drink orders to interrupting my partner and I while we were obviously having an involved discussion. I always thought this was a place to have a leisurely, casual meal. He even interrupted out discussion to leave the check. To which my response was might as well leave it so we can get out of here. He left the check and asked if there was something wrong with the service. I told him I didn't wish to discuss it with him in the middle of the dining area. He persisted to ask what was wrong. I asked him I will speak to a manager. Ben continued to ask about the service. I finally told him that he could leave the check and walk away. To put a cherry on the whole experience, he didn't even pick up the check, he had a female server pick it up. We've been to Scratch about 6 times in our 3 years living in Oak Park. This experience will keep us away forever. I can't recommend it to anyone. The food is okay, the charm of the place is the atmosphere. Now that is ruined. read more

Went there tonight for a few cocktails and was horrified to see four mice run across the floor. My friend and I left immediately. I will not be back. read more

While I was in town for work I went here for lunch. The decor was neat and funny/sassy. We shared the pretzel bites which came with a ground mustard and cheese sauce. Both were really great. I had the Mediterranean bowl and it was a good amount of food and was delicious. I would definitely get it again. The only thing was the service was incredibly slow. You could see the servers just chatting on the side and it took us almost twenty minutes after we were done eating to get the bill. read more

Scratch On Lake - Mediterranean Bowl - American Near Me - Oak Park, Illinois

My review or rating is driven by how long it took to get our drinks. The food was good. Our server was good. However when the drinks we ordered are served after the food has been served, that led to a poor experience for us. It was a Monday night and very few customers in the restaurant. I don't want to hear about staffing either. We ordered 3 drinks and one was a draft beer. Also there were 2 people working behind the bar. read more

I almost didn't come because of the reviews, but I'm glad I did. It was a party of 3 in Indigenous Peoples Day. We arrived about 4:15 and were greeted and seated by a lovely little hostess. Our waiter seemed new, but was very friendly. Two had lots of questions and he just went and found out the information. The drinks were delicious. My friend had a French martini and I had the Maui Mule. We all loved our food and the fries. The Asian bowl was extraordinarily fresh and delicious. If I lived close, the Asian bowl would be on my weekly dinner rotation list. read more

Was looking for a nice place for a regular lunch spot. I had a Buffalo wrap and the bacon was super hard... just not worth it. My bf had a burger and I had to try it, I spit it out. It was the weirdest taste of a burger I have ever tried, (I'm usually the let me try it first before you complain to me type of person) The waitress (brown hair , mid age, blue eyes) didn't solve the issue, was very rude all together though. I expected more from the location but oh well .. $32 plus tip, wasted. :/ (however the lovely young man serving waters was fantastic!!!super friendly, Saturday April 24th around 3:30pm) read more

Scratch On Lake - Not good - American Near Me - Oak Park, Illinois

the service is terrible. the food is ok nothing really stood out to me though. The bar selection is nice though.

Best lamb burger I've ever had and no it doesn't taste like a gyro and the three little pigs burger is good too read more

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This restaurant has been slowly slipping in quality over the years. I ordered the chicken wrap and the bacon is nearly raw. Since it's cold out, we thought we would order the "Large Crock of Chili" but what came was a disgusting mess and the worst packaging for a chili I have ever seen. Who puts chili in a Styrofoam clamshell? read more

Scratch On Lake - The "large crock of chili" - American Near Me - Oak Park, Illinois

Ordered dinner for delivery. The pulled pork was cooked-until-dry with crunchy threads of pork. Thankfully, I had BBQ sauce at home to soften it up and make it tasty. The Mac and cheese was seemingly without cheese until I realized it had been melted into a liquid that fell to the bottom of the dish. I added breadcrumbs from home as there were none on the measly dish, ample as it was. Hey, the house salad with balsamic vinegar was really good and delivery was fast but ya gotta do better if ya want to survive and have happy customers. All in all, disappointed. read more

Super slow service, drum stick appetizer came out piping hot on the outside and lukewarm on the inside, full bar but NO Red Bull, hottest day of summer and crappy air conditioning. Burnt fries. Warm Guinness. One star for a good burger. read more

Food and service was good but not great. Annoyed with 3% credit card surcharge. Might as well just reflect in pricing since there's probably not many paying cash. Sorry won't come back because of that. Tired of additional fees being charged at restaurants and won't go if not willing to take off check. read more

Greatest Oak Park restaurant. Food was amazing and cheap! Service was also better than any other place! Five stars. I live out West, so it's worth the drive out here. read more

Food was not that good our waitress could have smiled or pretended to be a little happy. If you want a drink then go here but food? I'm not crazy about it read more

Scratch on Lake is where I get my late-night munchies taken care of via the amazing Uber Eats. The food usually arrives warm and delicious but also very, very salty. (I'm that annoying customer who has to add a comment to her order asking to go light on the salt.) Well, I stopped by here the other day to eat in for the first time and it definitely didn't disappoint! There weren't that many customers still eating lunch at like 1:30 pm, so maybe I got lucky, but the service was on the mark! I got a Turkey Melt with Truffle Fries and it was REALLY GOOD. I love that it was on a naan bread too. (So much better than sandwich bread.) Ballast Point's Hazy IPA, the Aloha Sculpin, paired really nicely with the juicy cheesy goodness. I'd definitely come back here for more of that! read more

I so wanted this place to be as good as Scratch on Madison. Although the space is much bigger the service is OK and the kitchen issues are kind of not cool. The food was decent for me cause I just asked for the veggie burger with NO modifications. But for my tribe of ladies, they kept having issues with what they had ordered. I think it's because they're new and still working out the kinks. Two said no buns. Their burgers had to be remade for some reason. Another kept asking for no cheese on her salad to have it remade with double cheese. She ended up skipping dinner. Hours later we had no happy campers. We smiled and thanked them but I seriously doubt we'll be going back for a while. Perhaps they'll figure it out. I hope so, it's too bad since their space is very nice and good location. Depending our next meetup, if the girls want to give it another chance, we will and I'll update my review. 1 star for location, 1 for space, 1 star for yummy veggie burger. read more

Scratch On Lake - American Near Me - Oak Park, Illinois

When they first opened, I walked in, asked, very politely, if they have anything vegan. Most restaurants do, even if it's just sides like fries. The person answered "no" very curtly. The attitude was, we don't want your business, even to the simple extent of pointing out which items on the menu would be acceptable to vegans. I've never had such an unfriendly response to that question, so, I've never gone back. read more

I loved this place so much I went back two days in a row and ordered the Cobb Salad to go! This is now my fave Cobb salad and highly recommend it! The fresh corn is a new compliment to a Cobb salad and it added a nice crunch. The salad is big enough to share and to be honest I added some more salad greens to accompany the large amounts of ingredients in the salad. I prefer a bite of greens with each bite of ingredients and towards the end I had more ingredients than salad. Not a bad thing just something to keep in mind. I plan on coming back whenever I have a Cobb salad craving. read more

Scratch On Lake - Cobb Salad - American Near Me - Oak Park, Illinois

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My boyfriend and I came here for dinner midweek. There was one other party that was being attended by staff and after standing for a couple minutes we were directed to the bar where we were then told we could sit wherever we liked. The customer service definitely felt a bit awkward, not only then but throughout the meal. Between the two of us, we split the three little pigs burger and the fire burger. Each came with either a pesto salad or fries. The savory flavors of the three little pigs burger with the contrasting sweetness of the jam was really delicious. The fire burger had minimal spice- mostly coming from the sriracha. The jalapenos that came on the burger were cut into halves and tasted a bit too chunky in each bite. I would have preferred if they were coined. Overall, it was a filling meal but I wasn't blown away by anything, everything about the food and experience just A-okay. read more

Scratch On Lake - Fire burger with pesto pasta - American Near Me - Oak Park, Illinois

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This is definitely one of those places that makes you go hmmm. It is in a nice area, the food is good, prices are par for the area, but on the day I went, the service was lacking. I brought my kids here on 06/21/20 for a early Father's Day supper. It is kind of chaotic with all the COVID precautions, but we were seated relatively quickly. It took some time to be seen by a server and I had to ask a couple of times for menus. We ordered a few dishes, but it definitely took a long time to prepare the food. I understand the food is cooked to order, but this was kind of excessive. I also had to deal with a spill on a kids cup because the server didn't put the lid on all the way. Like I said, overall it isn't a bad place by any means, the food we had was good. I thought the prices was fair, but the service was lacking a bit. Maybe it was a bad day, maybe they were slammed for Father's Day. I will most likely give them another shot because my kids did enjoy their food. read more

I've recently moved back to the area after a few years in California, and I'm excitedly rediscovering the food scene in Oak Park. Scratch on Lake had great reviews, and my mother was craving burgers so we decided to give it a try! My mom ordered the turkey burger and I ordered the veggie burger. We were both disappointed with our food, unfortunately. Given the higher price tag, I was expecting a quality burger. But what we got was just messy. Usually messy food is kinda fun actually! But in this case, the bread fell apart almost immediately, and everything was soggy - including the fries, and it was lacking flavor. There's so much better bar food out there. Unfortunately I don't think I'll be coming back to Scratch. read more

Good food. Good beer. The service was decent. Great location in Oak Park. Wish they had more than one basketball game showing on all the TVs

Pretty good bar food with a fun atmosphere! The service was great and everyone was attentive. They were easily able to sit our party of four and made sure we got everything that we needed! Food was a bit on the pricey side to be in the suburbs, but I was still go back again if I was in the area. read more

We went in on a Friday right after opening and were the only ones there. We got seated and got food very quickly! The food was good! The service was initially great and seemed friendly. The reason for the 1 star is that when we politely asked someone other than our server for check, our server took offense at that (there was no rush, we just wanted to let someone know we were done). The server then went to the cash register in the nook and started badmouthing us, not knowing we could hear her. When she came to give us our bill, I asked if she was talking about us, and she lied and said no. Then she went to the other side of the bar and started whispering to the other server. I get that there's work banter, it happens in all professions, but if you're gonna do it, at least own up and apologize or make sure your customers can't hear you. read more

I'm giving this place 2 stars because both time I have ordered for take out, the kitchen has messed up the food. Although the others I was with got to enjoy their meal I did not, TWICE. I really tried to give it a second shot, but honestly it seems like their kitchen staff needs more training. Don't order anything with special instructions. They don't even care to read it. read more