Maria "gimme that filet o fish" O.'s Profile

Get the stuffed. Put down the menu and just get the stuffed pizza. I didn't understand at first, I thought it would be a stuffed pizza like Giordano's or my beloved Chicago Pizza (who stays open til 4 am and I miss dearly). But no, this a something else altogether. Its like two pizzas put together so that its kind of a pizza sandwich. This sounds gluttonous and probably is but I love it so!!

The double dough is okay as is the thin crust. But I keep going back for the stuffed. Flavors are good and the crust is just right on.

Sandwiches/grinders are fine but nothing to write home about.

The employees are superfriendly & sweet.

They had old school cartoons & kids movies to play via VHS. Bonus! And they sell by the slice & have a little counter to gosh at. Also bonus.

O donuts how my family and I love thee. (Thees? Thous? How would one make plural thee?)

I digress. I am so happy we found this place a week or two after we moved to Crystal Lake. Unpretentious and delicious and the employees are super nice!

Why do I mention the unpretentiousness? Because of late everything food wise has become boutique-y and trendy and hipster-y. That's fine, I enjoy a nice trendy spot when the occasion arises. But when I bring my kids here for donuts I don't worry that they will break some fancy sculpture and I don't worry that I'll spend all of their college funds on donuts.

This place is cute in its simplicity; a few tables, the usual beverage selections, (coffees, tea, milk,etc) a beautiful array of donuts. Its easy to relax here and discuss your day with a four year old (or any year old for that matter) over a buttercrunch donut and glass of milk.

Also they are delish to go as well, we usually get a dozen saying we'll freeze the extras, but we don't because they're usually gone by the next day.

Their cheeseburgers are awesome! Messy & delicious, just the way you're supposed to have them in a joint like this. Reminds me of Wolfy's on Peterson & California, but Tommy's burgers win in this round. Sad though, Hubby's gyro didn't have feta, so skip that and try something else.

Typical fried food as every other hole-in-the-wall type joint; cash only; and refills are $0.25.

don't forget to try the cheeseburger

I was totally pysched to get tickets for the Janet Jackson concert Mar 2011 and everything was fine. Except that I lost my CC that I originally purchased the tickets online with. Oops. I called Mike and he said I could still pick them up, just bring an ID and a different card; they'd charge the 2nd card and CREDIT my original card. Fine and dandy, everything worked out, got the tickets and had a blast at the concert. Here's the tricky part. 6 days later and account it still not credited. So I call them. "Oh, we'll have the person who does internet sales call you back by end of the day." Nope. Called back the next day. Same line. Still no call. This happens four times. The 5th call on the 5th day  finally gets me in contact with the internet sales. She says she's credited my account and will fix the random 2nd charge that I just noticed today.  Taking 5 days to help a customer out is not my idea of a good business, and saying you'll call them back by the end of the day to help them and you never do is just rude.

So, previous experience at this place is not so hot. But I gotta admit it did get much better. Maybe the sales guys realized what scumbags they were..or maybe they got fired. Even the service dept was better last time.

So background...in my first review I said they were skeezy car guys..which was true at the time. However, we were in need of another car and decided to look at Northside since they're the closest Toyota dealership. There was actually a very nice older sales guy who helped us out. We weren't going there to buy...merely to check out our options. We tested the Yaris and really liked it. So we thanked him and decided to head over to Grossinger to make the final purchase. At Grossinger we were shown the Yaris and the sales guy tried to sell us on a Camry. Um, no thanks. Plus he quoted prices on the Yaris that was actually $3000 higher than Northside. Hmm, no thanks. We headed back to NT to try again.

The older gentleman was quite helpful & I think his mgr was desperate to sell a car b/c he gave $5000 on our Buick and it def. was not worth it. We did buy the Yaris from them and didn't feel as if we had gotten screwed afterward [unlike our previous experience with them and our Rav4]. The Yaris has been taken in for service there also and hardly any drama has occured. Last time even, my husband forgot the coupon, but he went in the next day and they refunded some of the money. I was impressed...but still a little leery.

Keep improving like this Northside and you may get 5 stars from me one day.

I heart you "mini-cake" carrot cake. Delish! Also the lemon mini cake was fabu!
As for the regular sized cupcakes I will pass on them the next time I come thru here. The chocolate and white cupcakes with "buttercream" frosting were kinda gross. Dry, stale, and the buttercream tasted more like "crisco"-cream. ick.

the girl behind the counter was quite helpful...although she couldn't tell me much about the carrot cake since she was allergic to nuts and hadn't tried it. but thanks to the lady sitting next to the counter who told me the carrot cake was awesome; you were right.

so if you're stopping by, bypass the regular sized cupcakes...they're not that good. go for a mini cake or a full sized cake.

i heart boba bee.

the drinks are delish, the tapioca is a perfect chewiness. some places have frozen little bits but these are fresh and nice. flavors are outstanding, but they discontinued my 2nd fave, kumquat. sadness. if you're tired of boba try the jellies. yum yum. it's just like the jelly candies you get at the asian market.

the decor is a little lacking, but it's okay..i normally run in get my drinks and head over to mather park and enjoy.

go get yourself a lychee boba today!

ice cream shop or chem lab?

walking in you see the mixers and their overflowing steam..which is actually the liquid nitrogen freezing the ice cream before your eyes. pretty cool.
love the fact that you make it the way you want....you can have bright blue strawbery flavored yogurt with gummy bears and nutella. i wouldn't actually recommend this, but you could make it if you want. you have your choice of base[ice cream, yogurt, soy ice cream] and your flavor and your mix-ins. you can even make it whatever color you'd like. if you get fresh fruit, do NOT have them mix it in before the freezing process; you'll have frozen rocks that hurt to bite. just have them add it at the end.

it's a fun place and the staff is friendly and helpful.  they need more seating area, but you can grab your icream and go wander around the neighborhood.  i'd go back again and my 3 year old loved to watch the mixers almost as much as he enjoyed eating his ice cream.

there was a massive line while we were there, but that just tells you that people like it.

i'll be honest, i've never been to a tailor before...so my only thoughts were of chandler and joey in that one episode of 'friends' where joey's tailor takes advantage of chandler. don't worry, this is definitely not the case here.

the hubbs needed to get some pants and sport jacket altered for his brother's wedding. unfortunately we are not so good with the planning ahead and realized this 5 days before we flew out to san diego. so we looked up tailors nearby and headed over to ji's. what a nice experience. the lady who owns it with her husband was sooo nice. she even humored our crazy 3 year old who wanted to look at everything in the shop and helped to see all the fun stuff. she told us she had grandkids and was used to it. we told her we needed it ASAP and she said she could have it ready for us the next day.
we went again the next day and everythng was ready and fit perfectly. this little family business rox!

i wish it could give a 2.75, but yelp won't let me give 3/4 stars.

we dined here on a wednesday night, so the place wasn't  packed. we had reservations on the upper level. we had a wait a few minutes for our table to be ready so we sat at the bar and had a beverage.  i was really psyched to eat here since it was a phil stefani restaurant...but i wasn't too impressed.

our party of three shared 3 small plates and each got our own entree. the small plates were superb...the artichoke beignets were fabu! we had to wait awhile for the entrees, but we were busy talking and catching up tht we didn't really notice...until 25 minutes passed.
my entree was the double pork chop which was just meh. it was kinda tough to cut, and but it tasted alright. our friend had the imperial snapper...which was quite tasty with a crabmeat crust. [yes, we tried each other's food...everyone should, that way you get to experience more.] my husband had the crab legs...which he never had before in his life. we were all quite amused by his attempts to crack the legs. our server was very nice and showed him how to properly open them up. he enjoyed them immensely.

now why did i only give it 2 stars if i liked the food and had a good time? because it was a pretty forgettable experience; even tho it was just last week, i had to work to remember what we had and what we did there. even the amusment of the hubbs trying to manuever the meat out of the crab legs couldn't make the experience  memorable. and for the prices and the fact that it's part of the phil stefani group i expected much more.

so ...
+'s
-friendly, helpful servers
-nice view if you get a window
-valet is cheaper than parking in the lot

-'s
-forgettable experience
-pricey

also, it's mostly a seafood place but it does have some meat dishes too.

so, if you're at navy pier and wanna try something fancier, check out riva. it's not an awful place, i just felt my experience lacked something...but if you really wanna try this place you should. maybe you'll have better time.