Black Duck Tavern & Grille

Absolutely worst old fashion ever, terrible service (one was doing her hair, one was just staring into sace, one was doing her makeup at a table).

I literally hang out in this area on a daily basis but based on my experience at Black Duck, you can't even pay me to step foot in here again.

The space is cute and quaint. I'll give it that much. I came on the day the Miami Heat won the championship last summer. Yes, I'm a Heat fan living in Chicago. I understand it can be problematic but there's no reason I should've been treated horribly by the staff. This isn't even a sports bar and the Bulls weren't even playing, so there was really no reason (even in a drunken stupor) for the staff to be as ridiculously rude as they were. I walked in, happy and ready to spend a ridiculous amount of $ on drinks when the waitress states that my kind isn't welcome. Yeah, I was wearing a Heat jersey but really?? Is that necessary?! I thought, 'woman, you work on tips, are you out of your mind?' Being Hispanic, I could also take this in a derogatory way but I took the higher road and hoped it was just a joke. After almost 30 minutes of being there (waiting on someone else), she apologized and offerred to give me a drink for free. I accepted but vowed to never come in again. It's really childish and just plain dumb to make someone upset over sports, especially when they can contribute a lot of $ to you. Screw you,
Black Duck. Don't care to get to know you.

First off, aesthetically speaking, the restaurant is way too dark and the music too loud.  I spent the majority of my evening practically yelling across the 3 feet between my seat and my friends.  A word of advice?  This is not a club, please turn the music down.

The food was... okay and seriously over priced.  My friend's fish entree could easily have been mistaken for lower end diner food.  Definitely nothing special.

Service?  Non-existent.  Our waitress came, took our order, dropped off our food, and disappeared.  When informed we didn't have a show to catch at the theater, the wait for our food lengthened.  We were at Black Duck for nearly 2 hours and most of it was spent waiting for food.  I ordered a wrap and my friend breaded fish, there really isn't a reason for that long of a wait.

She also gave me the wrong drink and attempted to rectify the problem by dashing over and grabbing the drink out of my hand as I was drinking it.

A friend had a <a href="/redir?url=http%3A%2F%2Frestaurant.com&s=c5fe485af4df376130bee54f875814d79c4d7913e1258123b1206d2bdbf4873b" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://restaurant.com</a> gift card for Black Duck which couldn't be used toward specials and has to be used on two entrees.  My friend ordered two entrees for herself (because I couldn't justify paying $20 for pork chops and a side) and we split the check.  However, we also found out that I couldn't have the $7 martini special because we were sitting at the same table.  We did complain and I did get the discounted price but not before the owner came over to "explain things" to us.

Overall, I won't be returning.  The service is bad, the food is bland, and the atmosphere not my scene.  There are definitely places in Chicago with better food and service that deserve my patronage.