Cortland’s Garage

Still horrible. Was there the other night and the bartenders and servers were all taking shots together and ignoring everyone else? I’m pretty sure the manager was standing right there and drinking a beer as well. I really don’t understand who runs this place.

They recently remolded this place after it was newly purchased. It is a former Gen’l. Store in downtown Arlington Hts. Besides remolding the main dining room, they should have upgraded the kitchen. They cannot handle a lot of orders if it gets busy. Be prepared to wait! The wait staff is weak, and clueless. If you ask for something, they seem lost. Extremely loud in there, because it is open all the way to the roof. Hamburgers are just average in taste, and way over priced for what you receive.

Half the staff is very friendly the other half not so much. The food is good but overpriced. The beer is good but also overpriced, $ 4.50 for a bud light is strip club prices. The kitchen staff seems to be working very hard while the head chef just seemed to stand at he window and yell at them and called them derogatory names while I also head him complain about the waiting staff when they seemed to be working the hardest. This placed seemed to be very unorganized and poorly managed. I’ve been there multiple times and asked for my burger medium rare and I think it was only cooked right one time by Charlie I believe. I had a beer once with a dead fruit fly floating on top of it yummmmm. Certain waiters were too busy taking shots and talking to some regular or there friends to refill my drink then got upset when I asked someone else behind the bar for a refill. This place left me leaving with a bad taste in my mouth and I’ll never come back. This place gets 2 starts for the certain waiters I see running around doing everything otherwise I would just give in one.

I want to love this neighborhood place, but every visit seems to disappoint (visited ~5x). Last night, we waited for over an hour for our food (two of us, chili and grilled cheese, not difficult). The server was really apologetic, but poor service is consistent here. You might wonder why we come back? Honestly, it’s walking distance and the ambiance is great! I just wish they could improve on the things that aren’t that hard to fix. As far as the food, it’s a step above basic bar food.

Hands-​down the best bar in the burbs! Amazing food, friendly and fun people, clean and warm environment. Try the Cortland Burger and the Nachos. Love Garage!

Overall, a nice upgrade over Harry’s.
Food: Overall, very good. I had the quac and chips app with the carne asada quesadilla. They were very good. Buddies all had burgers which looked substantial and I hear was very good (Cortland’s I think). The waffle fries seemed a bit undercooked. The straight fries seemed to be better.
Good beer menu. Good wine menu for a neighborhood place.
Service was acceptable and very attentive (an upgrade over Harry’s).
Overall, a very good offering at Harry’s Mark II. Cortland’s did a solid job. Nice to see them doing so well on a Tuesday night. (Holiday week, but I’ll keep my eye on them throughout Jan).
Worth a look…

So I don’t read Unilocal reviews before trying a new place — I like to be unbiased — afterwards I check out Unilocal just to see if my experience was common.
Unfortunately, in this case, I see a disappointing trend.
Service — lacking, especially in the basics such as refilling of water and soda, removal of used app plates, «enjoy your meal» etc — not sure if this is supposed to be a hip way of treating guests, but the demographic in AH is not the neighborhoods of Chicago — maybe a rethink needed here.
Food Quality — bland — we had mac fritters as an app — no flavor whatsoever. The Cortland burger was nothing special on an overly toasted bun. Fish tacos were OK, Mac and cheese had little flavor just like the app. The grilled cheese was very hard for my kid to eat.
The fresh cut fries were probably the best item we had, but that’s not going to differentiate much from the competition in the area
Atmosphere — it was a busy evening, a lot of TV’s in the place. There is a confusion of character it seems, with trying to pay homage to the old Harry’s, and searching for its own identity, a mixture of young and old guests throughout.
I never once saw a manager/​owner on the floor — IMO that goes a long way in a neighborhood like this.
So, would I go back, right now its a maybe, but there are many others ahead on the list of go to places.

Didn’t live up to the hype AT ALL.
Stopped in for lunch today and ordered the burger with mac & cheese, bacon and cheddar on it. Ordered it rare…
Came out medium — strike 1
Bacon was not crispy — strike 2
Burger itself had ZERO flavor — strike 3
Bun was huge — much more bun than burger — strike 4
Fresh cut fries were great — take a strike back
3 strikes is still a strike out…
Won’t be coming back

Welcoming and fun neighborhood tavern. Then you get to the menu. Upscale bar food sounds cliché but, Cortland’s takes it VERY seriously. Seriously. The atmosphere, $ 5 mimosa or bloody are a perfect blend with their menu items. Our bartenders, Rich & Natalie were attentive, fun and gracious. We will be back.

Need to make a review of this place as I was there Friday around 11:30pm. After being in the place for a late night snack I thought it would be a great place to rent out for the holiday party for our corporation. Great upstairs area and could allow for banquet style food upstairs and people hanging out downstairs. I asked the bartender who the GM was so that I could speak to him/​her. Upon getting shown who the GM was I was so disgusted. While walking to introduce myself I noticed the GM taking a shot with other people an overly drunk woman of asian decent, the girl who sat us down for food (hostess) and a man with long hair that needed to be washed, As I approached her I was able to over hear her conversation and the GM was drunk, slurring her words and even stumbled once. Even heard the guy in the group say dang you’re drunk today. I was hoping that this wasn’t the GM at the time and somebody just messed up so I left trying to give the benefit of the doubt who knows maybe she had a bad day.
I return the following day only to find pretty much the same situation but this time the GM was upstairs sitting at the corner of the bar and ordered bomb shots while I was sitting there. I refuse to ever go back… does she realize how bad she looked?
the owner really needs to re think his management staff.
Stumbling
Drunk
Slurring words and ordering bomb shots
Two stars–
Good food. Had the nachos and the Mac and cheese fritters
Bartender made me a random drink not on the menu which tasted like a raspberry starburst yum
Place looks really cool open layout and brick walls lots of tvs and definitely a good set up for a full rental for holiday parties

We visited at 515 on Thursday. Busy, but not crazy busy but still PAINFULLY loud inside. They need to figure out a way to manage noise better.
We were dining with 2 children. When no kid’s menu was provided, we inquired. We were told that they could offer buttered noodles, grilled cheese or cheese quesadilla for kids. Although chicken tenders and cheeseburgers are on the regular menu, there is no kid size offering of these items and, in fact, server discouraged choice of tenders describing them as «a little spicy.» Clearly, they do not want to encourage young diners. However, this is a surprising strategy for a downtown Arlington restaurant (kid central).
My husband and I ordered salads. He said his was just OK (BBQ Chicken) and mine was not (Chopped chicken). I was eating it, thinking at least something was missing. I asked the server if there was supposed to be bacon in the salad (as there usually is in chopped salads but not in mine) and she said no. I thought for sure I had read that in the description, but in the interest of getting out of there, I proceeded to eat my very boring salad. We paid the bill and as we were leaving I checked the menu. Half of the ingredients were missing from my salad (red peppers, pasta, bacon). I talked to the manager and explained what had happened and she was less than apologetic. She suggested I could come back and try again at no charge. Right…

Rating: 3 out of 5. 60% satisfaction here, in school this was an F.
Good: This place has great happy hour and normal beer specials. I drank summer shandy all night for $ 2 a glass. Can’t go wrong with cheap beer, even if I know they are trying to get rid of their keg. The food was served pretty quick, which was nice, and the server was relatively prompt.
Bad: from the start the hostess was out of her element. We walked in asking for a table for two, assuming there was not a wait as I could clearly see an open table in front of me. She informed me that I was third in line and when I asked about the open table she said she was «seating them now». Low and behold 20 minutes later, after we have been seated, that table was still empty. Now I can take it on the chin but what do I see, the boyfriend of another server gets that table sitting my himself.
The food was ok, kinda hipster-​ish for me, but ok. The apps were a little over priced but the entrees were reasonable.
Recap: I don’t think I’ll be heading back to this bar, unless I’m just going for the drink specials and no food. This is a shame because the bar layout is great and it looks very welcoming.

Came here on a Thursday evening around 8pm. There was no wait. We were greeted by 3 friendly employees when entering and were seated promptly. Plenty of sports on the TVs around the room. Friend found a decent beer and i had a coke.
We both had burgers (cortland’s) which were very filling. No complaints. Fries were great. Total bill was 35 bucks which seemed on par with the neighborhood.
I’m going to give them 5 stars because everything seemed to be in line w/​expectations.
Cortland’s will have to keep it up and offer other great options as there are already a couple good burgers in close vicinity. Welcome to the neighborhood.

The burgers here a ridiculously good. They’re also huge and come with a large side so there’s enough food if you don’t have that big of an appetite. The one thing that sucks about this place is that they don’t serve food upstairs, but you can get drinks up there while you wait for a table. Speaking of drinks, the Southern Peach Tea was really good – bourbon, tea, peach schnapps. It’s not too sweet and goes great with a burger. There are usually great drink specials so make sure to ask your server. I’ll definitely be back

Super awesometastic juicy burgers with all toppings adequately piled on so every bite yields a happy bite! I decided to screw the low star reviews and made my guy bring me a take out order. Thus making this joint my favorite go-​to place for burgers and nachos! :)

(You’ll notice that the reviewers who gave this place 1 or 2 stars went early on when the place was just opened.) We went there tonight for dinner and it was bustling and lively. The host told us it was about a 45 minute wait. We had second thoughts about waiting that long at 6:30 on a Wednesday night, and considered eating at the upper bar, but up there they only serve drinks. So we decided to just take our chances and wait upstairs with a beer. Ten minutes later we were seated.
The place is a new and improved versions of the old Harry’s. The front windows facing Vail have been replaced with clear garage doors and screens. So when it’s nice out you can sit and feel the breeze from outside without having to experience the bugs. There are also more TVs than before so it’s easy to watch the game from anywhere in the place. They kept the patio! This is my favorite patio to eat on of any I’ve ever been to in Chicagoland.
The food is a notch above ‘bar food’ and there are plenty of beers and wines to choose from as well as mixed drinks. The place seemed very noisy, but looking back, we were able to speak at the same volume we would if we were walking down State street during a work day. So it’s not like we had to shout or read lips to carry on a conversation.
We would go back. We were told they have a DJ for music and are considering live bands at some point.

Watched the Bears game here last Sunday. After reading some pretty critical reviews for a brand new bar, figured I’d check it out for myself!
I watched the game at the bar, and I much appreciated the 5 dollar mimosa and Bloody Mary special! Seems like they have great deals on booze everyday of the week. In terms of food, I ate the nachos (without chilli) and the spinach salad. Both were mediocre, but decent for bar food. The nachos’ cheese was not fully melted and the salad was pretty bland.
The atmosphere was fun and mostly young, with a few families, too. The wait staff was great and the bartenders were super attentive even when it got busier. I am excited to check it out on a Friday or Saturday night! Overall, great and much needed addition to the Arlington Heights bar scene.

Being a fan of the original Cortland’s Garage in Bucktown, I decided to come here while out in the ‘burbs visiting my parents. My dad was excited to hear about their opening, as he always wants to get their burger and hang out when he visits me downtown. So, we came for dinner during the week to check it out.
We had to wait a few minutes (less than 10) to get seated. The interior reminds me of the downtown location — exposed brick, wooden furniture and TVs everywhere! It was busy, but not overly crowded.
They have some great beer specials during the week, so we all ordered Coronas while we perused the menu. It’s very similar to the other location, with an emphasis on their burgers. My mom got some soup and my dad and I both ordered a burger. The food was really good, with big portions. Apparently it took longer than usual to come out of the kitchen, because the manager (I think) came over to apologize for the wait, but we didn’t notice because we were just catching up and watching the Cubs game on TV.
It seems like they have been working out the kinks after the initial opening, as we didn’t experience any problems with the service or food during our visit. All in all, a good solid 4 star addition to the downtown AH scene. As we were leaving, it was beginning to pick up and get busier, so I would like to come back and see the nighttime/​bar scene.

Great food, great drinks, awesome TV’s and a great staff!!!
We got a table for 4… had many more join and were given another table next to us for the rest of our group.
First week open, trying to work out the kinks but doing their best to make it happen! Will definitely come back!

Waited 45 minutes for a table… when we were on our way to be seated we were told the dishwasher broke and couldn’t be fixed until 5 pm so they weren’t serving any food. I get that things happen but all we got was a weak «I’m sorry.» Not looking for any free handouts or anything but you’d think as a new business you might offer your patrons more than a half ass apology. Left a bad taste in my mouth.
Headed over to the always reliable Peggy’s, which had the brains to open their patio on this beautiful day.