Loft on Lake

This review is entirely about their customer service & communication skills — NOT about the space itself. Why not about the space? Well, because we never saw it. From the pictures, the space looks beautiful, but our initial email exchange with Joel (apparently the owner’s son, which explains a lot), left much to be desired. I do hope the owner will read this review, and make a plan for how to handle such situations in the future.
A few weeks ago, we reached out to schedule a tour (for our wedding reception). Joel responded with a nice, professional email, and offered several times on a certain day for a tour. We responded via email within a couple hours and selected one of the times. Joel responded a few hours later saying basically «sorry, that time is taken, how about X time?» We responded right away and accepted the newly offered time, without thinking too much of it… until he responded the next day saying «X time is no longer available. How about Y time?» This exact same exchange repeated again, and again. (Keep in mind, our emails were all within the same business day, just one to a few hours apart).
At this point, I sent an email politely declining the offer to select a new time to tour that particular day, and I also at this point attempted to directly communicate to Joel that the confusing back & forth regarding scheduling a tour time was a bit concerning. We completely understand how in-​demand the space must be, and how so many people must be emailing or calling to request a tour, and we asked if in the future he could let us know how quickly we would need to respond to his emails in order to successfully nail down a time to tour the space.
Here’s where he lost us. This is the first line of his email response: «Im very sorry for the inconvenience but that is the reality. Our email correspondence has been within 1.5 hours of each other and yes things change in 1.5 hours– even 10 minutes.»
He then went on to complain about how many emails he has sitting in his inbox and how hard his job in.
Joel…that email is what lost our business. We would have been happy to tour the space if you had sent an email that was at least polite and acknowledged our concerns.

I’ve been here for various events throughout the years, always lovely how the space is transformed for different events. Their photobooth is so fun!

We had our wedding here recently and it turned out great. We worked directly with Joel and he was nice, calm and helpful. The space is clean and raw with a wood bow truss roof/​ceiling that adds great character. There’s a skylight that runs down the main space and it adds great diffused lighting and our photographers pointed out that it helps a lot with taking photos. We had 100 people attend our wedding and that’s just the right size for this place to have a ceremony and reception with a nice sized dance floor. Unfortunately they had finished construction on their new bridal suite but they made it look nice and it should look pretty cool when it’s done. Parking can get a little tricky in the area but no one really complained about it. Everyone had a great time and loft on lake provided the right backdrop for it.

We had our wedding ceremony and reception at Loft on Lake on 5÷30÷15 and it turned out perfect! Joel and his family were amazing to work with! Joel even gave us some recommendations for caterers, DJs, etc., which was super helpful considering he knows lots of people in the events business. The space was the perfect size for our 150 person wedding and was extremely versatile, we were able to make the space look exactly how we wanted! Highly recommend checking out this wedding venue!

My cousin is getting married, and I’m helping her out by checking out venues. This place was first on her list, and when I walked up to the building, I had high hopes. Near the Green Line L, I thought «Urbanity!». Right across from the Bottom Lounge, good choice for an after party.
However, once I went in, it lost specialness. For one thing, there are no windows. Some people may not mind this, but I’m not a fan. The room itself looks like it cleans up well, but this is the work of the planners and stylists. I was not much of a fan that there was a kitchen behind a curtain which would be potentially in use during the ceremony.
The guy who showed me the space was great. Just wonderful, very helpful, friendly and accommodating. I could see that this would be a great space for someone who wasn’t bugged by the lack of windows — there is a giant skylight — but it wasn’t to my liking.

I just wanted to write about my wonderful experience with this place. First off it is absolutely beautiful! The exposed brick and wooden beams are just what I was looking for in a space. Another wonderful thing about Loft on Lake is they have great lighting! The up-​lighting along the whole circumference of the loft gave great romantic lighting all night.
The staff was great too! I worked with Natalie most of the time and she was an absolute joy! So sweet and always quick to respond to my emails!
When I first looked at the space i was concerned about the train that seemed to be so loud right outside of the space. However, I was pleasantly surprised that I didn’t even notice it all night!
I suggest this space all the time and would definitely book with them again!

We had our wedding here in October. The venue itself is gorgeous. It is smaller than the pictures might suggest, but it was absolutely perfect for our group (just over 100 people) to have the ceremony and a seated dinner with a good sized dance floor. Because the space itself is so lovely we didn’t have to worry about bringing in lots of decorations to make it look like something. You can hear the train go by, but only barely from inside and it adds to the urban vibe. Really gorgeous space.
The missing two stars are a result of frustrated communications with their team. When we first signed on with the venue, we worked with Natalie, who was quick to respond and very helpful. She left, and the owner’s son took over. No one told us about the change which, while not a necessary move, would surely have been a nice courtesy for the events that had been working with her.
It was very, very, very hard to get a helpful answer out of Joel. It wasn’t exactly that he was slow to respond, or mean in anyway, it was more the quality of his responses were just not helpful (Me: «Let us know if we need to pass on any information to our guests regarding how to find the parking spots and if they will be marked by any means.» Him: «Sounds great! Yes I would inform your guests where the spots are since they won’t be marked.» Me: «Great. Please let me know what I should tell them. You mentioned they moved from when I last saw the spaces.» Joel: «Sure thing! The spots are located along the chain link fence.» Huh. After two more exchanges, and three days after I started that chain, I finally got a full answer that I could pass on to my guests.)
So, that was just a bit frustrating in the lead up to the wedding, had to spend way too much energy trying to get information out of them. There were a few other exchanges like that, of course, a few silences in communication, a few other little bumps along the road. The venue itself is super great, and if I was doing it again, I’d still use this venue, but just fair warning. You’re going to want vendors that know the venue so you don’t have to rely on Loft on Lake for all your information.

We had our wedding here and it was perfect and reasonably priced. I would absolutely recommend it. Cher, Steve, and their son Joel were all wonderful.

Best venue in Chicago!
Pros:
* Easy to work with! Wedding planning can be a stressful time and these guys make it easy on you. They were super responsive, flexible, honest, professional, helpful, and very nice.
* Beautiful space! We still get compliments on how gorgeous our wedding turned out. The space is a loft with a huge beautiful skylight and big wood beams. There is brick and exposed duck work. You can truly transform the space into your vision. Our look was glamorous and elegant.
* True Chicago Feel. We loved the location and took fantastic pictures in front of the venue under the tracks that are very «Chicago.»
* Roomy Feel — we had a wedding of 150 people and the space still felt roomy and spacious. We had both our ceremony and reception at the Loft.
Cons:
* None! We would not have changed a thing.

Just signed the paperwork and made the date official! Could not be more excited to plan my wedding at Loft on Lake! By far, Joel has been the most responsive individual to questions I have had since the beginning of my wedding planning process! Since my first walk through I have had that gut feeling of this being the place!!! I couldn’t be more excited to have my special day at such a beautiful venue!

The place is beautiful. The owner is awful.
The owner has zero concept of the service part of working in the service industry. She sent rude, completely unprofessional emails that left me (and family and fellow service industry friends) shaking my head in wonder. She REPEATEDLY emailed me inquiring about up-​sells and IGNORED emails I sent her asking about other things. The company’s event coordinator left– probably to get away from her– and that’s a real shame because she was polite and easy to work with.
But the space is nice, I’ll give it that. Just make sure if you’re there you get a phenom caterer to help you and don’t expect much from LoL.

This place is very small! The pictures make it look a lot bigger then it is. Its a nice space if you are having a small wedding (i think you should only have 100 people in here). It is also right underneath the eL and I thought it was too loud when you were in the front of the venue. Luckily most of the ceremony/​reception would take place in the back area so it isnt as loud. I made an appointment to tour the space but the lady didnt show up and while I was walking around the groom was decorating the place because he was getting married in a few hours. The owner was there but didnt have the pricing information off the top of his head so it was a little disappointing that his wedding event sales person/​event planner didnt show up.

Absolutely Amazing! We got married on 12/​14/​2013 and we can’t imagine having it any where else. The venue was spotless, organized, and the staff was amazing. We were allowed to move all of our decorations in early with no extra cost or hassle. Our guest were blown away by the intimate setting, the lighting and how it just perfectly captured our personality. Thank you everyone at Loft on Lake for making our wedding perfect.!!

My husband and I got married at Loft on Lake a few weeks ago, and it was fantastic. I would highly recommend getting married or hosting an event there to anyone.
I worked with Natalie throughout the process, and she was excellent. Very timely in responding to my emails, knowledgeable, and extremely pleasant to work with.
One of my favorite aspects of working with Loft on Lake is the flexibility to create your desired vision. The venue is very accommodating when working with other vendors, and enjoys seeing their own space come to life.
Working with Loft on Lake is as good as it gets!

We had our end of year party for our school at loft on lake in June. The venue was beautiful, big enough for our whole staff but still cozy and intimate for us all to mingle and enjoy the evening.
The staff was so amazing. When our program went long as we sent our retiring teachers off with recorded messages from our students, they allowed us to stay late and we so gracious. It was such a special night and would not have been as great if not for this incredible venue. Thank you thank you!

My wife and I were married here in May 2013. Our wedding had about 120 guests and we did both the ceremony and reception at the Loft. We live in Oak Park and were looking for a place that was elegant yet urban. There’s alot of places like that in Chicago and we looked at many of them. We felt that after we met Steve and Natalie, the Loft was an easy choice for us.
We planned our wedding ourselves and Loft was really easy to work with. They had great contacts with lots of vendors and helped us steer towards ones they thought would really ‘fit’ our needs. Amidst all the chaos of getting married, they we’re always just… there and really relaxed which helped alot. They have alot of choices for vendors and in turn, you mention ‘Loft’ and chances are, your vendor knows them.
The space looks fantastic during a wedding, the location was really easy for everybody to get to and really impressed our friends and family.

My partner and I had our wedding here on October 27^th, 2012 and we couldn’t have been happier. We loved working with Stephen, Cher and Natalie — and everyone else at LOL. The venue was exactly what we were looking for — exposed brick, loft-​type setting, intimate, warm… perfect!
Shephen, Cher and Natalie were great in responding to our questions and concerns and very accommodating when we wanted to stop by and have a look at the place (which we probably did about 3 times)!
We had 40 guests at our ceremony and 160 guests at our sit-​down reception. We ended up tearing down 3 dinner tables to make room for the dance floor but no one seemed to mind! Day-​of went perfect and we didn’t have to worry about a thing.
Only note is that we ended up renting two port-a-jane’s outside because we were worried about bathrooms. We made one inside bathroom Women-​only and the other unisex. I am glad that we rented the two port-a-jane’s because the line inside was never too long.
I would recommend Loft on Lake to anyone for any type of event. The venue, the staff, everything was amazing!

The space is beautiful. The wood beam ceilings and exposed brick walls are so pretty when lit up at night. At the end of the day I loved our wedding there. HOWEVER, working with the owners and staff was by far the WORST part of any of my wedding planning. They were not good at responding to emails or voicemails. They also made several promises on venue upgrades that we had to continuously harp on them to complete.
The most unprofessional thing they did was confirm my rehearsal for the evening before my wedding, then book another event for the same time, and fail notify me. Luckily, I thought to reconfirm 3 weeks out when I was there for my final walk through. Apparently they have a «policy» about not actually confirming rehearsals. Well that would have been nice to know before my invitations went out. Maybe they should add that language to their contracts since they are too incompetent to mention it. Cher was extremely unpleasant to deal with. After learning they made a mistake she was not accommodating at all. In fact she was defensive and insinuated that I shouldn’t have sent out my invitations. (Whaaat??? What kind of business can’t keep their calendar straight?)
Other comments — we ended up with 145 guests and the tables were cramped, the dance floor on the small side and the bathroom line 6 – 7 deep the whole night. I would not go over 120 guests for a comfortable sit down dinner with a dance floor. Cabs are tough for the area but I really do like this part of the West Loop. The El was a non-​issue.
Weddings are stressful enough, so in my opinion, this venue is not worth putting up with the people that work there so I would strongly recommend looking at the other similar venues in the area. I hear there are a couple more opening soon nearby.

My husband and I just recently had our wedding here. It was beautiful! We had around 173 guests and everyone fit comfortably, with enough space for a dance floor. The team is super laid back and very accommodating. I definitely would recommend this space for any event.
They also give you the option of choosing your own caterer which is nice, many places don’t. We chose a caterer they referred to us and everything turned out wonderful. They truly give you the freedom to create your dream event.
Natalie was the go to girl and she was always available and very sweet. Steve and Cher Garrett are the owners. I didn’t get a chance to meet Cher but I met Steve and he was really nice.
Although I absolutely love the space and recommend it to anyone, there are a few cons.
cons:
–The El is a bit loud for guests who go outside to smoke
–There’s not parking lot for your guests. (sidenote: You can rent out a few spaces in the back)
Hope this helps!

I went to a Fashion Show here a few months ago for a fall collection fashion show.
The place was exquisite and I was really impressed with the parking. It is the perfect place to throw a nice big or small shing dig. The place is very cozy with just the right amount of space. There is also a little kitchen area, if hor douvres prep is needed.