The Garden View Café

I give the Botanic Garden itself 5 stars for sure, The Garden View Café is another story. The menu looks very enticing but unfortunately it is very mediocre at best and quite expensive. We ordered a chicken panini that was to be made on sourdough bread. The bread was like wonder bread soft, squishy, crappy white bread that was barely grilled on the panini press. The setting is beautiful, but I recommend you go for a meal somewhere else. It’s good for a coffee and cookie or perhaps an ice cream bar, that’s it. Go for the flowers and plants, but don’t go hungry.

Beautiful views but the menu isn’t what it used to be. Gone are the creative breakfasts and replaced with a choose your ingredients 3-​egg omelette. No egg whites despite the sign saying they are available upon request. Have some coffee, enjoy the views and enjoy breakfast somewhere else.

Wonderful setting within the botanic garden with a beautiful outdoor patio surrounded by a water garden view. The food is average and overpriced but has a variety of options to make most people happy. beer and wine are also offerings here if u need a pickme up. Just expect inflated pricing since they are within the botanic garden. Note you do have to pay the entrance to access the restaurant so if you aren’t coming for the garden I don’t recommend coming here. Although if you bike, run or walk here it’s free and is a nice biking stop. The garden charges per vehicle/​parking fee.

The botanic gardens are undeniably amazing, and being able to sit outside on a gorgeous day enjoying an omelette is a real treat. Went with a friend and «made» my own omelette. They don’t have a huge selection on their menu, but there are options for most. I suspect it would be great for kids and picky eaters. Coffee is good, not great. Sit outside of you can.

I’ve been visiting the Chicago Botanical Gardens since the 1970s when it was just a pond and one building. I love the place, I support it, and I started eating at the Garden Café when it first opened. Often the food is very good, sometimes it’s mediocre, now and again it’s not so good. It’s also overpriced. And that’s the whole truth about the Garden Café that I accepted years ago.
Recently they’ve changed their menu and system and I’ve had some remarkably great salads and soups there. Given that, I thought things were looking up and treated a friend to breakfast to celebrate her birthday. We both got oddly deep yellow and very large and extremely cold omelets. Mine was overcooked and inedible. It tasted more like a leather wallet than eggs — and I’m not exaggerating in the least. I’ve only ever written two reviews on Unilocal — and the other one was glowing. I’m just not that picky.
The really bad bit, though, was that my friend went up to the counter and discussed the problem with a young woman there. My friend was very polite — and absolutely nothing was done about the omelets. This was early in the morning, maybe 25 minutes after they had opened on a cold and snowy Sunday. Only a few people were eating there. It would have been easy for them to remake the omelets or offer our money back or something else to eat. Or even apologize, which they did not. Rather than get into an argument and demand new omelets which seemed ridiculous, neither of us ate them — and I can usually eat anything and was very hungry, having missed dinner the night before.
As we sat finishing our coffee, the couple next to us had their omelets delivered. They looked fine — not overly yellow, not over cooked and not as large as ours. I can only think that someone made a mistake in the kitchen and someone else did not know how to rectify it. It was one of the worst meals I’ve ever had — and, really, I’m not that picky — and I’ve eaten there often, so I know it’s inconsistent.
As a result I’m writing this review — be careful what you eat at the Garden Café. Usually it’s ok, but sometimes it’s dreadful and the place is run by mostly young folks who don’t know what to do with a valid complaint. Stick to what you can see, rather than hoping it will be ok – and don’t order the eggs. They’re adding something oddly yellow to the omelets, maybe in smaller portions than what we got. And good luck. I’m sticking to salad and coffee from now on.

I’m vegan and came here for lunch with a friend. I had a decent salad (it even had tofu in it) and half a bowl of very good vegetarian chilli. These were the only vegan items available but the café was almost closing and this may have been a factor. The only other downside was that it was bee season so we couldn’t sit on the outdoor deck without our food attracting a lot of bees.
All in all I would give the Garden View Café three and half stars since the food was a bit better than I expected but choices were limited.

I would think twice about ordering. The place you order at 12:06 and are still waiting at 1:30. I definitely do not recommend this place.

No thank you! After a fun morning walking (or more like running w/​my toddlers) around the gardens we thought lunch at The Garden View Café would be easy. It was anything, but easy. We got in line to place our order, but when we got to the counter (around 11:15am) they told us we’d have to wait until 11:30am to place our order because that’s when they start lunch service. We asked if we could place a brunch order instead and they said brunch was now over too even though the restaurant was full with people and we were the front of a long line of hungry children.
We waited… and it didn’t turn out to be worth the wait. They brought our food to our table relatively quickly, but when they put it in front of us my husband’s sandwich had a hair right on top of it. Ugh. Way back when subway first opened I found a hair in my very first subway sandwich and haven’t been back since. And this hair alone will likely keep me back from returning to The Garden View Café.
Somehow I managed to stomach a few bites of my turkey sandwich. I had requested no jam on it, but apparently they can’t make it without jam. Jam, without jam… it wasn’t very good.
My kids seemed happy with their (not so tasty) pizza. My daughter finished her portion and then asked if we could all split a cookie. I obliged before realizing I’d have to stand in a line with 100 people to pay for it. I stood in the coffee line instead, which was a bit shorter, but still ridiculously long. The cookie turned out to be the best thing there, but likely because they make them elsewhere.
Botanic Gardens continues to be one of my favorite North Shore destinations, but I’d suggest eating elsewhere.

OK, was so excited to bring the family here to the new Garden View Café on Mothers Day! Had recently been there a couple months ago to have a fantastic salad for lunch.
We got there early around 9am, ordered and got a table outside — that was great. It took at least 40 minutes to get our breakfast. When it did arrive, my sons broke yolk sandwich was all over the place and had to be put together. My pancakes were just ok and there were 2 little cold pancakes on the plate. No strawberry-​rhubarb compote, vanilla syrup was missing. The bacon was fine. I was truly disappointed in this experience and had talked about it to my kids and hubby for awhile. It was really not a good experience. The Botanic Gardens on the other hand, was fantastic!!!

I visited The Garden Café for the first time today. The food was good but this was definitely pricey. I had a salad ($ 9) off the shelf and a can of Peach Iced Tea ($ 3). To me it was like a super upscale cafeteria. If you wanted hot food you needed to wait in line. I arrived around 12:30pm on a Friday and it was PACKED. Unfortunately, the lines were too long for the hot food so I grabbed items off the shelf/​refrigerated section. I would like to go back and try the hot food someday.

This review is based on a Sunday visit during breakfast. The restaurant stresses ‘everything local’ yet they use liquid eggs from a carton, bland bacon and cheddar cheese and tater tots instead of potatoes. Food was OK, not very exciting and ultimately disappointing given their green claims. Sodexo runs this cafeteria, which explains this discrepancy.
Other meals may reflect their localvore philosophy, but until they make serious changes to their breakfast menu (dump Sodexo in favor of a local company?) it’s hard to take them seriously. Not worth going out of your way. If you are already there, may as well chow down.

So for those of you who haven’t guessed yet, this café is a part of the Botanical Gardens of Chicago. During the summer they have grilled chicken and burgers along with refreshing beverages. In addition to the outdoor grill they still keep the indoor kitchen open in case people are in the mood for yogurt, pizza, cookies, or any other snack or dessert. The food is amazing all around, it’s very fresh but it is a little on the pricey side but naturally that is to be expected since it is a tourist attraction during the summer.
I love the gardens and I love the café. Would not change a thing.

HUGE improvements here — those old reviews are out of date. Great food (grass fed beef burger, yum) although it is pricey ($ 10 average). I love their selection of teas, beer, and other drinks.
Beautiful place to eat outside! Birdsong, live music, relaxation…

The Garden Café has really improved over the years, and it’s a decent place to get a bite to eat when you are at the Botanical Gardens.
It’s cafeteria-​style, but with Greek yogurt and fresh fruit and unsweetened lemon green tea — sort of like you are eating at Whole Foods. They have an outdoor grill that has a variety of dishes available, and no line!
Plus, you can’t beat the outdoor seating and the view in nice weather.

The Garden Café is a night place to grab a meal in the Botanic Gardens. You aren’t going to get a great meal here — but something decent with a great view. And it’s a tad pricey, but they have you in the Botanic Gardens. I’m not surprised.
My husband had the pizza and I had a salad and some sweet potato fries. Everything was decent — we were starving and didn’t know what else to eat in the area (PF Chang’s? Max & Benny’s?).
Last time we visited, they did NOT have any bottled water. Instead, you had to buy a reusable Botanic Gardens bottle and fill it with water. I understand the sentiment to protect the earth by reducing waste, but they are still serving on paper products and using plastics and aluminum for their other beverages.
If you are a member, you receive 2 10% off coupons every year. This helps a bit with the prices and is an incentive for us to eat there.
Great for kids and wonderful outdoor seating with a grill.
Free WiFi here. Great idea.
Serves breakfast lunch and dinner. So you can get something here anytime. Reduced hours during the winter season, though.
Overall, recommended if you are here. It’s not terrible. But a nice meal down the street in Glencoe or Northbrook or HIghland Park is probably better.

This is a review of the Café inside the Chicago Botanic Garden. Don’t misunderstand me, I love the Botanic Garden, and recommend people to visit. But the café inside that you might consider dining at for lunch or dinner sucks.
We just had lunch there, so maybe the dinner would surprise me. But lunch is basically 2 lines. You can go Express and just get prepared sandwiches, salads and drinks, or go «Full» and get hot pizza, paninis, or something from their «bakery» :)
I got pizza, my wife got a panini. The pizza reminded my wife of something made with some kind of instant tomato sauce called «Pizza Quick». I don’t remember that from my childhood, but regardless it was terrible. And the panini only got a couple bites. It was some kind of roasted vegetable thing, and it was just gross.
The place is also jammed at noon on a weekend, which is understandable since there’s a lot of people going through, but just keep that in mind if you thought you wanted to grab a relaxing bite before or after your beautiful stroll. There’s also lots of flies nipping at your legs because well, your at a garden and the doors to the outside are constantly opening.
The only good thing about this café is they had beer to buy. But still my advice is eat before or find somewhere afterwards.