Flat Top Grill

I realized that a 3 star rating is not doing this place justice. I enjoyed all aspects of my visit and thus I had to come back an up to four stars. There’s plenty of street parking and they do accept reservations. I’ll be back real soon.

Came here for dinner with a friend for the first. This place is completely different from a regular restaurant. So, you get to choose your meat, drinks and apetizers the first time the waiter comes. Then, they bring a bowl with with a wooden stick where you get to write your name. Then you walk to a station where you get to choose all the ingredients and the bowl is handed to the cook. Later they bring your creation.
We ordered the chicken quezadillas apetizer. They were so delicious with the special sauce. I had some red wine which I actually like and my friend had a beer.
Our creation came out very delicious and very filling. We didn’t wait too long and pricing was not bad I noticed.
The place has this modern city look.
Service was good. People here where plesant. They did take a bit long getting our check but it was ok since my friend and where having a good conversation.
I recommend this place if you are up for something very different than the normal restaurant routine.

Amazing. Such a variety of flavors and options and it’s so customizable. Love this place

Love the mix of many fresh veggie options and also quite a few sauces. Contrary to some of the other reviews I read, I had a very well tasting stir fry. Even though they suggest 3 – 4 ladels of sauce I went with one of the black bean & garlic and just half of a red pepper sauce. I had already added a scoop of fresh garlic and a scoop of black beans when picking out my vegetables, so the combination wasn’t weak at all.
I will bring a toothbrush next time.

Not sure why all the haters are out there with this place, but it’s hands down a five star stop. Admittedly, my Taiwanese friend asked me what the «classic Asian blend» was, but this place isn’t trying to be Asian authentic. I’ve been here a number of times, and tried a number of food and sauce combinations. All have been great! And everybody I’ve gone here with has been pleased as well.
I lived with some friends in River Forest last summer, and this was one of the first food destinations they had me try. They said it was among the best on Lake Street, and I’d tend to agree. Not only that, but the fact that it’s generally full speaks to it as well. This may mean slow service sometimes, but I think a delicious, massive meal (I’m 180lbs and active and it’s hard for me to finish it without a leftovers box) for $ 12.99 is a steal. It’s a must try in Oak Park.

I used to like this place smh not anymore. I’m just disappointed. I asked for soup and it wasnt even hot. Not even in the bowl. Also i got potatoes in my food. It still hard like raw. Ughh

We’ve always been a fan of this place. Affordable, fresh and delicious food will do that for you. We hopped in for a quick lunch and noticed the setup had changed a bit. Meat was handled behind the counter and the sauces were much better presented. We received our meals and noticed something off. Nothing catastrophic but incorrect nonetheless. We brought it to the managers (Steve) attention and hr swooped in and very quickly remedied the situation. In addition to our waitress’s (Kayla) concern was very refreshing. We already liked this place but now it’s our favorite Flattop location.

I’ll start out with the overwhelming positive: they are aware and properly take care of people with allergen needs; I was provided with a chart and details on what contained gluten — sadly (but understandable) that was most of their available sauces.
The setup was different from other make-​your-​own-​stirfry places I’ve been before; you order a meat beforehand and put your veggies, sauce and rice (rice is stir fried with the rest of the stuff rather than served on the side). The buffet itself was mostly clean, but all the sauce carafes were awkwardly sticky — I had to wash my hands after putting my bowl together. Other than the strange setup for a restaurant of this type, the waitress was very good and the service was excellent.
I had pork with pineapple, broccoli, carrots, rice and teriyaki sauce. It was not tasty at all, with no real redeeming quality. The pork is cut into large, tough chunks, isn’t well trimmed and wasn’t cut thinly as I’d expect for stir fry. In addition to that, the entire thing was overcooked and tasted a bit off — when I got more sauce to try and improve it, I discovered one of the issues: the teriyaki sauce tasted awful. I left over half my bowl uneaten when I left.
The restaurant gets two stars (instead of one) simply for good service and having great allergen awareness. The bad tasting food and awkward setup is too much to overcome; even if I lived in the area I wouldn’t return to this restaurant.

Too expensive for just a small bowl of stir fry.

It’s fairly priced, but a bit pretentious, and wasteful in concept. I feel like it just overcomplicates itsself for my taste.
I’m a libra. so I’m easily overwhelmed with indecision. Their menu does offer a few favorites, but… I’m also visual. I need pictures to help create my flat top masterpiece. So when i’m pressured into proteins, and the rest of my meal has to be based around it… geez. I can’t decide unless i have an idea of the whole picture. for instance. For Filipino sausage, i’d want rice. i’d never get that with noodles.
Anyhow. It looks like over time, they’ve changed up the system. They don’t put meets on the buffet line for «hygienic purposes» but they put the stick with your number, flat on the table, yet want you to stab it through receipt paper, and into your food. IRONY right.?! uhm. put it on a napkin if you expect me to put it on my plate.
the bowls for veggies and carbs is small. You’ll be tempted to stack vertically, which will lead to a ridiculous mess, and wasted food. After it’s given to the flat top cooks, they serve the creation into a massive bowl.
The whole process is a messy but snobby affair. I don’t know why this is a tipping kind of joint, when you really have to serve yourself for the most part. The only thing servers do is get your drinks (maybe). and your silverware (maybe. we had to steal from another table.)
I essentially made myself a filipino breakfast bowl, with sausage, extra eggs, random veggies, and the hoisin mixed with bbq sauce. really, i love their roti bread, so that’s a hit. also mixed my white rice with quinoa.
meh. For asian food, i’d rather have someone be like «this is what’s good together. here you go.»
Moral of the story: This is like buffet where you wanna feel like a kid again. You won’t know what you want so you’ll try everything. Except it’s not really a buffet and you’re limited to one bowl. And you’ll make a mess. And you’ll have no idea what end product you’ll come out with. Which might taste ok. But really you might only finish half… cuz you’ll be like «what really am i eating?»
*shrug*

What happened to this place? Flat Top was always my favorite spots to go, but now everything changed. Im not going to repeat what people have already said, they’re all true… and that the changes aren’t for the better. I agree with consensus that the pre-​cooked meats taste different from how they were before when it was cooked fresh. I miss their old «model» vs this new one. Also, always check your bill, my mom ordered a refill on her mango (something) but it never came and we were charged on the check. The waitress did offer to take it off and provide my mom with a free to go cup of mango (something), thank god my mom has a habit of reviewing the check.

Truly disappointed with the changes that were made. I’m ok with taking the meat off the line, but not at all ok with double cooked meat since they pre-​cook it before you order and then out it in the grill again once they get an order for it. Meat is definitely tough after being cooked twice.
Unlimited bowls are gone… an extra $ 4 for a second trip and if you want a 3^rd trip they have to change you for another entire bowl regular price.
Food otherwise tastes good. They still need a better system for sauces because they went from ladles which were gross to carafes that are still gross and sticky.
May not be coming here again. Witnessed one group walkout due to the changes and another group next to us who were truly disappointed with the changes but decided to stay like we did.

Flat Top has always been one of my favorite restaurants. We go at a minimum of once a month.
We were there tonight before hitting the movies and as soon as I walked in the door something didn’t look right. Ah! The buffet setup changed.
I absolutely hated the old ladle setup. The handles were always a sticky mess. You guys don’t have anything to clean ones hands at the end of the line so would always have to visit the bathroom afterwards to get whatever got all over my hands washed off.
I noted the new carafe setup and thought «finally! No more sticky mess». Oops guess I jumped the gun on that one. The carafes were just as gross to handle as the ladles. If not worse. Secondly they were practically impossible to get out over your dish. Reaching the back row is not user friendly. Unless you like getting sauce globs all over your clothes as you reach into the abyss trying to grab the sauce. It also appears the sauce selection has shrunk quite a bit. Not sure on that part though.
The meat. If you’re going to have the concept of «flavor your own food», don’t spice the meat for me. Whatever your using, it’s gross. Im fine you took the raw meat off the buffet. As handling those tongs covered in guts from people who obviously are tong challenged was gross. However I come here for fresh awesome food. Not precooked badly seasoned meat. I noticed while waiting to be seated the meat is cooked in huge batches, then put in hot tables. Then thrown on the grill again when someone orders it. I don’t want twice cooked meat. That’s unexceptable.
Why can’t the cooks grab the raw meat when called for and cook it like before? There is no reason to precook and then cook again. It’s a pointless step that I’m sure some pin-​head corporate pusher thought was a great idea. No. Just no!
If you want to solve the sauce problem. Get rid of the carafes. Take away the sneeze guard. Build a tiered shelf and put in clear glass containers with hand pumps.
Aside from the odd tasting meat flavor, my food was still worth eating. When deciding where to eat on our nights out though, in the future you will be further down this list than you want to be.

Being a vegetarian (not a raw food junkie, just don’t eat meat), I had been a regular customer of Flat Top Grill here and downtown location. Recently, they changed the layout of their restaurant which increases the time you spend in the restaurant not eating significantly. Also their their self service bar is poorly designed as it is almost impossible to get food/​sauces from it without spilling. Extremely inefficient. I shouldn’t comment on service itself which was a problem to begin with, just becomes much more obvious now.
Tip: avoid if you can, or else make sure you have more than an hour to spend on lunch.

Let me preface my review with saying that I have been to other Flat Top Grill locations and enjoyed their food. Not 5-​star by any means, but good quality and reasonably priced, such that we chose to come here when we moved to Oak Park.
Unfortunately, our experience with this location was very unfortunate. We created our own dishes and dropped them off to be cooked. Two of the dishes showed up first, and we anticipated the third (my girlfriend’s dish) would be out shortly. After 10+ minutes, we were finally able to flag down our waiter. He went and checked on it and assured us we’d receive it soon. Sure enough, within the next few minutes, it was brought by. This was inconvenient, but not a huge issue.
My girlfriend is allergic to milk and gluten-​intolerant, on top of being vegetarian. When her dish, which included tofu, came to the table, she began eating. After a few minutes, she realized some of the tofu did not look right. Upon closer inspection, there were multiple pieces of chicken in her dish. This caused her to immediately lose her appetite and become rather upset that she had eaten a dish with meat in it.
Chicken was clearly not the only thing that ended up in her dish, as she became rather sick when we got home and took multiple days to recover, effectively ruining our long weekend. Whether it was gluten or milk, this kind of incident cannot happen for someone with these sort of allergies.
I understand that everything is prepared on a shared stovetop, but as mentioned before, we’ve eaten at a few different Flat Top locations before and never had an issue. I am very disappointed in the whole experience and do not plan to return. Hopefully when the pain is less fresh in her memory, my girlfriend will be willing to eat at another Flat Top location.

This is one of those places I’ll go every once in a while because I’m in the mood for that delicious roti flatbread that you can add to your stir fry with a colored stick (I don’t remember if it’s the red or blue). If you come here, I’ll tell you right now that you MUST order the stir fry and you MUST add the stick at the counter for the flat bread. It’s incredible. Anyway, I had to make sure that tip was at the forefront of my review.
I came here a few weeks ago because I was really feeling like all you can eat stir fry. I was disappointed to discover, after being seated and looking at the menu, that this Flat Top (perhaps even all locations – I can’t be sure) no longer offers all you can eat as an option. This was a bummer because I was all set to eat to my heart’s content. Instead, I opted for the $ 15 stir fry and loaded up my bowls with as much ingredients as I could possibly pile on top. Pro-​tip: put in less rice and noodles and hold out for the higher quality/​more expensive ingredients toward the end. The best veggies aren’t at the beginning. That’s the cheap stuff they want you to fill up most of our bowl with. There are also a bunch of sauce options. There aren’t any little containers to scoop your sauce into, which I don’t think is the most sanitary. You ladle your desired amount of sauce directly onto your pile. The meat is pretty fresh. There are also a bunch of fake meat options for vegetarians, as well as white fish and calamari for fish-​lovers.
Add those sticks! Bread, eggs, cheese, tofu. Also, there’s a place where you can too your creation with crushed peanuts, cilantro, and minced garlic. My favorite! Our food arrived and was delicious as expected. I was sufficiently full after I finished every last bite and wasn’t as regretful about all you can eat not being an option.

My son and I always have a birthday lunch tradition at Flat Top Grill. We have always been to the one on Southport in Chicago. This year we decided to give the one in Oak Park a try. The staff was very friendly and attentive. This location was a bit smaller than the one on Southport.
One thing that I noticed and was not too pleased with was that the area in which you pick the vegetables and the sauces was not too clean. There was spilled sauces and food on the edges. I think that it should be kept clean to appeal to customers.
Another thing was that the first dish when brought out, the portabella sliced mushrooms were a bit cold, the temperature of the dish could have been slightly higher.
Other than those two perhaps mishaps, all else was nice. I love the convenience of parking in the area as well.

I admit, I used to LOVE Flat Top… I thought it was a great deal, I planned parties here, I ate their flatbread stuff by the ton…
Alas, Flat Top has certainly changed it up a bit. First of all, their prices have gotten quite high from the days of $ 6.99 meals… now it’s $ 11 for one bowl — at lunch. Now, I do realize that prices on certain items have increased, so I’m ok with the ‘shrimp stick’ and such, but now they’ve taken eggs, cheese and other stuff off the menu as well and it has to be ordered with a stick. I also don’t think that overall pricing is high, I just have seen the value decrease (I’m not even sure what dinner costs now, but gone are the days that you could have a party here on the (relatively) inexpensive side).
Service is always friendly, though I do think that at times they can be slow when there is only one person manning the cooking station. That’s ok with me, though, I’m happy to sit and relax because I go in knowing that it’s going to take a while.
The food is delicious, though I am somewhat sad that the plum sauce I like is gone… where did it go? I had a great ‘mixture’ that I always used in the past, but I had to improvise this week. In the end, I just threw a ladle of about 5 sauces on there. It turned out pretty well, but I obviously need to come up with a new concoction.
Overall, I think the food quality is good, though I would like to put my own cheese on things… and I’m ok with add-​on cost for most expensive items like shrimp. I just think that the value proposition is somewhat decreasing. The atmosphere is usually lacking. Often, the line is full of folks sampling a ton of items or filling their bowls to the absolute brim. This results in a messy area to pick your food and a backup at the cookiing station. Slowness aside, the service staff is always very friendly and accommodating.
So, this is a spot I go to maybe once or twice a year and I enjoy my visits, but they don’t make me want to rush back frequently.
p. s. their free birthday coupons are much more restrictive than in the past — make sure you read the expiration date!

Where do I begin…
Wednesday afternoon, I decided to pick up a to go order of personalized stir fry. The brown rice was overcooked and half of the vegetables were wilting (especially the broccoli). Everything was all over the place. The presentation of the food was not appealing. Other vegetables were mixed in the wrong containers. I mean a complete confusing mess! The sauce that I wanted was low and it contained other food particles which was not apart of the recipe. I asked the waiter if they had anymore in stock and she told me they were in the process of making more. She even offered other mixtures of sauces as a substitute. Once I got to the grill my food was done in a few minutes, which was great. However, once I got home the chicken was slightly done and the vegetables were raw. Of course I had re-​do the entire meal and make it edible… a complete waste of money.
Please keep in mind, I have been to Flat Top Grill on several occasions, but this one in Oak Park has gone down hill. I dont plan on going to this location again.

Flat Top Grill make your own stir frys are delicious! It’s pretty hard to go wrong here if you know what kind of vegetables you like and eat asian food occasionally. One thing that is both great and overwhelming is the amount of sauces they have for you to choose from. Not knowing what combinations go well together can be troublesome so make sure you consult the guide book given on your table for some ideas (I just loaded everything I had with peanut and soy sauce). The roti that your food comes with is also delicious! Some people say it feels like it came from a freezer bag in a grocery store which may be true, but that doesn’t mean that it still doesn’t taste great.
I personally had a great time here because the friend I was with ordered a cheese stick with her stir fry. I don’t know why someone would ever get cheese in their asian stir fry but she regretted it immensely as it completely overpowered her dish. I didn’t make the same mistake but her regretful stir fr bowl at the dinner table produced great laughs.
This is definitely a great place for large parties or with friends. I think bringing a date her can be a little impersonal with all the movement you have to do especially if you get the AYCE option. Overall though great food and friendly service!
A side note… this restaurant should definitely keep some hand sanitizer after using the meat station. I felt compelled to wash my hands after touching the tongs used to grab raw foods. Oh yeah and don’t get the cheese stick in your food!!!