Rainforest Cafe

I visited RFC to celebrate my nephew’s 7^th birthday, and it was a total headache. This is also the 3^rd time I have been here and it was dissatisfactory.
Majority of the employees give off the vibe that they hate working in customer service. The food is not tasty and overly priced.
I wish I didn’t sign up for the Laundry’s membership because I will most likely not come back to this establishment.

If you have kids this is a place you need to go at least once. Kids love it and the food isn’t bad. I was expecting much lower quality. I would avoid weekends unless you want to wait longer for a table.

If you want a fun experience with friends… Don’t go here. After waiting 20min after our call time for a table we had a less than qualified server.
The food was as mediocre as the service. The shrimp was cold and the chicken was over cooked. Our waitress barely checked in on is and it took forever to get extra napkins and refills.
If I hear another birthday «volcano» shouted… I may die. It is so loud and obnoxious.
For the price of a meal here… I would rather pay double at a different restaurant.

What can we say. If you’re coming here expecting great food, don’t get too excited. You’re paying for the experience. The food is expensive and it tastes like frozen dinners. The appetizer platter was overpriced and it was blah. The fish we ordered tasted old. Soup & half sandwich was ridiculously overpriced & tasted blah.
1 main fish entrée, 1 appetizer platter, & half soup/​sandwich = ~$ 65 before tip.
Not worth returning.

What a crap place. No wonder is has such low rating. Food is not great and they are capitalizing on the kid friendly ambience. They made us wait for 40 minutes and then sat us on the empty table right next to where we were waiting. That table was always empty!!! Why make people wait? It’s not good food anyways
Don’t go to this restaurant. Prices are 1 ½ times normal for average food with longgg wait

My college buddy and I decided to hang out today since I am in town and while at the Woodfield mall, I noticed they have a Rainforest café. I squealed and he didn’t really know why. So, I love Rainforest even though I think their food is quite average. It really just appeals to the kid in me. We ended up having lunch here and a great time catching up.
I ordered one of their promotional menu items: Maui meatloaf. It was quite tasty and there was a surprise in the middle; a hard boiled egg. It was an interesting take on meatloaf but it was quite delicious, nevertheless. I think I actually liked it more than any other menu items I have had during my past visits to a Rainforest café. He had the burger and said it was pretty good but he is really picky and plucked everything off the burger except the cheese.
Lastly, the service was good. Our waitress was attentive and came to check to make sure all is well every so often.
Overall, it was a pretty good visit.

Guys… guys…Rainforest Café is squarely built for the little ones. Let’s call a spade a spade: it’s a cheesy rainforest inspired mecca with animatronic animals, overpriced, mediocre food, and an enormous souvenir shop leading into the «rainforest.»
All that being said, kids generally love it. Despite my almost 3 year old being freaked out by a «thunderstorm» and the tigers (again, animatronic), she loved her overpriced mac and cheese and time spent in the rainforest. I’ll give a high five to our friendly server and the decent lunch options for the kiddos (fresh fruit or veggies as a side and milk). My coconut shrimp was mediocre at best, served with an odd, barbecue like sauce.
Will you spend way too much money? Yes. Will you enjoy a delicious meal? Likely not. But will your kid love it? Likely yes.

Seating shouldn’t take so. long for a place that is ¹⁄₃ full and losing all the allure it used to have… everything looks tired and worn… even the employees…
And what happened to the fish!!! Sorry but air bubbles don’t really cut it. I get it, tropical fish are expensive to maintain… especially salt tank fish… but really? Air bubbles?
Food… we did vegetarian… portobello wraps had slimy diced mushrooms vs. The expected sliced steak grilled… the natural burger was okay but needed more than avocado to make it decent.
Food was meh and service was slightly better… but there are a lot more places to go to get something tasty in the area.

Food is pretty pricy for just being alright. However, they have a polite staff and the décor and animatronic animals are awesome to keep the kids entertained throughout dinner. They even have several kid events throughout the year.

The service was average, our waiter came to our table only a few times, one to take the initial drink and app order, then to take the actual order. But other than that we never saw him again. Someone else brought our food out. He didn’t do much but it’s not like he was rude, it was just not great service.
The food was even more average, it was extremely bland. I had ordered the chicken tenders and my friend had ordered the pot roast.
The tenders tasted like a generic brand of frozen tenders and it was nothing special, the fries were cold. The pot roast was overly salty and it wasn’t even hot.
I am not satisfied but to each his own.

It’s a decent overpriced place to grab a bite. The décor is really amazing and you feel like your in a tropic environment. I would stop here a few time when I feel like splurging.

Skip it! Called to make a reservation at 4pm on a Saturday and was told all reservations were full! Wait could be an 1hr45min. Ekkkkk!
Fast forward. We arrived at 3:45pm and had a 35 min wait. Okay… Seems fair. UNTIL we are seated and the restaurant is maybe 30 to 40% full. Why the long wait? Is it just to create hype with lots of people hanging around in front of the restaurant making it look busy?!
This place is not staffed appropriately. They could really be filling those empty tables with guests if they had enough servers on the weekend shifts.
As for the food, where are the waffle fries from my childhood memory?! Big let down. The house made veggie burger was really good though!
A child in our party was served warm-​ish milk and threw up before our food arrived. Not good…
We had 5 children in our party and were seated under a mushroom no where near any of the fish tanks or animal features. Booooo.

We went to the Rain Forest Café on an empty stomach around 2 PM. Our 15-​month-​old daughter was thrilled by the moving cats and thunder claps that were played.
My husband and I were far less impressed with the menu, which was not very original. Before my food came out I had a sense that everything we would be served would’ve been frozen and pre-​portioned.
But, to be fair, this is not a restaurant for foodies, but parents with small children. The only complaint that I cannot rationalize away is about the prices that are on the menu. This café charges an exorbitant amount for an uninspired menu of pre-​cooked frozen fare. I do not blame the cooks in the restaurant, but I do blame whoever created the menu and made negotiations with suppliers. That is on a corporate level.

Have small kids? Take them here.
They’ll love the animals and all the fun stuff. You’ll love having distracted children so you don’t have to inhale your food and run out.
The aquariums are pretty, and I am a fan of the Mai Tais.
If you come here on purpose without children– you are a glutton for punishment.
Plan on arriving well before you want to eat so you can check in and then wander around the mall for a bit before getting seated. It works perfectly, because by then the kids are worn out from playing and are ready to sit, chill, and eat. Hell yeah.
TL;DR — Kids dig it, Mai Tais are good, Check in early

My kids wanted to do something fun for our day off together and they decided that we should visit Rain Forest Café. I should have known better.
Forget the 2 hour wait to be seated. We came early and checked in first before doing our shopping so the two hour wait was not the end of the world.
Fast forward 2 hours. they will still almost 15 minutes late seating us and I am not sure why because there were quite a few open tables. This of course was after we watched a group of 6 walk into the bar area and seat themselves.
We were seat in what felt like the middle of the dining area. Really not that a big deal only worth mentioning because all of the wait staff and managers congregated in from of our table and gossiped.
Again I noticed at least 7 open tables around up and wait and support staff just standing around.
We watched a waiter pull a ketchup bottle out of the garbage and give it to another table without wiping it off. Garbage cans overflowing and no one bothering to take them out.
Our food was ok. Portion size is decent. The food came out hot but not so hot you could not eat it.
Our waitress quite possibly was one of the worst I have ever experienced. Not only did she not ask if I wanted my leftovers wrapped but she also did not check in with our table or refill our drinks in the more than 60 minutes we were there.
We did not see her for a solid 20 minutes and when I asked for the check she disappeared for another 10 minutes.
I cannot see us going back. It truly was a horrible experience.

So — I think a bunch of the previous reviewers nailed this one. It’s alright to bring the kid (s) for a special dinner amongst the fishtanks and dated-​looking animal/​rainforest décor (for the record — my daughter liked the animals and the fishtanks… but thought it was too loud!). I wouldn’t expect much food-​wise — it’s pretty pricey for very run-​of-​the mill family chain restaurant food they are serving. My wife had a burger… was alright. My fish and chips were passable, nothing special nor terrible. Kids menu offered the usual array of kid-​friendly items.
I will say that, unlike some of the other reviews here:
* We were seated right away on a not-​so-​busy Thursday evening.
* Our server was nice, and attentive enough. Kept drinks refilled, and was generally pleasant. This got the 3^rd star today… food alone for the price is 2 stars at best.
While my daughter enjoyed herself, I don’t know that we’d be back again. I just don’t see it being worth the money. Next time the kiddo can enjoy the animals you can see in the gift shop.

Here’s the deal… forget for a moment that it’s a tourist trap, that locals do not recommend this place. Forget that the décor is old and outdated. Forget that it’s loud and obnoxious, and dark and seedy all at the same time.
I had a burger the other day, and it was really good. I’m talking Red Robin good, and maybe (for the portion) even a shade better than that. And the service has always been top notch here. I think they make it a hiring practice to make sure there’s always an experienced waitstaff here.
If the prices were a little more reasonable, I would give this restaurant chain 4 stars. I get that it’s in a mall, but so is Cheesecake Factory, PF Chang’s, and Red Robin. Rainforest Café would be a no brainer if it dropped about $ 5 off each entrée.
That said, take your kids and your family here for a birthday celebration and order the volcano dessert. It’s worth all the embarrassing attention.

Overpriced for mediocre food. Rules rules rules. Can’t do this. Can’t do that. Keep drinks at the bar. Kids can’t come in to wait. 45 – 60 minute wait but we are almost empty with dozens of open tables and waiters standing around looking board.
They intentionally get everyone on the wait list and leave people in the gift shop for an hour with hungry kids grabbing things off the walls in hopes that you’ll buy something while you stand around wondering why the hell you can’t just go sit at a table and eat. Screw this trap. Not again. Never. Keep it.

My mom and sister came to visit my family and I in Chicago so we decided to finally give this place a try since it is family friendly. This is a pretty neat place for children. It’s loud, dark, they have thunder and rain sounds going. They have huge fish tanks with exotic fish and have a gift shop in the front of the restaurant. I even thought this place was a cool place when we first got there.
After we got seated, we met our waitress who was the worst waitress ever. The service was absolutely terrible. It was 7 of us at our table and we ordered a lot of food that came up to about $ 300. You would think the waitress would be nicer right? WRONG. I even asked if she could take a picture of us as a family and the waitress seemed annoyed by it. They weren’t even that busy! Every time we would need a refill, we would have to flag her down. She just seemed like she was in a hurry all the time and we still stayed nice and friendly to her.
She then gave us our check and we stupidly just glanced at our receipt and didn’t really look at it too long and just immediately gave her our credit card to pay the bill. My husband decides he wanted to pay the tip with cash and put cash on the table, we signed the receipt and just got up for a little bit and started taking pictures in front of the fish tank that was next to our table.
While we were taking pictures, I could see the waitress cleaning our table off and pick the tip up and that was the last time I saw her before we left. Later on that night, I decide to look at the receipt and realized they automatically included gratuity with our bill which was a hefty amount. I was livid that we left her EXTRA tip for the worst service we’ve ever had. I ended up telling my mom about it… Not knowing she would turn around and call RainForest Café’s manager to complain about the service. The manager ended up telling us to come back and have the extra gratuity we left refunded back to us. (My mom went back, I was too embarrassed to lol) I guess good service isn’t required when you are guaranteed gratuity!
As far as the food goes, it was OK. Everything was pricey. I got the chicken alfredo and the toast smelled like straight feet. My husband got strawberry lemonade and when he asked for a refill, she gave him plain lemonade and just set the cup in front of my husband and left. He flagged her down again to tell her he ordered strawberry lemonade and that’s when she decides to tell us, «it’s going to be extra If you get strawberry lemonade refills». Um, why did you fail to tell us that when he ordered the drink? You could have at least told us when you rudely brought him back plain lemonade! I didn’t say that to her, but I wanted to. Lol
Anyways, I will never go back to this place. I might go to the one in the city one day to see if it’s any better there.

I went here with a small group and we had a great experience. As with all Rain Forest Café’s the décor is awesome. We sat by the noisy gorillas this time, but toured around the restaurant. The tiger display and dolphin display were my favorites. The two huge aquariums as you walk in are so cool. There is a sheet of water following in the center of the restaurant… pretty.
The food we got was supreme. The portions were huge. I got the reuben with a side of chips. Best reuben I’ve ever eaten. Lots of meat and stuffed full with just the right seasoning.
Our waitress was very good too. She was constantly attentive and was there to refill drinks and help out whenever necessary.
Very good experience.