In keeping with the media’s fine tradition of publishing lists every new year, including two-, three- and four-star dining spots, Tempo Lake has devised its own list. The eateries are post-holiday-bank-account appropriate. And as with many dining lists, a major criterion is ambience. But the places we’ve mentioned are not ordinarily found under restaurants in the Yellow Pages. They offer ambience with a twist. Our list focuses on places you might not ordinarily consider when heading out to eat.
Such as the Point Cafe in Lake Forest.
At the pocketbook-friendly price of $8.25 for adults and $4.75 for children under 10, diners can belly up to an all-you-can-eat Italian buffet of pasta and pizza on Tuesdays and a Mexican food fest on Thursdays. The price includes bread, salad, dessert and soft drinks. And there is no corkage fee for bringing your own beer or wine.
Just don’t let the sight of slim bodies in workout clothes intimidate you as you dig into another piece of Italian sausage, baked mostaccioli, chicken fajita, cheese enchilada or chef Kathy Hawkins’ molasses cake.
Because the music you will eat to here is the beat of jogging feet and Nordic Track rasps. Look up and you’ll see runners doing laps on an indoor track. Glance down over a nearby railing and take in the fitness buffs trimming their bods.
The Point Cafe is located midlevel in the Lake Forest Health & Fitness Institute on the north end of the Lake Forest Hospital campus between U.S. Highway 41 and Waukegan Road. And no, you don’t have to be a member to eat there. Just pay for the buffet at the counter and head for the groaning table.
A plus is that the buffets are friendly to New Year’s diet resolutions, according to food and beverage director Eric Anderson, who points out that many items are low cholesterol and low fat.
“A person concerned about that would have no trouble finding things to eat here,” Anderson said.
The Lake Forest Health & Fitness Institute, at 1200 N. Westmoreland Rd., offers its Tuesday and Thursday buffets from 4:30 to 8:30 p.m. 847-735-1200. Food is served from 6:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday and 7 a.m. to noon Sunday.
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If you think vicarious exercise will help jump-start your day, check out the Centre Lights Cafe in Libertyville.
Picture wiping the last vestiges of chocolate chip pancakes from your lips some Sunday morning as you watch the pickup basketball game below or the fit figures pounding treadmills and track on the other side of the cafe’s glass partition.
Located just inside the Centre Club fitness complex on Golf Road west of Milwaukee Avenue, Centre Lights serves up pancakes, Belgian waffles, eggs and heart-healthy French toast at such wallet-healthy prices as $1.99 and $2.99. Even the larger breakfast buffet costs only $3.99.
Called the Breakfast Bonanza, the special menu is available on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. And as with the Point Cafe, you don’t have to be a member to eat here. But unlike all the other spots in this listing, Centre Lights sports tablecloths, the first clue that someone will offer a menu and take your order at your table.
The Centre Club is at 200 W. Golf Rd., Libertyville. Centre Lights hours are 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday and and 8 a.m. to noon Sunday; 847-816-6100.
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To reach one of the hottest lunch spots among the office crowd, just follow the garden-fresh path past arugula, frisee and asparagus at the newly remodeled Dominick’s Fresh Store in Bannockburn to the Cafe & Grill, which seats about 100 people and offers several food stations separated by a windowed wall from the rest of the store.
Executives from the adjacent Bannockburn Lake Office Plaza line up by the salad, pizza, hibachi, grill and sandwich stations shoulder to shoulder with grocery-shopping moms.
“It’s good, wholesome food that’s well prepared. We don’t alter the fresh, natural ingredients in any way,” said Dominick’s executive chef Sue Ashton Becker.
She gravitates toward a cooked-to-order pizza that has cheese baked onto a wafer-thin crust with a choice of toppings.
She noted that the dishes served at the cafe, such as a pizza focaccia, are trendy but made quickly enough to fit the patrons’ busy schedules. “It’s convenience food, but we like to say it’s fresh food fast, not fast food,” Becker explained.
And not all diners are rushed weekday lunchers.
“Weekends it’s crowded at lunch and dinner with families who have come here to eat,” said Bruce Daugherty, Dominick’s director of food service operations.
Becker explained the draw: “We consider this a real restaurant. It’s restaurant-quality food at affordable prices. We use the finest ingredients we can possibly get. And you pay slightly less than what you’d pay for a comparable dish in other restaurants. We want people to walk away from here feeling they had a great meal at a very good value.”
Right. Except this restaurant has grocery carts lined up outside the doorway. Carts must be left at the entrance. And diners receive their check when they enter the cafe. Called a passport, it is stamped by the station servers with a code number for each dish order. Diners give it to the cashier when paying on the way out after the meal.
Prices range from $1.79 for a slice of thin-crust pizza and $2.79 for a lunch-size caesar salad to $6.99 for the hibachi shrimp and $7.99 for grilled swordfish or black angus tenderloin steak.
The Cafe & Grill at the Dominick’s Fresh Store, located in the Bannockburn Green shopping center at 2503 Waukegan Rd., at Illinois Highway 22 in Bannockburn, is open from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily. 847-940-0664.
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You pass the produce, but the setup and selection are different at Cafe Biaggia in the other two Lake County Dominick’s Fresh stores, in Buffalo Grove and Vernon Hills. The approximately dozen tables and couple of food counters in the Cafe Biaggias line the stores immediately across the aisle from the fruits and veggies.
Patrons pay when they receive their dishes. And each cafe has its own specialties and menu. For instance, the Buffalo Grove cafe boasts a $4.99 Friday fish fry, and Vernon Hills offers a Chinese meal for $3.99.
Cafe hours at the Buffalo Grove store, 1160 Lake-Cook Rd., 847-537-3203, and at Vernon Hills, in the Hawthorn Village Commons on Illinois Highway 60 just west of Milwaukee Avenue, 847-816-3900, are from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.
All three fresh stores have a coffee bar that opens at 6 a.m.
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If you have ever craved invisibility so you could watch people with no one suspecting your presence, we have the place for you. High above the aisles at the Treasure Island in Lake Bluff, lunchers can feast on stick-to-the-ribs chicken, turkey and pork roast and potatoes or soups from the store’s hot deli counter while eyeing the bustling life below.
During the noon hour, workers from nearby office parks often take refuge at one of the dozen tables in the open-railing space, officially known as the cooking school.
“It’s great if you like to people-watch,” said deli-catering manager Tom Zawistowski.
Those who want to socialize quickly grab the tiny ice-cream-parlor-sized tables in the trellised cafe section adjacent to the deli downstairs.
On a recent visit at 11:15 a.m., the lunch hour had yet to hit its stride, but a line had already formed around the hot-food counter, and the cafe’s tables were filling fast.
“It’s standing room only when Abbott’s people are around. Abbott (Laboratories) is on holiday break now,” Zawistowski said.
At typical lunch prices of $4 to $5 for a hot meal, don’t expect haute cuisine. The deli caters to a lunch crowd that happily fills up on creamed soups, turkey or meatloaf and mashed potatoes in winter and chicken salad when the weather turns warm. Hot coffee or tea, drunk on the premises, is complimentary.
Treasure Island’s cafe, at 201 S. Waukegan Rd. at Illinois Highway 176 in Lake Bluff, serves hot food from about 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily. Deli food is available during regular store hours, 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday and 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday. 847-615-0900.
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If you like atrium ambience with towering glass windows, lots of greenery coupled with a cozy gazebo plus cheap eats available 24 hours a day, check out the food court at the Kmart Super Center on Milwaukee Avenue, just south of Illinois Highway 60 in Vernon Hills.
The gazebo even has a Legos table and TV and VCR with tapes to keep the youngsters happy. So what if the two-story glass window looks out onto the parking lot, the plants are fake and the view from the gazebo takes in the adjacent shelves of Dove and Irish Spring soaps?
The food court is airy, and the price is right. The $1.99 breakfast deal lays up two eggs, hash browns, toast and sausage or bacon. A couple of bucks more at lunch buys tacos, hamburgers, pizza or pasta.
Employees from the nearby office parks pick up food from the deli and salad and sandwich bars just outside the food court and find a table.
“It gets busy between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. with the office crowd,” said the store’s soft-lines manager, Linda Batty.
The Food Court in the Kmart Super Center, 413 N. Milwaukee Ave., Vernon Hills, like the store, is open 24 hours. 847-816-8600.
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The next time you crave a fish fry or Mexican, Chinese or Italian cuisine, break the mind-set. The repast can be as close as your grocery or workout center. And as Dominick’s Sue Ashton Becker said when she described the joys of eating in a supermarket, “It’s fun.”
