Walker Brothers is a pancake house with six locations in The Chicago Area. The Original Pancake House is located in Wilmette, on the North Shore of Chicago’s suburbs. The other locations are in Lincolnshire, Lake Zurich, Highland Park, Glenview and Arlington Heights.
I have personally eaten at each one of these restaurants. This review is based upon my recent visit to Walker Brothers, in Lake Zurich, Illinois.
The first Walker Brothers, in Wilmette, was opened in 1960. The restaurant has been serving fine breakfasts for over 45 years. Specialties include the Famous Apple Pancake, Oven-Baked Omelette’s or Classic Pancakes.
Every Walker Brothers has a unique and beautiful ambiance. The restaurants interiors have warm wooded interior and stained glass windows and light fixtures. Walker Brothers is well known for their beautiful interiors filled with stained glass works of art. There have a gallery of their stained Glass windows on their website (walkbrosoph.com/stained), which is just a small sampling of all the stained glass that you can see in the restaurant. The restaurant in Lake Zurich has several stained glass light fixtures. Each piece is different, making the interior both beautiful and interesting.
As you can probably guess from the name, the specialty of the house is pancakes. They have several varieties of pancakes and every one of them i delicious. Pancake specialties include: Apple, Danish Garden, Dutch Baby and German Pancake. They also serve potato, Swedish, Georgia Pecan, Blueberry, Buttermilk, Banana, Chocolate Chippies, Wheat Germ and Buckwheat. The menu includes a variety of waffles, omelets, sandwiches and salads. Their meas, such as bacon, Canadian bacon, ham and sausage are their special recipe.
On our last visit, I ordered the Cherry Kijafa Crepse and my companion ordered the potato pancakes with a side of Canadian. Bacon.
We started the meal with a cup of Kona coffee. The server greeted up at the table shortly after seating and asked if we wanted something to drink. We chose the coffee, which we knew from experience was excellent. The hot, full bodied coffee was poured into our cups and a small pitcher with creme was set on the table. The coffee was good, although the first cup tasted like it had been sitting in the pot a little too long. The refill was much better.
The food was served and was good, as we expected it would be. The Cherry Kijafa Crepes had three rolled crepes stuffed with tart cherries in a Kijafa sauce. The think crepes were cooked just right, tender on the inside, with crispy edges. The potato pancakes were think a crispy, with lacy edges. The pancakes were served with apple sauce or sour cream. My companion said they were done just right. The Canadian bacon was made of their special recipe, made of lean meat and had excellent flavoring.
The service is normally attentive and friendly. On this visit, however, the server did not come back to our table after taking our order. The meals were delivered by another server. We had to ask a passing server for a refill on the coffee. We had to wait for our cheque and actually had to ask a passing server to get our server to come to the table.
Although normally extremely happy with the service at Walker Brothers, this is not the first glitch in service that I have experienced at the restaurant. A couple of months ago, we lunched at the Walker Brothers in Arlington Heights. One two consecutive visits there was a strong disinfectant smell in the restaurant, that I found very unpleasant. One the second visit we determined that the smell came from an open cleaning bucket that had been left near the foyer. We asked the server if he could do something about it and he had the bucket put away. While I am glad that they clean, the smell of disinfectant does not enhance the enjoyment of pancakes. I actually sent a comment on the link provided on their website for comments and complaints, but never received a reply.
In spite of the aforementioned problems, I intend to return to Walker Brothers. The ambiance, excellent and food and usually attentive service are all great reasons to return.
Meals at Walker Brothers range from $5 to $10. There are a few choices that are a little lower in price, as well as choices that are more expensive. The coffee and tea are $1.95.
Following are the locations of the Walker Brothers Pancake Houses
825 Dundee Road, Arlington Heights, IL
1615 Waukegan, Glenview, IL
620 Central, Highland Park, IL
767 S. Rand, Lake Zurich, IL
200 Marriott Drive, Lincolnshire, IL
153 Green Bay Road, Wilmette, IL
