Sahara Restaurant & Grill

The restaurant has a pervasive smell of hookah. Fine for a hookah bar but not where food is served. A definite turn off. The food is mediocre at best. The falafel isn’t bad but they only offer tahini or garlic sauce and no yogurt sauce. I know the owners are Chaldean but they could at least try to please their customers and offer Syrian, Lebanese or Israeli style middle eastern food. It’s not that hard to offer tabouleh without scallions for a customer who can’t have onions. The owners answer was «it’s already made honey». Whatever happened to ‚“I make it special for you”?

First time ordering (moved jobs after 10 yrs at old place of work) as I am a weekly orderer of middle eastern !
1. Ordered cucumber sauce, not in take out bag. However garlic sauce was (I specifically mentioned I don’t care for it)
2. Salad with ranch. I Asked for basic house dressing
3. No receipt
4. Take out lady was checking out me and another person at the same time, that wasn’t friendly or personal
5. Food was okay .
First and last time I order here

I found this restaurant authentic and the food deep on taste that were uniquely Lebanese. A word of warning, the portions are huge! Final word on the service, it was fast and we were taken care of from the time we arrived to the time we left. Service was awesome!

Service is definitely slow at this location so I would recommend calling in for take out.
Their food here is very good! Typically I would order the Sahara Super comb. It comes with a ton of food to be able to feed a small village for only $ 28.
I like their beef Kafta, chicken shawarma and their rice is great. I would also highly recommend the crushed lentil soup! It’s always spot on and full of flavor.
Their stove top bread and garlic sauce is to die for also. The garlic sauce is strong and always packs a kick.
Honestly everything I have tried is very good. The One thing I would skip is the beef and chicken cream chop. Mainly because I’m just not a fan of them.
The other real awesome thing about Sahara is they are open late and their grill on till close! Always a great idea to get some garlic sauce after the bar!
Great place.

Been here about 6 times dining in and carryout. I keep thinking the service will get better but it doesn’t. Beautiful looking restaurant but the lack of service will be its downfall. Takes forever to even be acknowledged. Customer not appreciated at all here. Gave up on even doing carryouts now. Refuse to be treated this way!

I was taken to this place by my friend via her wonderful Groupon. She insisted that this was the best Middle Eastern place. The ambience and openness of this place is great. It is inviting and has good décor. We were seated at a booth by a cordial and friendly host. We were quickly asked about a drink and I responded by ordering a mixed drink. We than selected the Sahara Combo. My friend wanted to substitute the Potato Chop instead of the Chicken chop. It came with
1 Shish Kafta, Beef Shwarma, Beef Cream Chop, Chicken Cream Chop, 1 Chicken Kafta, Lamb Kafta, Soup or salad. When it came I was like…“WOW. Now that’s solada food!” It could have fed 4 people. It did not help any that we ate the oven cooked bread with the delicious garlic sauce. The food was good but I would not designate it as the best. The Potato chop was excellent, It was a nice first. It was fried on the outside and had meat and potato’s on the inside. There was more food than any Mediterranean place I have visited. My friend took some home to her daughter and I took some home also. Maybe we are not big eaters but I was full. What was best was the pleasant and wonderful personality of our waiter. Very attentive and service with a great smile and personality. He was excellente! I will visit again.

Great food but the service is absolutely terrible. You could be the only person in the entire restaurant and the workers would stare at you and continue to text on their phones. The manager is the only person in the entire restaurant that does what he is supposed to but the employees are all lazy. Beautiful restaurant and great food, but the service is lacking.

Not a fan of the service for sure. Food is ok. SLOW service. Even when there are three table only. They treat you like you are a guest in THEIR country! Like you are less than. Better food and service elsewhere!

The shawarma was just OK. The lentil soup was pretty good and the fattoush salad was flavorless. Commendable that Sahara bakes fresh pita bread, but the garlic that is served with it could be better. Service was good and quick. I might try it again, but there are better places around.

Love the food here! It’s almost as good as my mother in laws traditional Chaldean cooking! We have driven down to Sahara in Oak Park for 20+ years! So happy to have Kenny & the crew in the neighborhood now. I will admit, the service can be a little rough when the manager isn’t present to over see the young servers. But the food is fantastic & the restaurant in beautiful!

I would rate higher for food. Service is very lackluster. You will walk in/​enter front and have staff look at you or text on their phone. Only person who is attentive is manager/​owner and another employee that has been there for a while. He’s waited on us several times and he’s a gem! Wish I knew his name because he’s a saving grace. This location would be great if they hired better staff who has experience in service industry. This is a great area and does not have a huge selection of middle eastern food. Restaurant itself is nice, staff needs a lot of work.
Also, why is all food so good and vegetables are frozen???

Just had a really great lunch! Lunch combo price is very reasonable. The service was fast and friendly. Tabbouleh was the best I have ever had, and love the garlic sauce. Haven’t been here for dinner yet.

Skip it and find a better place to eat. The service was sub-​par, our server was no where to be found and there was only 2 maybe 3 other tables with diners in the entire restaurant.
As for the food, it was incredibly bland and our main course was served before our appetizers.

Skip it… The service is absolutely awful and the food was really bland. There are a lot better middle eastern food places around. We had to constantly ask for drink refills, the servers were no where to be found. We had to clear our own dishes. The dinner came out before the appetizers. It was a disaster and the food was so bland it was difficult to eat it.

The worse Mediterranean food ever. The worse service and the staff can’t count or place your order right.
The manager is nice and kind but something has to be wrong with him to have the staff working for him that he does.
One is very confusing and overcharges you on your bill and the other one can’t count.
Don’t know if it is as act to steal from you or what but they do not need to be in business.
The full bar evidently does no have anyone to make the alcoholic mixed drinks the right way. The drinks were too syrupy and did not taste like the drink I asked for either times. I had to just drink water.
They need help all the way around.
But the décor and the bathrooms are really nice.

Dinner this evening. Food and service excellent. I was concerned reading another review that said hookah smell was strong because I will not dine if strong smoke. However, it did not smell of smoke when we walked in.
Young lady that waited on us was excellent and food also.
I cant speak for others who have reviewed, but we had excellent experience. Would go back again.

So I thought this was the same chain as the one on hall road, but I’m not sure it is. This one was very pricey for what you get and the service was painfully slow. The salad my boyfriend got was really small for an entrée. My falafel sandwhich wasn’t bad. Try the one on hall road by Costco for cheaper Mediterranean and better price!

I want to love this place. I really do. It’s super close and we have had great food there. However, the service and inconsistency of the food make it hard.
Despite having gotten carry out there dozens of times, the staff is consistently snarky. I don’t get it. If I order my side fattoush without pita chips I get a tossed salad with ranch on the side every.single.time. So I order the fattoush and pick off the stupid pita chips. The lentil soup is generally awesome, but really fluctuates and can’t be counted on to be great. The kebab used to have an option of grilled veggies but now the veggies are clearly frozen, steamed veggies with no flavor. I don’t know. We’ll probably keep ordering carry out for the convenience factor but I’ll keep my expectations low.

My coworker goes here all the time and raves about the place. I saw a Groupon and thought I’d give them a try!
I went on a Friday after work and they weren’t busy. As we started getting our food more people trickled in but they do a great deal of take out business. If I lived close, I would totally get take out from here. The décor is beautiful! Rich browns and glass mosaic tile. They also have a little bar on one side of the restaurant.
My mom never had middle eastern before so she had lots of questions for the waiters. They were so helpful and very nice. We both got chicken shawarma/​chicken cream chop combo meals. There was SO MUCH FOOD. Salad, pickled veggies, rice with different «sauces», bread, and your entrée. As we continued to eat, my mom had more questions and the young waiters were happy to answer and not annoyed at all. I was just a little sad we didn’t get a refil on our garlic sauce but when they gave us containers to pack up our food they gave us two containers of garlic sauce to take home. You cannot beat $ 15 for all the food you get! I will definately be back!

I’ve been here a couple of times and have had very consistent service and quality. The service is terrible. The waiter, who had every table in the entire restaurant and cooked the bread, was running around like a chicken with his head cut off. Every visit, my soup arrives after my sandwich and I’m at 50% with actually receiving bread with my meal. The reason why I keep coming back is that the food is AMAZING. I have never tasted grape leaves so delicious and a soup so heartwarming. The level of spice and depth blows my mind.
I will continue to get carryout from Sahara, but will not dine in again.