I know new restaurants sometimes have a hard time when they first open. It takes a while for the new owners to get things right. So, keeping this in mind, I will outline my own personal experience at Café 20.
Before going any further, I want to mention that the food itself at Café 20 was for the most part pretty good. I ordered a vegetable sandwich. It was served with a side of pesto on sourdough bread and was truly delicious. My partner had a hamburger, and his opinion of it was that it was as good as the ones in State Street Pub. The fries were waffle fries, which were crispy and also very good. With my vegetable sandwich, I had a side order of potato salad, which was one of the options. Well..that was so-so. I’ll give it some credit, it was homemade and used red skinned potatoes, but lacked any flavor whatsoever. I had to drown it with salt and pepper, and even then it wasn’t that enticing. However, giving credit where credit was due, the rest of the items that we ordered tasted good.
Now, the menu itself at Café 20 was pretty impressive. There was anything and everything that one could wish for on it. Meatloaf, and pesto pasta, pasta with peppers/sausages, and a variety of steaks, as well as a whole list of pizzas, salads, sandwiches, and soups. So, you might ask yourself, why did we manage such a measly set of selections from such an extensive menu? Well, its simple. Café 20 is very, unusually expensive. Oh, maybe it would be alright if it was located in downtown Palatine or Arlington Heights. Or if it was geared more toward the Doral Ridge crowd. But, plain and simple, for an ordinary Marengo resident it is very unreasonable. The items on the menu can be found in other area restaurants at much lesser prices. In fact, on the sandwich menu there were few sandwiches under $10. The sandwiches and other entrees did not include soup. In fact, after looking at the menu with some dismay, the only thing I could settle on was either a BLT for $7 or a Vegetable Sandwich for $7. Everything else was much more than I could afford to spend for lunch. This might make a difference or it might not, depending on how much one is willing to spend on lunch or dinner. But, I might add, that the hamburger my partner had was almost identical to the one in State Street Pub, and for much more money then he would have spent at the Pub. The vegetarian sandwich I had could be found for $4 or $5 or so at Flatlanders. The prices just don’t compare, especially as soup is not included with the meal.
Again, that’s not to knock it down. The food was good! If one is willing to pay the prices and is just interested in the food, then this would not be an issue.
Now, the last item that could use a bit of work is the service. We came to this restaurant with two kids, one of whom is very young and a bit wild. He needed a high chair to sit in, otherwise he would do weird tricks like get up on the table, yell in a loud voice, and hit the window with a tiny fist. We asked the waitress for a high chair, but were handed an ancient chair right out of the 1950’s, which not only was unsafe and would tip over, but which also did not fit my son. We pushed the chair aside and let him sit next to the window, where he proceeded to do all that was described above. The waitress neither offered an alternative, like a booster seat, nor asked why we pushed the high chair aside. One would think that in an age when people routinely take kids out to eat, especially in a homey looking place that identifies itself as a “café” and offers items such as meatloaf, that there would have been an actual, real high chair! Other than that, the service needs to have some quirks worked out. It took a very long time for the food to be served. The waitress had to wait on a roomful of people. There was only one waitress, so this was an impossible task to accomplish, made even more difficult because she sat at the bar looking bored and sipping a soda most of the time we were there. When drinks for the kids were ordered, she brought them a glass with a straw, same as for the adults. Again, consideration wasn’t given toward younger children, who might have a hard time sipping from an open glass without spilling and making a disaster. Again, it would have been a different, perhaps better, dining experience without the kids. But I must say that the place isn’t very child-friendly. I did notice the "Help Wanted" posted on the sign outside, but none the less, you cannot run a restaurant that had almost every table occupied during the lunch rush with only one server.
Other than that, I think Café 20 had good food and could make a go of it, if some of the above quirks are worked out. I know it is under new ownership, so I hope for the best!
