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    Thomas Restaurant

    3.4 (44 reviews)
    Closed 7:00 am - 1:00 pm

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    THOMAS RESTAURANT ATMOSPHERE

    What's the vibe?
    Moderate noise
    Casual
    Good for kids
    Good for groups

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    Recommended Reviews - Thomas Restaurant

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    Michael W.

    Hi Regular Long-time Customer here, I just had breakfast at Thomas Restaurant, and I asked for the biscuits for my bread choice. Now, the biscuits were biscuits however, the cook need lessons on how to make biscuits. Currently, the supposed "BISCUITS" have too much Baking Soda, the consistency feels like sand. Manager should change biscuit recipe and make cook follow this recipe: Ingredients 1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder 1 teaspoon coarse salt 6 tablespoons (¾ stick) chilled unsalted butter, cut into small pieces ¾ cup milk (see headnote) This dough can be used to make two different types of biscuits: rolled biscuits and drop biscuits. 3 Tips for Better Biscuits These biscuits are surprisingly easy to make, but it's crucial to follow a few key tips to ensure yours bake up as light and tender as possible: Use extra cold butter: Just like when making a pie crust, it's important to use butter that's been cut into small pieces and chilled until very cold. The goal is to have small, pebbly pieces of butter dispersed throughout the flour mixture to achieve soft, flaky layers. If your butter is too warm, it can melt and leech out of the biscuits when they hit the oven. Add milk gradually: When making these biscuits, you may not need the entire amount of milk--it can depend on factors including how firmly the flour is packed when measuring and the humidity of your kitchen. Add it gradually while mixing, stopping when you reach the desired consistency. For rolled biscuits, the dough should be moist enough to just barely hold together (you'll knead it a bit more out the bowl, which will help it become more cohesive). For drop biscuits, continue adding milk until mixture resembles moist cookie dough (a scoop of it should be able to hold its shape without spreading or pooling on the baking sheet). Don't overwork the dough: You've likely heard this one before--and for good reason. Overworking--or overmixing--the dough can cause too much gluten to develophttps://www.marthastewart.com/316713/flaky-buttery-biscuits

    Turkey Burger
    Tracey C.

    I normally have a great experience here but today not so much. I ordered the "homemade" turkey burger and you can definitely tell it's not homemade. When I took the soup out the bag the broth spilled all over the place because there was a crack in the cup. So needless to say all I had left was the ingredients. I'm sure the Uber driver had some in his car too since the bag was wet. I also ordered the eggs to be "country scrambled " and I'm not even sure what that means but I know now not to order like that again. It was basically just folded. And the hash browns were super dry. I'm still going to order from them again I just know what NOT to get.

    They got rid of that 10 page menu.
    Scott L.

    This historic neighborhood joint has amazing food! I especially love their breakfast. True value for the money.

    Grits, scrambled eggs, and salmon croquettes has browns with onion and peppers
    Mayra M.

    I have it there's start because the atmosphere is older restaurant with no updates, ever. The lady at the register was rude, but our waitress was super sweet and the food was delicious, I had the t bone steak which was cooked medium as I request it, the grits were creamy and the biscuit was soooo good, as well as their cream of chicken noodle soup. I also tasted the salmon croquettes which were amazing. However the atmosphere, well the place is an older restaurant that has not been updated and is ok, but the lady at the counter was super rude, kept making disrespectful comments which we ignored because we were there to eat. Our waitress was super sweet and attentive, although the comments on how much food we ordered were uncalled for. I know I'm fat and I'm here to eat, not to be judged! So if you do get food from here, I would suggest order to go.

    Pancakes
    Dale B.

    This place is time stamped on the inside and out. Like most places on the southside, it's got a lot of history and stories to tell. It's located on a pretty busy 87th street. It's almost impossible to cross the street to get to the restaurant. Let's talk about the food. So I got a standard breakfast which consisted of pancakes, bacon, and eggs. I wasn't too impressed with the pancakes. They tasted a little overdone. They kinda missed the eggs when sprinkling the cheese on them. No big deal! It was still a decent meal. Once you walk in the diner it's like stepping into a 1970s blaxploitation. You expect Shaft to walk in and ask for his usual soup and salad combo. It's a lovely place though to have breakfast at. Can't wait to come back.

    Side exterior
    Louie N.

    This is a prime example of not to rely on your Yelp community for assistance selecting a good restaurant for breakfast. I am in the area waiting for a business to open at 10am so I decided to have breakfast instead of waiting in my car. From the outside of this place it is an automatic turn off, but it had a lot of people inside and was giving decent reviews so I decided to give it a shot. I should have known no host, "seat yourself" sign was going to = a sub par experience. I entered with my guest and we sat at a booth. We reviewed the menus and determined in 1 minute what we wanted. The busboy gave us water 5 minutes later and asked if we wanted coffee, which I ordered. My guest ordered orange juice though the busboy had a hard time understanding. He came within 2 minutes with drinks. He returned 2 minutes later and asked if i wanted more coffee but i had only taken 2 minor sips. There were 2 female servers, neither stopped by our table to acknowledge us or anything. I was watching my clock and noticed that 13 minutes had passed and no one besides busboy stopped by the table. In addition I noticed how badly this place has been maintained so we decided to leave before we got sick. Would I give them another chance?? As the Deborah Cox song says, "Absolutely Not!"

    As you can clearly see there is a staple in my pancakes

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    1 day ago

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    10 months ago

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    5 months ago

    Been coming here forever literally since a little girl, just a southside diner that's been a staple for many years

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    10 months ago

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    7 months ago

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    10 months ago

    The waitresses are polite, courteous, and attentive. The pancakes with the warm syrup is delicious.

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    2 years ago

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    3 years ago

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    7 years ago

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    3 years ago

    Good food good inside good employees and basically good. One of the employees are in my neighborhood. The ambiance is good comfortable

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    3 years ago

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    7 years ago

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    8 years ago

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    5 years ago

    I ordered a tuna melt and just got tuna slapped on a piece of bread. No cheese at all or Mayo. Super annoyed.

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    8 years ago

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    7 years ago

    Looking for a place to eat breakfast. Some one in the Walgreens line recommends this place!AWSOME!

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    8 years ago

    Business owner information

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    Yoon K.

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    9 years ago

    My moms favorite place after church. Get in early before the Sunday morning crowd get in there. You will have to wait or you can order out.

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    Yoon K.

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    9 years ago

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    6 years ago

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    12 years ago

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    10 years ago

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    15 years ago

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    10 years ago

    Just nasty!!! And outdated! Don't even bother. There are many other great breakfast options to choose from.

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    12 years ago

    Food is awful. I think people go because it's in the community & nostalgic.

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    Yoon K.

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    7 years ago

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    12 years ago

    I love this place. Been going here for years. The breakfast food is excellent!!! Best hash browns in town !!

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    Nafsi

    Nafsi

    3.3
    (76 reviews)
    2.4 mi

    My husband and I arrived at this nice warm modern contemporary restaurant for dinner, and we were…read moregreeted and seated right away. We were there the day before Valentine's Day, so the menu was limited. I had one of there margarits's and that started my great evening. Our server was attentive and checked in on us. We enjoyed the crab cakes with shrimp on top and dirty rice stuffed mushrooms for starters and then we had spinach salad which was delicious. About another hour or so we enjoyed our main meal which was Tuscan chicken with creamy risotto and lobster and shrimp etouffee served over wild rice, very delicious. We also had for dessert, banana CHEESE cream pudding and I actually wanted to Lick the bowel it was so good. We also enjoyed the strawberry shortcake. I was hesitant about making a reservation because of all the negative reviews after restaurant week. I must say we were happy with our decision to dine at this restaurant. Yes, the food took a little extra time but it was worth it. I can't wait to go back for their weekend brunch.

    I'll start with the positives - The food for the most part…read morewas really good. I finally had actual catfish, something I haven't had in a while since maybe going to Virtue (keep that name in your pocket for later), we had calamari, which was ok, and my entree came with mashed potatoes which were good once I added a pinch of salt (at home because they didn't have salt or pepper on the table). Now for everything else- We waited a little bit to be seen and then be seated. We made reservations in advance, as it was my mom's 86th birthday so we were all excited that there was a place nearby to dine that didn't involve going to Hyde Park. Anyway, once seated we waited close to 20 minutes for water. There seemed to be one server with someone shadowing him in our section, so my sister asked him if he could get us water. He told us our server would be with us shortly in a pretty dismissive way. My sister then asked the host if someone was going to come and take our order, by this time we had been sitting for over 20 minutes, in bright light with Afro Beats blasting too loudly over the speaker (yall can't make a mix of different genres?). The host ended up taking our order and then our server came over, taking our order again until we told her we had already put in everything. The food came out pretty quickly but that was it. The servers kind of were also runners. Once the food was on the table that was it, nothing else. No one asked us about anything, you were on your own. My mom did ask for a dessert that sold out and after we told the server it was her birthday, she went to the kitchen and they did us a solid. And she said the bread pudding was good. We watched folks nearby sit just as long for food leave after an appetizer. Honestly it's no surprise because after getting the bill I realized this is Virtue pricing without hardly any of what makes that restaurant successful. I would come back, but maybe on a slower evening. Hopefully things will work out and get better, at least dim those lights and turn the music down a bit.

    Photos
    Indoor Dining Area
    Indoor Dining Area
    Appetizer: fried calamari
    Appetizer: fried calamari
    Herb & Curry Roasted Cauliflower Steak

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    Herb & Curry Roasted Cauliflower Steak
    Class Act

    Class Act

    4.4
    (13 reviews)
    13.1 mi

    Okay folks.....my wife and I are huge foodies. We travel the globe eating at new gastronomical…read morerestaurants and had our hopes set high due to the reviews. Well, damnit. (And this review is honest and not like there was a personality issue. In fact, they were super nice there. All of them). But the food fell short big time. The chef focuses more on technique than taste. He uses liquid nitrogen that wows people when the fog spills out from the open kitchen, etc. But when the food arrived both my wife and I thought we had contracted Covid and lost our taste buds. Thankfully no Covid but the plates kept coming with hardly any taste. They served a very rare bird......called a pigeon, swathed in so much curry it left a solid after taste that even the expensive non-impressive wine flight couldn't wash down. (They need a sommelier stat). The chef greets a common table of 16 with an grandiose tale along with each course, trying to spin a good yarn of how his food is a happy dance to your mouth. Pro tip....food should sell itself. And not one person sitting at the communal table was heard saying "wow! This is great!). The only redeeming course was the chocolate ice cream at the end. To top it off, they give you a wrapped hot dog to take home as a parting gift as to say "I'm sorry." I mean, what are we to do with a damn hot dog? Take it home, put it in the fridge and have a soggy hot dog the next day? Oh well....for over $400 for 2 people you can have far better options. Hopefully the chef will get better trained on taste versus presentation. I was so rooting for this place but sadly only walked away with a hot dog that we could have eaten as the first course and the bag itself as the remaining course and it would have tasted the same. Just trying to save you from an expensive night. Go elsewhere and enjoy Chicago!

    Food 4.5 tasted good, plating beautiful, light, includes…read moresensory Service 5 welcoming and well prepared to be informative Ambiance 5 intimate and bespoke, great for occasion, couldn't justify regular appearance

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    Class Act
    Class Act
    Squab

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    Squab

    Thomas Restaurant - newamerican - Updated June 2026

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