Whispers at Oak Street Beach

Decent food at decent prices. Drinks were excellent. Servers seemed uninterested in giving good service, they were slow to arrive to our table initially and rarely checked in. The restaurant wasn’t busy either.

I love a nice strong margarita while listening to waves and watching swimmers. Such a fun place!

I dined there and they marked me as no show

Beach date with a wonderful person that hopefully will be the first of many

This was my first time to this restaurant at oak street beach. It is much nicer than the restaurants that previously occupied this location. Great drink selection and the food is good. Service was excellent!

Amazing ambiance, great food, and exceptional service. Aziza really made our experience here outstanding!

Great day spot right in the beach. Good cocktails and food was tasty.

First the good- the view of the water. Next the not so bad - the sound level of the music and the service. If you’re seated in the wrong place, unless you speak sign language, you won’t be able to converse with your table mates. The music was BLASTED. The service, almost nonexistent. I know, Covid, but what ever happened to summer job seeking high school and college kids? A wait staff of two was way too small. Last the ugly - the food. We had 6 different dishes and not a one was actually good. Even were Whispers cheap, which it’s not, it’d still be too expensive. So enjoy the view and a drink, but not much else.

Great view of Lake Michigan. Food was good. Service was great.

Went to Whispers after work for a couple of drinks and appetizers. The hostess sat us and was very nice. No one came to our table after that. A group walked in off the beach and sat themselves and were waited on first. I even saw two servers point at our table as if they were figuring out who was supposed to take our table and then they walked away in two different directions. This is the second time this has happened. Never going back.

We had a great time! The location and views are amazing! The Buffalo wings and tacos were delicious. Get the frozen vodka Lemonades, you won’t be disappointed.

Meh..... Great location as you are basically eating right on the water. My chicken sandwich was advertised as a chicken breast. It rather appeared to be shredded chicken breast and there wasn't much of it. My son had a generous sized cheeseburger that was ordered medium-rare and rather came medium-well. It was otherwise tasty with added sautéed mushrooms and onions. The burrata appetizer was very good but needed to be served with a couple more toast points. Plan on going for the view and you won't be disappointed!

Our of town relatives

Very bad service and food quality. Wouldn’t recommend ever

My large group of fruends went when the weather was not the best, and still had a great experience! Really cool experience that’s different than other restaurants in the city. Great place to bring friends from out of town to show them the beaches of the city!!!

Fantastic location, and what would have been a great table except for the massive piles of stinky algae 5ft from our table. Plastic wine glasses and utensils. Had to ask (twice) for water, napkins, utensils. Tacos arrived stone cold - came back reheated instead of replaced (and with no salsa). Tuna nachos were AWFUL - tough tuna (in no way sushi grade) and soggy chips. French fries were great but no enough to redeem the rest. Finally gave up trying to make our dinner the experience we had hoped for - paid and left.

The food wasn’t what was advertised… the service was spotty, at best. Chips were stale. Burger was served on sandwich versus the pretzel bun that was advertised. They ran out of pickles. It was a hot mess. We paid for our drinks and left. View was great!

Incredibly slow service, French fries took 45+ mins to come out. Impossible to ask for a water refill on a hot sunny day. Waitress was nowhere to be seen and wasn’t very polite either. Considering we had hungry kids with us, the slow food and lack of water created a total disaster out of that experience.

Oh my gosh what an amazing experience. Did not know the food would be so good. Every table is a perfect view and service was great!!! I will be back a lot this summer. Thanks for being on open table, it makes it so easy!

The cheeseburger was excellent. Juicy and fresh, this is our new place for cheeseburgers. Great views from the lake and a party atmosphere, we loved it!

Could not rave more about Whispers!!!! Jenna… Carlos… you all have figured out the perfect beach / Chicago summer bar!! Please don’t change a thing - will continue to come back again & again!!

Funday Friday with the FFC ladies! Thank you Madison for your fabulous service and look forward to our next event in two weeks!

That was a big disappointment

The Good:
- scenic at the beach
- really friendly server trying to make up for the let down
- manager apologized and gave partly refund

What to watch out for:
- well - in summary- do not order the food there... until you see them changing organization/cooks
- not edible fries. soaked in fat
- chicken dry and hard
- Elote salad???
Well which I could say anything good about any of the food

Beautiful (almost unique) setting right on the water downtown Chicago. Food is average, service is good and fast, without though any pressure. Music is far too loud to the point of being unpleasant.

The food was horrible and overpriced. The staff was flakey and we were notified that the chef had just quit. I would suggest it for drinks only, but even our beers were served warm. The only saving grace was the beautiful view of the lake.

Worst experience ever!!! Service was absolutely horrible, took over an hour for drinks, ordered another round and food and waited 40 minutes and the server never put the food order in! The round of drinks came and one of them had a dead fly in the bottom of it! Owner was full of excuses, not one solution was offered! She was clearly under the influence of something, as well as our server and hostess were high! The owner was aggressive, bordering on combative! This is the Gold Coast, not the south side of Chicago! Act like it! So embarrassing for my guests as it was their first time! I will NEVER be back, and I live directly across the street!!!! Simply pathetic!

Service was absolutely terrible, so slow and took over an hour for food, charged us for someone else’s bill too which was a nightmare.

This place is a fun spot and great location on the water but was honestly so disorganized. The frozen drink machine (which is half their drink menu) was broken - okay, that happens. The burgers were supposed to come on pretzel buns but no one told us they were out. My burger was missing the caramelized onions and mushrooms I paid more for; my boyfriend’s burger was missing the bacon he paid more for. Everything took a really long time. We asked for a cup of ice but never got it. Our server asked us to close out because his shift was ending and said someone new would be taking over our table but they never came over, which made straightening out the burger errors (which we had already paid for) very difficult. We always try to be understanding, especially at the beginning of the season but it was one thing after another, which tainted our experience.

They were 4 people short on staff - those who were working were doing their best, but it took 2 hours to have a couple rounds of drinks and order apps.

We loved having a cabana with a group of friends. The food was very good, especially the salmon ceviche!

Really high quality food- much better than you would expect at the beach. Had a great Poke salad that could have been had in any nearby restaurants.

Very friendly hardworking staff and everyone was very accommodating.

Very nice day

They’re not open, even though everything online makes it seem like it is.

Restaurant is closed

The restaurant wasn't open. We showed up there for the reservation to it being boarded up for what looks like the season. This needed to be taken off OpenTable.

They were out of several menu item both food and drink. It was chilly, but only one heat lamp was present and wasn’t on. We had to wait awhile for the check. Fairly priced for the fantastic view.

If I could rate this a zero-star review, I would. Bad is an understatement when it comes to the service here.

The ambiance and views were amazing! However that could not make up for the terrible service and food we received. We completely understand it can be stressful during these times, but we were not checked on for over an hour after we got our drinks, were told 90 minutes into our service they only had 3 items on the menu, and watched our food sit in the window for 30 min. Our server never once commented about how maybe they were short staffed, or over booked, or apologized for the delay or not telling us they had hardly any food. In fact we were walked by dozens of times and ignored. We’re in the service industry - we get it! But not acknowledging that your service is poor or having a rough night, makes me wonder if that’s normal to them.

There were some items in the menu that were not available. Other than that everything was perfect.

They over charged both me and my friend. We noticed this after we had paid because they didn’t show us a bill before sliding our cards on the tablet that they bring to your table. We told our server that we each over payed by like $15 and no managers were on duty so he took down our information and said a manager would contact us first thing in the morning. I receive no call or emails trying to resolve the issue. I emailed them and tried calling multiple times with no reply. Very rude, unprofessional and disappointing. We were very easy going and nice about the server over charging us and understood that he didn’t know how to refund but for them to just ghost us is unacceptable.

The ambiance of Whispers and being on the water helps to feel like you're somewhere other than Chicago. The steak tacos and lamb burger (Tiger Burger) was full of flavor. The drinks are amazing.