First, let me say there is more walking to this tour than I expected and more than is typical for food tours, so be prepared. Justin was our guide and he was excellent. I learned a lot about Chicago from him. I do not think that any of my negative comments should reflect on him, but rather on the structure of the tour. You should know that this tour does not end where it begins, but a bit of a walk away. That means if you do find parking where the tour begins, you'll have to figure out how to walk back to the beginning on your own. My chief complaint was not the food, as it was excellent. However, there was a lengthy wait for some of the food. I realize the restaurants were busy, but they had the order well ahead of time. Because of this, this tour ran over by a considerable amount and I had to miss the 4th place, the dessert because of another obligation. The Chicago-style hot dog and pizza restaurants really took a very long time to deliver the food. Seating was also not readily available at the establishments. So, if you take this tour, add an extra hour on to the suggested ending time. Be prepared to walk.. This tour just needs to be tightened up and it will be excellent. Justin, thank you for doing a great job!
Одговор домаћина
Jul 2019
Hi there,
Thank you for taking our Chicago Favorites Walking and Food Tour. I'm sorry that on the particular day the Pizza/Hot Dog vendors had an issue being prompt with their food service. As we understood things, the pizza place took a little longer than normal as there was someone on the tour celebrating a birthday and so the guide deemed it appropriate to order the person a dessert which added a little time to that stop. Your tour guide, Justin, notified our management team directly after the tour to get the issue with the hot dogs rectified and we are working with the vendors to get cleared up moving forward. Normally the seats are reserved and food ready, so we are working to ensure no future issues as you encountered. Your information is correct, the tour starts and ends in two different locations and they are 1/2 mile apart from each other. We recommend public transportation or taxi/uber if navigating downtown just because parking can get expensive. If you are parking, we recommend parking north of the starting point to cut that distance down a bit if you do not want to walk all the way back to the starting point. I do just want to clear up that this situation we had with our vendor that day on our tour was not the normal and we are working to correct. Normally our tours run on time, so I don't think it would be the norm to say our tours will run an hour over on the regular. While this particular situation was more extreme then others, this tour ran over by 30 minutes ending at 2:30pm instead of the normal 2pm. I'm sorry that you missed the end of the tour due to that extension. The advertised time of 2 1/2 hours is normally correct, but we always say we could add 15 minutes depending on various factors. I am sorry that your specific tour did encounter these issues and it did set your tour back. We are working with our vendors to make sure this doesn't happen to future guests.