Luke’s Italian Beef

Inexpensive hot dogs. Large menu with a large variety of food. There was something for everyone. Dogs were good, had the Chicago and a chili cheese dog.

Best Italian beef in the city of Chicago.

Had a combo beef/​sausage sandwich and by surprise it was pretty good. Beef was very tender and it saved it although it looked super ugly. The bread was wet from the meat, but good. The sausage added some spiciness to the meal.
Very fast food feeling.

I stopped into Luke’s for lunch on a Friday and my meal really hit the spot.
Décor: It’s your typical Chicago beef/​hot dog place so the standards apply: a bunch of tables, funny/​cheesy decorations, amazing smells. The hole place is a bit divey but very well lit and they don’t hide anything. The lunch crowd of regulars keep the place full so get there early if you want a seat (and are not just carrying out). When you walk in you can’t help but see the menu above the order counter and everything sounds delicious.
Bathroom: unknown
Staff: The cashiers were friendly, but strictly business. The food was prepared relatively quickly (there was a decent crowd) as well.
Food: I had a beef sandwich (which was very tasty but needs more beef) and a Chicago-​style hot dog (delicious, right up there with Portillo’s) with fries (decent, but too skinny) and a chili (pretty solid, but definitely right out of a package). I enjoyed it all, however, the perfect hangover remedy (that is much closer to the office than Portillo’s).
Value: The price is right! Good value for your money.
This was not my first time at Luke’s, having been here many years ago, but it’s as good as I remember and I know I’ll be back in the future.

High marks are mostly attributed to the cheap and addicting $ 2 + tax giant order of french fries. They taste like butter-​fried, crispy, gourmet version of McDonald fries.
Chicago dog and cheese burgers were good, but Portillo’s dogs and cheeseburgers are slightly better. Everyone claims the Italian beef is amazing, but I have not tried.

Cold maxwell polish! Very hot & tasty cheese fries. The middle of my polish is cold. Doesn’t taste like 100% beef. The cheese fries were good … Polish is very bad …

Italian beef here is solid. Order with sweet/​spicy peppers and juicy.
Service is fast and easy

Hands down the BEST Italian Beef sandwich I’ve had since arriving in Chicago two years ago.
The amazingly tender meat arrives lovingly cradled in a super-​soft, foot-​long roll that holds the entire package snugly together. Ask for yours «wet», and they’ll dunk the entire sandwich in the au jus before wrapping it up in classic wax paper. If you’re feeling adventurous, order the «Combo» and they’ll lay a perfectly-​charred, spicy (!) sausage across the length of your sandwich — but plan on a nap afterwards!
Other offerings include a meatball sandwich, a «cuppa tree» different cold subs, a wide selection of Italian-​style pizzas (pan and thin, whole and by-​the-​slice) and made-​to-​order calzones. Also available are classic Chicago-​style Vienna hotdogs, cheeseburgers and fried sides ranging from fries to cheese.
Arrive early — things get busy starting at 11:30am on the weekdays. And the place suffers from a bit of dis’feng shui, with two and three lines of folks snaking up to the stage-​like platform where you place your order. Grab your cafeteria tray of goodness and head back down the stairs to the dining room — then secure your hunched-​over, elbows up position to safely enjoy your soaking wet Italian beef sandwich.

Have to say the beef sandwich is amazing! The fries just ok and the staffs service just ok. I went here for the beef sandwich and was not disappointed.

This place is a great lunch spot. Great pizza, great Italian beef, great service, and very quick turnaround. No complaints, it’s great and well worth the wait. Sometimes might have to wait 10 to 15 minutes, but worth it every time.

Honestly, meh. Conveniently close to hotels in the loop, but the inside is pretty generic pizza parlor. Got the combo Italian beef and sausage sandwich which was juicy and salty, which I guess is what it’s supposed to be? A few paltry onion strings and that’s that. If you don’t eat it fast you’re stuck with some soggy buns. Also got the Chicago dog, which was the saddest looking hot dog I’ve ever seen. Not to mention, the relish was the questionable shade of leprechaun green. Maybe I am ignorant, but not exactly my idea of the perfect hot dog.

Having tried an Italian beef elsewhere I decided to have a hot dog here. That being said I cannot give a hot dog place more than 3 stars because well its a hot dog.
Tried the Chicago Dog and the Polish Dog. The Vienna all beef wiener is the key to this place. That thing makes everything else better. Both of these hot dogs were what you expected with the Polish Dog having the true braut and a load of grilled onions and mustard.
If you are looking for a reasonably priced hot dog on the go this is a great spot to go. Also the décor is pretty cool to look at as a tourist.

I was very disappointed I had the beef which was very plain my bread was hard even with it dipped in juice. Their sign lied definitely not the best… smh I don’t think I’ll be coming back.

I’ve been to Luke’s a couple of times and never had a bad experience; however, the one time I called in my order, they completely messed up.
I called in my order around 11:50 A.M. (knowing how busy they’d be during lunch hours). She told me around 20 minutes. When I got there (20 minutes later), I paid for my order and thought that I would be all set to go. Unfortunately, I watched people that came in to order receive their food before mine.
Finally, I asked the cashier. She told me, «Oh, I’m so sorry! The cook put your bag in the wrong place.» Though she apologized numerous times, I was already annoyed. I basically waited there 10 minutes. I was better off ordering in-​person.
As I started to walk to work, I realized she gave me a cheeseburger when I had ordered a hamburger.
After that experience, I haven’t been back! If I do go back, I definitely will never order via phone again!

Lukes doughboy pizza.
Pizza crust was a bust
it was doughy not done making the feast no fun
i was hoping to get lost in the sauce but instead the pizza got tossed

J’ai trouvé la nourriture très bof… J’ai pris un sandwich chicken parmesan. Le poulet est pané avec sauce tomate et du fromage fondu dans du pain ramolli de mauvaise qualité. Le goût n’était vraiment pas exceptionnel. Nous avons aussi eu des frites molles… Très moyen!

Popular lunch spot with an array of options. We were lured into Luke’s because they boasted the best Italian beef sandwich in the city. You get a lot for the price and the sandwich was very tasty, albeit covered in juice which made it a little difficult to eat. The pizza was good, but greasy. It was very crowded and waiting in line, paying, and getting your order had a bit of a cattle herding feel. There weren’t very many seats so we had to find a place to eat outside, and given the greasiness of the pizza and the extra juice on the sandwich, it was difficult to do so without making a mess.
Overall, the food and price was very good, but be prepared to deal with a crowd and be wary of messing up your dress clothes should you not be able to get a seat.

Prices were good, food was mediocre at best, the place was filthy, and staff were arguing with each other. Sort of felt like a place that might have been really popular 10 or 20 years ago, but that was forgotten as the city around it grew up.
It was Saturday night and surprisingly most places around there were closed, so we decided to try this place out. The prices were very reasonable, which was a good start. I ended up getting Alfredo pasta. This is about where things began to go downhill though.
I saw one of the workers go into the fridge, take a few handfuls of ore cooked pasta out of a bin, and dump them into a mesh basket to re-​boil for a few minutes. And when I received the pasta, it tasted exactly like that — soft, no texture, and re-​boiled. The sauce wasn’t a highlight either, as that was just scooped out of a refrigerated bin, heated up, and poured over my pasta, before being served on a disposable plastic plate. It was incredibly bland, watery, and disappointing, but at the very least, it was cheap and filling. I guess for the price paid I shouldn’t have expected too much, but I sure hoped for a bit better than that.
I went up to grab some packets of Parmesan cheese in an attempt to improve the taste of my watery pasta, but the staff were engaged in some sort of full blown argument about who was assigned what task and they couldn’t be bothered to attend to me who was standing at the counter. After waving my hands around a bit I was finally helped, as they traded glares over their unfinished argument. I was handed what appeared to be the three last packets of Parmesan cheese that they had — which were themselves an interesting topic. These weren’t regular packets of Parmesan cheese — this was regular, dusty, commercial, Parmesan cheese that had been stapled and taped into hand made wax paper pouches. Extremely sketchy to say the least, but at this point I wasn’t going to go ask them again as the workers clearly had other things on their minds instead of customers.
The floor was another issue, and it was littered with food scraps, as if it had been cleaned every few days at most. The tables, unsurprisingly, were sticky and dirty. This was despite the fact that there were almost no customers there, so cleaning could easily have been done.
The place’s décor, was quite interesting and original — a plus for that.
Overall, a disappointing experience. Poor service, poor cleanliness, food that was mediocre at best — but reasonable prices in the middle of the city.

First visit here and after reading some of the other reviews I had to post my own.
1. Service was fine, went during lunch rush hour and the cashier was a typical Chicago cashier, not the nicest but certainly not rude to me.
2. They provide you with ample napkins (¾ thick ones) which was plenty for my dipped Italian beef.
3. Italian beef was solid, right on par with most other places in the city. Need to get it dipped with hots (for all you out of towners) obviously or you just won’t be getting the right experience. The weird smell, I read one review post, that’s just how Italian beef smells haha
4. Fries were crispy and a little bland but a huge portion size you could easily split with two people.
Worth noting, they have raised prices so an Italian beef with hots and fries will run you about $ 9.50 but if you are in the area and need a quick lunch that’s not a fast food chain, I would highly recommend getting an Italian beef here.

Yaaaaaaawn. Menu is what you would expect with the high downtown prices with a few surprises. i like ordering the same things but when i saw the beef and cheddar on a croissant i had to try it. so here is how my visit went…
NEEEEEEXT!!!
So i approached the register and said i wanted a beef and cheddar on croissant…
$ 7.something NEEEEEEEEXT!!!
yeah i also want an order of fries with that
$ 9.something NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEXT!
and drink please
:rolls her eyes:
$ 11 or $ 12.something NEEEEEEEEEEEEXT
So i paid and waited for my food, which was ready in less than 5 which was great considering how busy it was. Found a seat and opened up my food and my first thought was meh. bread looked dry as well as the meat and i couldnt see any of the cheddar that was allegedly on there. In all the chaos of screaming for next person in like I forgot to ask for hot peppers but of course I wasnt asked if i wanted some. Customer service is terrible. Why on earth would ownership be ok with this and not ask them to make sure you let the customer order everything they want and more is beyond me.
My impression of the food…
looks can be deceiving but not this time. beef dry croissant was over bakes the ends were hard. i did find the cheddar underneath but it was hard to taste for the most part.
The fries are not fresh, obviously frozen but they do give you a good portion size. food was disappointing although my expectations were not high to begin with.
So i am giving it a low rating for everything. i did walk out of there full so portions are not the problem one bit. But if I am near the area and my buddy suggests it for lunch, all I will have to say is NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEXT!!!

When I first started working in downtown Chicago back in the day, there was an Italian joint about a block east of the Sears Tower called Boots (the shape of Italy looks like a boot — get it?) that sold Italian-​style standards such as Italian beef sandwiches and pasta dishes. At this same location today (about a block east of Willis Tower — but I still call it Sears Tower) stands Luke’s Italian Beef, which I finally tried out the other day after passing it by for many many years. I’d say Luke’s is a step up from the old Boots.
When you walk in you literally have to step up to the counter, as for some reason the counter station is a few steps above the dining area. I was ordering takeout around noontime and was expecting a bit of a wait, but I just stepped up to order, and my Italian beef and sausage combo sandwich was ready for me in no time. As I brought my brown bag back to the office, I forgot to mention that I did not want the sandwich «dipped» in the beef juice, so I was wondering why my sandwich seemed so heavy. Once I unwrapped the goods, I was relieved that the sandwich was not dipped and the beef had enough juice in it as it was. I like sweet peppers on my Italian beef, and indeed the combo is hefty, flavorful, and satisfying. Al’s Beef is still my favorite in town, but I may have to somehow work Luke’s into my lunchtime dining rotation.