El Hefe Chicago

I stumbled upon this place while roaming Chicago on a Saturday night, as a foreign visitor. From the street it looked intriguing. The bar waitresses were scantily clad, which was in plain view from the street. I asked the security staff what sort of bar it was. They said it was a mexican restaurant by day and a night club by night.
"Why don't you come in for a beer? ". So I did. It wasn't busy yet, but the theme seemed to be a "Hooters"style bar.
The first waitress was very friendly, and the music was modern, maybe techno? A second waitress appeared as the bar became busier. She was dressed the same but had a sour disposition. I managed to get her attention to order a beer, but got a bad impression. She was not happy!
I made a bad mistake of taking some video of the unique bar. But it included this "waitress". She immediately called security, who made me delete my video. I said, why don't you put a sign saying "No Video"? It didn't matter, I was kicked out!
What a weird place! Personally, I would get rid of the bad waitress, instead of ejecting the customers! At least tell people of the rules! I suggest everyone avoid this bar!

Not good service left after one drink.bartender never acknowledged my husband at the bar. Till he ask someone else.

Haven't been here in ages but randomly walked in bc my friends liked the music as we were walking past. Basically a club after a certain time, but the music's good.

Good spot for a place downtown. Pricy bottle service but the chicks were good looking and gave very good service

Great place for a day party! Drinks perfect! I just need consistency on the price for drinks. Bartenders charging whatever they want!

We made reservations but it was chaotic getting seated for pur table of 4. We ordered drinks which were good, but all of us were disappointed with the tacos, quesadilla and burrito we ordered.the Carne asada fries were good, so Id recommend it for drinks and apps, not a full dinner.we spent $80 before tip for 2 with 1 appetizer, and 2 entrees. Not horrible, but not great.

Love this place
Friendly staff, great drinks, great prices
Dj was excellent
Security at the door was extremely professional
Especially Tristin.
Thank you for a great experience

Food was fresh & delicious! We had carnitas tacos, elote, quesadillas + chips with salsa & guacamole. Service was prompt & polite. Music volume was at a reasonable level. TVs available to check on sports scores.

I CANNOT WITH THIS PLACE… Everytime I go its a different dress code. And if the line long The security tries to charge $100 to skip the line or $30 some dollas just to get in …

I was very disappointed with the treatment we received. We drove an hour and half away to come here for a friends birthday celebration and we were immediately turned away because we were wearing dressy sandals. We couldn’t understand how we were turned down to enter when there were several people being let in with gym shoes. I then asked the team member what was the reason behind it and he replied with “those are $1,000 gym shoes. ” We did not see a specific dress code on the website if so we would’ve not gotten in the 35 min line.

Be aware of this place. This is a bad environment. The staff does not have your well-being as a priority. There’s assaults shootings all around this establishment. For your safety and the safety of your peoples Do not go there.that company will just cover it up. There was a shooting on Mother’s Day. There’s been assaults in the alley with the staff just standing by and letting it happen.

I stood at the bar for 30 minutes to ask for something, the place wasn't that busy and they never paid attention to me, if you're Mexican they don't peel you, racism shows.

1st and last visit at El Hefe

Hmmmm.where should I start?
Came in on a Saturday evening to celebrate a friends birthday.
We had a party of 19 we occupied a corner section and a high top table.
I give this place 2 stars for the ambience and the food. The place is stunning very urban chic. I love the store front location and the openness.
The food is decent, not spectacular but aestically pleasing I appreciate the chef puts care in simple dishes to make them look interesting.
Ok the cons, service is the worst!
Our party order 4 bottles, and I am use to having preferential treatment when bottles are brought. However that did not happen, matter of fact our waitress acted as though we were not there. We had to hunt her down to take orders, refill water etc.
The bill came out to damn near $2500 with an added gruatity of $300 for a waitress that was non derserving of anything!
The bathrooms had no toilet paper in any of the stalls.
The crowd is pretty diverse of all ages and and races. However after 11pm the crowd will change drastically. You will see a younger crowd like really young out of high school young and the crowd was of mostly of Hispanic descent. It's cool but certainly not my vibe.
Will I go back, absolutely not. Do I recommend this place it's a no as well, only because of the horrible customer service.
To management, train your staff to actually treat your patrons as if they are of value.

We had reservations for this past Saturday 5/13/23 at 8: 15 pm for my cousins birthday we get there at 8: 15 just to be yelled at by two employees telling us we had to leave because they were closing until 9: 00 pm because they had a large party or event that went passed the time earlier and had to clean up, I said well you should send out an email to your reservations or a call to let them know the one guy said well that’s not our problem it’s a third party that handles all the reservations but for now we are closed till 9: 00. We asked if we would still get out table we reserved and he said No there’s nothing I can do and the kitchen will be closed. I might add there was one guy that tried and be helpful and see if could still get in unfortunately they said No. Well to el hefe get a different RESERVATION COMPANY!

If I could rate this restaurant lower I would but unfortunately one star is the lowest I could go, the general manager Jeff Buechel is entirely unqualified to do his job and mostly resembled head of security. Tonight upon arriving at the establishment after paying an entry fee I went to the bar to order drinks the bartender whose name I never got was extremely unpleasant and proceeded to not take our order after finally getting our order taken 25 minutes later when my party tried to pay he called Jeff to relay to him that we were refusing to pay our bill instead of asking us if there was an issue or asking us to pay which we were more than willing to do we were put out which felt nothing short of racist, to conclude the night was terrible i will not return.