Crystal Lake Restaurants - CR's Rotisserie, Village Squire

As of late, I am working twelve hours a day, 6 days a week, so unfortunately, I am eating fewer home cooked meals. As I am up to 40 Round the Clock meals, I am on the lookout for any decent restaurants in Crystal Lake that offer good food at a reasonable price.

CR Rotisserie opened yesterday in the TJ Maxx Plaza on US-14 next to Siri Thai. The place is waiting for a couple weeks to announce its grand opening to work the kinks out. That is a good decision based on my experience last night.

The place is set up similar to a Kenny Roger's Roaster. They have a large rotisserie out front. They do not have the food on a steamtable that is visible to the customer. Their dinners are very reasonable at $5.95 for a half chicken dinner with two sides. The sides include two types of mashed potatoes - garlic or horseradish and a couple of vegetables and other side dishes. They also have sandwiches and salads.

What's my grips? All the food was cold. That does not bother me as I am used to cold food. However, the place was NOT that busy and the food came off the steamtable. The chicken was cold and the sides were luke warm.

The chicken appeared undercooked and besides the spices on the skin, the chicken was tasteless. What really bothered me was the chicken was not properly cleaned. Generally, in any kitchen I worked in, we would remove the folks of fat from the bird and would look for any pinfeathers. I found several pinfeathers and the chicken was LOADED with fat.


Village Squire is an upscale Greek style restaurant with branches in Crystal Lake and McHenry. They have a pretty wide variety of food and the food is generally pretty well prepared. IMO, the prices run to where the average meal is closer to $20 than $15 which puts it out of my price range for the average afterwork dinner. It is a pretty solid place with good service.