Blue’s Cafe

A great place to bring memories alive, create new ones. My husband has to have a piece of their chocolate pie for breakfast dessert. Great family restaurant. Friendly service, you will want to comeback.

Excellent service, what a hometown restaurant is supposed to be.

Simple comfort food, well prepared. Good breakfast! I recommend the Blues Skillet. My son likes the biscuits and gravy. Lots of Regulars. Family owned by the Chouinard’s since the 1950’s or so. One of the family is usually there.
About a dozen kinds of homemade pie made just about DAILY by actual grandmas who start their day VERY early. Try to leave room for pie!

Blue’s is one of my favorite places on earth. I only eat my meal to get to the pies! Seriously. The menu is basic — burgers, salads, chicken fried steak, meatloaf, yummy diner food which is fun in moderation… but the pie? I could eat the pie everyday. There are about 15 different kinds each day of all types. Cream pies, fruit pies, and my personal fave, custard pie! Best ever!

Sunday… Monday…Happy Days… a ride in a time machine. To a time when life was easier, simpler and friendlier. Oh… and things weren’t so damn expensive. The Blue’s Café is it!
Quaint, clean and great food. I had a the Blue’s breakfast muffin; two eggs on an English muffin, three hearty slices of bacon… nice bacon, it was still drizzling grease and a slice of American cheese. Damn good! Only $ 5.29! I added a slice of tomato and light mayo. Try it this way.
Okay, I had to have a piece of one of their pies that are made every morning in their kitchens starting at 3:30am. I opted for the Hawaiian cream pie, flaky buttery crust, banana and pineapple cream with a wonderful whipped pie topping. Better than any I’d ever had in the Hawaiian Islands and I’ve eaten a lot of pie there.
Glad I experienced this American Classic in the middle of somewhere in Illinois.

I’ve been here many times and it’s consistently good! All diner dishes are present and well executed. Clean and excellent, friendly service.

This is a tradition when we come to visit my Gramps. Come here for the sweet pie and the amazingly friendly staff. the BLT Club is a classic and the onion rings are crispy and delicious!

Excellent service and food. I had the mushroom and swiss burger with onion rings and a lemonade. Very clean. Throwback and nostalgic décor :-) diner like. I must add they only accept cash. No credit or debit cards.

This place is extremely «Marge» only not retro cool… just retro held over from a bygone time. I am suprised they dont serve Papst in bottles for lunch.
This is as diner as diner gets. The pork tenderloin sandwich is crispy good and the blt is well constructed. If you are on a diet dont even come in here. If you are hungry and have five bucks, you will not leave hungry. Be old school and have the pie or cobler. So so so funny that the coffee cups are circa 1950 and are so small (six oz) the waitresses have to constantly run around to fill them. Good thing the portions are not from 1950… er wait… maybe in the grand scheme of things that is a bad thing.

Blues Café is going to be hard for me to rate. Do I rate it in reference to other local establishments or do I rate it according to places I have visited all over the U.S. Well for those few who read my reviews and trust what I say I’m going to tell it like it is. Blues gets a local rating of 3.5 but overall rating of 3.
Blues Café is a clean, friendly establishment, clean restrooms too, with a very friendly and down to earth wait staff. The prices are very reasonable and could make a nice stop for lunch.
Let’s get to the food. The salad bar had fresh lettuce but there is not much else if you’re looking for a salad bar you would have at Golden Corral. They have a fruit salad, potato salad and a few others that are heavy on the craem/​mayo, so this is not going to be your local destination.
I have a BLT and fries for lunch. The fries were crispy and hot. The bacon was crispy and the bread was just regular thin slices and slightly toasted. The only issue was the cheese that was on the BLT. More calories! I removed the cheese, easy enough. It was an ok sandwich, it just needed a few more slices of bacon, but it was good.
The pie here is supposed to be great and maybe that would have pushed it over the edge to 4 stars. Thing is I was full so it would have to wait for another day that most likely won’t come. The waitress did show me the pie when I inquired ahoy it and I mush say the lemon meringue did look good, even if I’m not a meringue person.
So would I recommend the Blues Café? If your in the area and you like the nostalgia of eating at a small diner I say go for it. It’s an ok place. It’s not bad, but there are places that take it to the next level and I have to balance my reviews.

I’ve had this place bookmarked for over 2 years now. One day after work I decided it was time to finally check it out. I may need therapy for waiting so long now that I know what I’ve been missing!
I had lunch because I had worked all day with no food. I ordered a blt club. It was mediocre to average to be honest. You aren’t here for the club sandwiches though! It’s average diner food if you are here for a full meal. I’m just not a huge diner fan.
The pie! Oh my god! I ordered the pecan and the butterscotch banana. Yes all of it was for me. And yes I ate it all! It changed my life! No joke.
I love pie. Always have. I thought I had tried the best (I was so wrong until now). This pie can’t even be put into words. I was even eating it while driving home. I couldn’t stop! I didn’t even care that I had whipped cream all over my car the next day.
Just get here and order the pie. Whatever they have left when you walk in– just order it! All of it! Trust me, you won’t be able to stop!

After a day of cruising route 45 and just enjoying the day. Blue’s came to mind as a place for a piece of fresh homemade pie. we arrived around 7pm hoping they had some left. To our delight they had two pieces of blueberry pie left and half of a custard pie. Well blueberry won this one hands down. This is some good pie and it was stuffed with fresh blueberries oozing out. Each bite was as good as the last. I wanted more but this hit the spot and was a great treat to end the drive. Cool place with many other offerings for food choices and everything looked appetizing. Clean, friendly and just good. Time for more pie…

Excellent food and service and while I didn’t try the pie myself, my friend Alice ranked her slice as one of the best and wished she brought home two slices.
It’s a nice atmosphere, clean and reminiscent of earlier days. Stop by if you’re in the neighborhood, you won’t be disappointed.

This is a pretty good local place, mainly for breakfast. It’s traditional American breakfast. The food is pretty good and the décor is old but very clean.

The food and service here is excellent. Many customers that come here are regulars who have been coming here for 50+ years. The only reason I give it 4 stars is because it always smells like old people. Also, the waitresses are a bunch of old ladies. I have nothing against old people, I just want to see some young hotties every now and again. I’m pretty sure when I was there one time, a guy sitting at the next table shit his pants. He looked like he was over 85, so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. Don’t let the old people stop you from going though. The pie is also DA BOMB!

This place is great! We were in town on a camping trip, looking to avoid the extra work of cooking dinner, and this place was recommended as a good local diner. Easy to park in the lot, very clean everywhere I went (including bathrooms), friendly service. I was a little unimpressed with the salad bar, but then again that’s certainly not why I went. I had the beer-​battered chicken dinner special, while others I was dining with had the club sandwich, tuna melt, cheeseburger, and chicken fingers. The whole dinner was lick-​your-​fingers delicious, and then the best part – the PIE. Even though it was just about the end of their day (close at 7:00 PM on Saturdays when I called and asked) they still had more than half of their daily 11 varieties of pie available still. Our table tried the butterscotch and Hawaiin pies and I really really REALLY wish we lived closer so we could come more often. I don’t know what magic they use for their whipped cream topping on the pies, but it was just perfect. The filling and crust were wonderful too. If we’re ever in the area again I would definitely make the trip to Blue’s!

Picked up a beautiful peach pie after ordering the day before.
Crust was delicious –flaky and then just melts in your mouth… but the peaches were CANNED. Really?
I assume they make it with fresh peaches in season.
Please let customers know at the time of the order that the ingredients will not be fresh. We may want to order a different pie.

We have come here on the way to or from Champaign and this week we were here after visiting the Chicago Bears Training Camp.
Why do we like a restaurant that is quite a trek from our house? The pie, it is home made and spectacular.
I am also a fan of their reasonably priced breakfasts and the 1950’s comfort food that my Mom used to make. Beef on white bread with mashed potatoes and gravy reminds me of my childhood even though I know it is not the healthiest.
The servers are all quite friendly and patient, the food is good and inexpensive and I always have dessert. Pie that is better than my Mom used to make.
Bring cash or miss out.

Great, old fashioned, homestyle food, and the best pie in the Midwest. Most entrees are under $ 8, which includes the salad bar or soup. Pie is $ 2.59 per slice. Whole pies are roughly $ 11, but you must order them at least 24 hours in advance.
My group had fried chicken, bbq meatballs, and pork cutlet with milk gravy. We were all very happy with our choices. The fried chicken is extra crispy and the chicken is very fresh. We also had the butterscotch pie, lemon meringue, and peach pie. Their pie crust is absolutely amazing. It flakes in such a way that it had to have been made with real lard. The peach pie was made with fresh peaches, and perfectly sweetened. The butterscotch was not too heavy, and the lemon meringue melted in my mouth.
The décor is worn, but welcoming, and the staff is very friendly. Blue’s Café is the diner equivalent of Cheers… everyone knew everyone’s name (except us yuppies from the Big City.) We drove 75 miles to try Blue’s Café & it was worth it! Coming from Chicago, we got off 55 in Braidwood & continued to IL 113, which is a beautiful, scenic highway along the Kankakee River. It was very nice. We’ll be back soon!

We drove south to photograph the Barn Quilts and decided to try this café because it promised good pie. They were wrong, they have SUPERB pie like you WISH your Mother had made. We had our pie with breakfast, that’s how inviting it looked. Breakfast was steak and eggs with biscuits that make you weep with joy. Did I mention they have great pie? This café has been open since 1954 and is the real deal — truly friendly waitresses who know their customers. Ours got us information on the barn quilts and warned us the pies might be gone if we stopped back after our photographic quest. I had peach pie that would make Georgia jealous and my husband had Hawaiian pie that he closed his eyes to savor. For old fashioned home cooking, super service and good prices visit Blue’s Café. Oh, and get some pie!
We went back a second time and they were out of pie. Bummer. Get there early.