Patel’s Café

Enjoyed a sugar cane juice and pani puri– india street style. Testy and clean place.

Mango lassi on a hot day? Yes, please! Get the samosas too! They’re crispy, spicy, and wonderful!

It’s time for an update five years later! It’s funny that to me this place still remains a «recent addition» to devon, well compared to some other places I’ve visited for way longer! I like that this place has just a chaat menu because when I’m on devon, that’s my focus. Other Indian food I can find even downtown. Their drinks café is good too — juices, etc. and I’ve picked up sweets as gifts here too.

This is my favorite Indian desserts place. They have a wonderful selection of Indian sweets, smooties and salty snacks. They also have really good pani puri (spelling?). I love to come here in the summer because they open the doors and it has just a welcoming atmosphere. Definitely check out, especially if you are not familiar with Indian desserts because they are all laid out on display so you can view and choose based on the look :)
YUMMM!

Stomach ache free with any dish compliments of the chef.
The quality of this place has gone down since i last visited. They used to be a clean and good street food joint. Now they are just careless. They gave me my sugarcane juice just at room temperature. Its supposed to be a chilled juice. At Least put some ice in it. My friend was looking at them making the dishes and he saw that they picked up a plastic container which was already dirty took it inside and and then brought some stuff in it. Used the same container without washing it to make a dish. Since we were the only table sitting there, the container probably was sitting dirty. They didn’t bother to clean it wash it before making the chaat. Well not going back here. Probably wait for a year or too until i get my stomach ache cured.

very nice & fresh sugar cane juice. Awesome fruit juices. Superb pan. One has to definitely visit it for these. Its opposite to multilevel parking, so a nice place to start your shopping with.

Folks — very specific review on the masala tea and papri chat we ordered. Masala tea was stale and had to be trashed. Papri chat was full of red spices and looked like made by inexperienced staff. It all looks like a home run affair with inconsistent service.

I used to really like this place. But since I’ve been recently the quality has plummeted. There were flys all over the place. The fruit and vegetables did not look fresh whatsoever. I’m very disappointed in the upkeep or shall I say the lack of upkeep here. I don’t think that I’ll returning anytime soon.

No visit to Chicago is complete without a stop at Patel’s Café. My visits to this place are primarily for the fresh fruit juices, and I experiment with different combinations. My favorite is a blend of sugar cane juice and pomegranate juice. The overpowering sweetness of cane juice and the sharp tartness of the pomegranate juice have the effect of balancing and complimenting each other to make a very refreshing beverage. Sometimes, I throw orange, apple, watermelon or pineapple juice in the mix. All the juices are squeezed fresh before our watchful eyes.
I’ve also tried some of their sweet and savory snacks, which are good, but then there’s King Sweets nearby, so I usually just focus on the fruit juices at Patel’s and save my appetite for the snacks at King Sweets (or snack at King Sweets first and then visit Patel’s for fruit juice).
The sweetened almond milk at Patel’s Café is very good too. They also offer some rather exotic flavors of ice cream, such as cashew-​raisin, sapodilla (called chikoo in many parts of Asia) and custard apple (close cousin to Cherimoya, the most delicious fruit known to mankind, as proclaimed by Mark Twain). All three flavors are absolutely delightful.

Just got out of Patel café. First let me tell you that we went in there to get pani pori since they have been good in past. So as usual Patel café is under staffed so wait and wait and wait. Finally the girl decided to help us and she came straight after she touched the garbage can inside out. Gave us plates with those hands. It alright we didn’t say anything, we were still excited about the pani pori. Now I eat my first pani pori and it’s freezing cold. I pointed it out she ignored it. That’s fine. The second pani pori had a cockroach in it. The most terrible thing that ever happen to me at a food place. I threw up. They were nice enough to give my money back. Never going back!

We order sweets here for a big party we were having.
It was great and everyone was asking where we got it from. The customer service was fantastic. Uday one of the managers went out of his way to make sure that our order was taken care of properly and delivered on time!
They also have fresh juices among other things!

Friendly staff and the food was good, it was basically in a part of Chicago that might as well be called little India

Decent variety of north indian snack food but service stinks. Its trying to be cool and hip but is neither. Just go across the street for genuine Indian snacks at S… s

A new hippie-​esque café in the heart of little India of Chicago on Devon Street. What a great idea. Definately the fruit juices are worth it, especially on a hot day. Also tried a mango lassi, which was good but was somewhat thick making it a substantial meal. Will have to try some of the pastries next time.

This was my first exposure to various Indian foods, through the guidance of my friends, I tried the samosas and pani puri!
Price: Everything is affordable. 5 pani puris for $ 2.
Décor: the entire café is very clean and inviting. It has a good location as well at the corner of a street.
Service: Food was prepared for all of us in a timely manner and they even gave us sauce bottle from the back so that we could have easy access for my group of friends.
All in all, a very relaxing spot to hang out and talk to friends while snacking. I’d definitely return to try a drink (and more pani puris!)

I really love the fresh, clean look of the café.
Their mango Lassi was delicious and I had some sweets which I am not even going to try to name. But they were awesomely delicious.
I also saw that they had some really cool carved metal looking sweets boxes. They were so rad. I would buy them as gifts.

It was a busy Saturday evening and I passed by this café a couple of times. I decided to finally stop by for some spicy samosas and pani puri. I was really excited to finally try the food as I loved the décor very much.
The staff didn’t seems very interested in catering to us which is very common in most of the Indian Restaurants on Devon. So they called out our number and we lined up to get the food. The samosa’s were reheated in a microwave (A big no-​no for Gordon Ramsay’s fan. lollz) which made the pastry on the outside soft and the filling inside cold. I got over that soon, next the panipuri was a joke. the chutney was not made out of Dates instead it was tamarind (much less expensive) definitely compromised the taste. I and my friends were very disappointed.
To make up for that we went to a Vegetarian restaurant just across the street and had pani puri and samosas. It was completely opposite experience from the one at Patel’s.
I think they need to step up as there is so much competition around on Devon. I will never go to Patel’s Café.

After dinner down the street…
We were walking around and checked this place out. The place is cool with some tables and nice floor. The service is nice and helpful. The food just Ok. Nothing there resembled what I had had from Indian friends.
Different menu, We had a mango lassi and another drink that when I asked them what exactly it was they said «it is like a fruit» so there I had a mango lassi that was OK and a «it is like a fruit» drink that was a little bland for me.
PC cool place OK food

Ambiance: very nice for an Indian café
Cleanliness: good
Service: fairly good, neither exceptional nor bad
Food: o-​k
So I was realllyyy craving chaat, so thought why not try a new place I hadn’t been to before, and that is how we made our way into Patel’s Café. I ordered the chaat papri, it was fairly decent, it was light on spice (which is what I asked for) however it lacked the chatpata masala taste that chaat papri usually has.
My husband ordered the mango milk shake, it was very thick and sweet. And trust me when I say he loves sweet drinks. It was okay, again neither bad nor amazingly good.
I’m always open to trying new foods and restaurants, well atleast until I find my ABSOLUTE FAV restaurant for something specific.
I’m open to giving Patel’s another shot, will probably order something different though. My husband though isn’t too big on second chances when it comes to food, lol.

After eating at Sabri Nehari last night, I had a bit of meat overload. So I wanted some dessert and this place hit the spot. I ordered malai kulfi and pistachio ice cream. The pista flavor was ok, but the malai kulfi flavor was amazingg! very rich and creamy.
In addition to an ice cream bar with about ten flavors, they have a wide variety of different juices, which they make directly in front of you, jamba juice style. They also have a dessert case and paan stand. It’s like a starbucks vibe except with dimmed lights. I enjoyed my ice cream, and then had to use the restroom to wash off my sticky fingers. I have to say they have the cleanest restroom i have seen yet on devon! that alone deserves a star.
i almost think this place doesn’t fit in with the other shops on the street, because it’s a little too nice… people usually go to devon craving an «authentic» experience which in their minds means a little grimy with a mustached uncle up front, not a young guy in a hoody. I think it would be more appreciated if it was near a university campus or a nicer area. Also i think they should have more indian style snacks. but i definitely do recommend it!

For my birthday, my hottest friend took me out for lunch.
«You decide — any place you want!». And of course, I wanted to have Indian food on Devon.
After an amazing lunch, we walked up the street. We both wanted a little dessert after our filling lunch. I’ve been driving past the bright orange façade of Patel’s Café for a few weeks now. I’ve been dying to try it out. So we went in for an post lunch sweet.
I was NOT disappointed. The space has HUGE open windows, that open out onto the streets. It was fun stepping in to the shop through the window.
You step into a simple, and tasteful space. Hardwood floors, and bistro tables. The entire left side is taken up by a gigantic juice bar, ice cream cooler, and a HUGE bakery case. There are more indian desserts here than I could shake a stick at. And trust me, I’ve shook my stick plenty of times.
I decided on Lychee ice cream. It was wonderful. Among the flavors to choose from were Mango, Rose, and several others.
I could have also chosen a tasty falooda (made by mixing rose syrup with vermicelli and tapioca seeds along with either milk or water) or a kulfi (a solid, dense frozen dessert similar to traditional custard based ice-​cream).
My handsome friend chose nariyal pani (coconut water!) that is served from a fresh green coconut… with the top chopped off right in front of you! They put in a straw… and there you go! This was prepared at the juice bar. There were many other options to choose from, but on such a hot day — this seemed perfect.
He also scored some jalebi to go! (a deep fried dough that sort of looks like an orange pretzel, but it is soaked in sweet syrup… yum!) This place carries everything sweet!
I may just sneak back tomorrow to try a gola — flavored ice slush. The flavors offered will transport you from this hot city, into the streets of Mumbai. In Mumbai you can buy them in the streets, from gola walas! hot.
I’d much rather be sweating there than here anyway. Especially on my birthday!
Check it out. Its a great new addition to the Devon food scene. I for one, can’t wait to return!