Cooper’s Hawk Winery & Restaurant — Restaurant in Barrington Township

I never write reviews but I felt like I needed to from my experience yesterday. I have been coming to this Coopers Hawk every so often for YEARS and they messed up yesterday; however, it was a fluke in my opinion. The service and food was not good. I have been there since COVID-19 (April 25th) and IT IS STILL THE SAME QUALITY I EXPECT EVERY DAY EXCEPT MOTHERS DAY. My husband ordered a surprise dinner with wine for me yesterday to be picked up at 5pm. We were not expecting there to be the crowd that there was and we waited for hours, into 7pm for our food. But I noticed 2 key things about this restaurant in that 2 hours. 1) People love it here. I talked to one of the employees and he said there was an issue with the online ordering system and they received way more orders than they were allowing, it wasn't all their fault. All of the people that were there and were waiting ordered from this restaurant because they know how good it is regularly. COVID-19 has changed the way this restaurant, and all restaurants can run (I am an unemployed bartender because of it). My sister ordered food from another restaurant, she had a similar issue there too. And 2) those employees are amazing because they were sprinting from car to car to be sure they could try to keep track of who was waiting for their meals. We get EXCEPTIONAL service every single time we go there. We are always taken care of and if there is an issue a manager is there within seconds. But instead of tables you have hundreds of cars with no idea where anyone is. When a curbside parking spot opened up we pulled in there and a young woman ran around with a clipboard trying to maintain the hundreds of cars, but every so often there would be a different woman running out food, its a surprise she was actually able to find them. There was a man at the door taking down names and numbers to call people when their food was ready. Not the most organized. But for the hundreds of people I only saw 4 or 5 employees running around, one on crutches. The woman with the clipboard had to ask us our names a few times before another woman came to our car with the food. She was very apologetic eventhough I understand that it wasn't her fault. 7:12. Trust me. We were furious at the time, but once we got home and ate our food it reminded us why we waited. The quality was lower than it usually was, they didnt remove the bacon on my salad but, but the wine is...

I am so disappointed with this place I made reservations for my wedding anniversary a month in advance to ensure we would get the day and time we needed fot that evening. 45 minutes before our arrival we recieved a phone call from Coopers Hawk informing us that they had a system failure and that they couldn't guarantee our reservation as the restaurant was backed up when I asked what does that mean? The woman responded we are having difficulty taking orders the servers and cooks were backed up. I explained to her that this was our anniversary dinner but she had no response. I then asked how long will we have to wait? She responded she wasn't sure. I then said an hour? 2 hours? She said she couldn't tell me but said I could come in and wait but couldn't give me a wait time she again asked if I wanted to cancel my reservation at that point I said I guess I have to and said goodbye. Now having no where to go for dinner (remember it's Saturday night the time is now 6:45) I decide to call back and ask about sitting at the bar. The woman who answered said the bar was full. I then asked well are you closing due to the system failure? She responded No. I then asked when did you start to notice the problem? She responded sometime around 5:20, 5:35pm or so. My reservation was set for 7:15pm. Now I understand things happen and maybe the woman on the phone wss stressed out due to all that was going on, but my issue is that the bar is full, The restaurant is full, the system is backed up, you are calling your reservations and asking if we want to cancel but you are still taking walk-ins? If anything you should have stopped taking walk-ins and at least try to accomodate your reservations. You were not very apologetic, and you didn't ask if I'd like to reschedule. I do not usually write reviews but felt compelled to do so this time as I don't feel this location handled the...

First time visiting this location. I normally have a wonderful experience and service at coppers hawk for dinner. My cousins and I came out to enjoy a night away from the kids, with reservations for dinner at 6:30 on a Tuesday night. My cousins and I decided it would be nice to try wine tasting (It would be my first time doing the wine tasting). The wine tasting was not a good experience. Lesson learned, wine tasting is first come first serve…. Except that it's not actually first come first serve. You must be the first at the counter. It doesn’t matter how long you've been waiting(an hour) or that three groups of people (that all arrived after you) have all been helped before you. It does not matter that you were there and waiting long before the group of girlfriends walked in, but because they got to the open space on the counter before you, they get helped.

You may be a paying monthly for wine, but if you don't race to the counter to beat out others you don't get helped.

What makes it worse is when speaking to the manager about this he responds that he's aware, and I’m not the first person to complain. Did not demonstrate understanding for the frustration of waiting an hour, due to lack of organization.

I got added on to a wine membership on this trip. This was after I had already paid for a tasting ($11). The manager was the one who helped me get added to the account. The manager asked if I wanted to get my $11 back but told me that it’s a long process to get my money back and it would take a while. So me being the people pleasing, easy going person I am, said I would just loose my $11. In hind sight, I’m just disappointed in the service we experienced for wine tasting and the managers handling.

Also, parking was a nightmare.

Future cousin outings should be relocated to another Cooper's hawk for better wine tasting...