Pinstripes — Restaurant in Barrington Township

The ads for Easter brunch buffet were incredibly deceiving. I’m not a fan of businesses that use bait-and-switch marketing tactics. The advertisements listed bottomless mimosas along with $35/person but never stated there would be an additional fee for bottomless mimosas. And that additional fee was almost as much as an additional person eating. I don’t mind having to pay extra for alcoholic drinks, but don’t lure people in under false pretenses. Your marketing team knew exactly what they were doing when they left off “additional fee” next to “bottomless mimosas,” and it’s a very shady thing to do.

The food was decent. Prime rib and ham were very dry. Scrambled eggs were delicious. Herb roasted chicken skin was not rendered at all - flabby chicken skin is inedible; y’all should know how make crispy chicken skin. Cheesecake was delicious. Maybe next time put the chocolate fountain on its own table and the desserts on a separate table. People were dripping chocolate on everything.

You could have included soda, coffee, and tea in the price of $35/person and marketed alcoholic beverages at an additional fee. This would have been more realistic and enticing.

Service was pretty bad… we could not find our server half the time. Took 15-20 minutes to get drinks on a few occasions after ordering. Had to ask several times for water bottles. Left 1 bottle of water for 6 people. And the sodas were super watered down…almost as if there was no syrup. Very disappointing for $3.25.

I would also recommend updating your tables/ambiance in the dining area. It just wasn’t super pleasant and looked old/worn down.

Also pretty expensive to pay $15/hour per person and make 6 people go on one lane with one set of bocce balls. Only 4 people played at a time, so 4 people only played for 30 minutes but paid for a full hour. We should have been given a second lane or another set of balls. Bocce was fun, but crazy overpriced.

I’m also not sure why you ask if there are special dietary needs or if the event is for a special occasion on the reservation and then don’t do anything for it. We were celebrating my dad’s 60th birthday, and I mentioned that in the notes on our reservation. Other restaurants at least acknowledge the birthday and many offer a special dessert. Nothing was stated here and gave false hope by asking on the reservation that something special would be done.

Overall, we won’t come back for Easter or any brunch buffet. We had a decent time, but too many negatives. And I would not recommend this place to anyone either. Sorry. Not...

Stopped in for a glass of wine and a small lunch. Had the flat bread. The flat bread could of had more toppings for the money. Lots of bread, little topping.

After the above review Pinstripes replied with the following message: "Thank you for the feedback! We are going to look into this as soon as possible."

Went back for another try a week after the above report. I am now lowering the rating from 3 stars to 1 star.

Went with a larger group on Sunday January 19 evening dinner. Service was very slow despite the dining room being virtually empty at 5:45. The place became even less busy as the evening progressed so the slow service was not due to a busy time.

It took forever to get drinks. The waitress had a helper who showed up on occasion. There seemed to be many workers walking around so I cannot say it was due to a staff shortage either.

Several members had to ask several times for their original request.

Finally the helper brought out some bread. It went fast and we had to ask for more. It seemed the bread was priceless because after a long wait he brought out a few more servings but totally insufficient for our larger party. The waitress blamed the kitchen but given the lack of customers, the kitchen could not have been that busy. Seemed just plain stingy on serving up the bread.

We ordered and waited for a long time for our food. Finally the food started. We ask a third time for some more bread as we had been waiting for a long time.

Food came out slowly. I was the last served and my dish was barely warm and was not as I had ordered it. The kitchen seems to have a hard time doing more than a few dishes at a time or else the wait staff left it sitting before bringing it out.

I had the spaghetti and meatballs. The portion was quite small for the price. I told the waitress I had ordered meat sauce and not marinara which is what I received. Finally I was brought a dish of meat sauce but after a delay of 5 minutes or more.

We also had to ask for Parmesan cheese which seemed to also take another 5 minutes. Meanwhile the food was getting colder.

When we got the check, my wife paid it without checking since we were getting tired of waiting and since we were with a larger party. Upon getting home, I found we were overcharged for drinks and for my meal.

I had hoped my previous experience at Pinstripes was a one time situation but my last visit showed continued decline and with overcharging on two (not just one error) items, I now believe the restaurant intentionally...

We’ve been coming here since they had their brunch buffets on Sundays as my son loves to have different options and varieties of food to choose from. His favorite are the pizzas and fresh waffles. Anyway, so last Sunday December 10th we got to the restaurant around 1pm just right after church from Willow. We did not have a reservation. We were waiting as there’s this group ahead of us which was taking awhile. The girl who was checking in patrons called another girl as she cannot find this groups reservation on the computer. They kept looking only to find out that the lady booked their reservation to another location but they quickly said they’ll accommodate them. Mind you, five people. So now it’s my turn and I told her it’ll be just me and my five year old but we didn’t have a reservation. She immediately said they’re full for the day and offers the bar instead. I told her we will wait and she immediately said she doesn’t know how long the wait would be seems to me that she doesn’t want to help us anymore because we did not have a reservation. She did not offer any other resolution aside from the bar. Really? With my five year old?? No apology either. She just went straight back to the screen of the computer in front of her and that’s about it. I still said okay thank you and we walked away. My son was upset and of course as a parent, it was not a great feeling. He saw Santa before the exit and he wanted to stay but I was livid already. We got into the car and he was already in tears. We were also both hungry as it was past lunch time. We ended up going to Texas de Brazil instead at Schaumburg. Now, I just really wish they train their staff and not just hire anybody who doesn’t know customer service. At least have the decency to be sympathetic to the customer rather than showing you’re so busy you can’t help them. It just sucks not just for her lack of empathy but also as a the whole staff in this particular location. The group of five technically did not have a reservation because they have their table reserved in a different location but they were accommodated right away but could not accommodate me and my five year old? All in all, it was a horrible experience that I wish nobody get to experience especially holidays is near. It was...