Bianchi's Hilltop Restaurant — Restaurant in Des Moines

The environment of the restaurant lets you know right away that they have been around for a long time. The decor is a little dated, the booths are well-loved, and it's a little dim inside. I was a little excited because I love old, family-run establishments.

Our waitress was really busy, so another waitress offered to take our orders and get our drinks for her. I ordered an ice tea, we ordered onion rings, my husband got a pizza, and I got a steak with a side of spaghetti. The waitress took our order and went on her way.

About 10 minutes later, our actual waitress came by our table and apologized. She said that the waitress who had offered to help her out and originally took our order never put it in to the kitchen, and then left for the night. She was obviously frustrated (for good reason) and retook our order. I do want to note that despite some of the service issues I mentioned above and will mention below, our actual waitress did a good job the rest of the night

My dinner came with a salad and bread, which came out a little after our order of onion rings came out.

Onion Rings - These were good onion rings. The onions don't slide out of the breading, and they were nice and crisp.

Salad and Bread - My salad greens tasted really old and dusty, so needless to say I did not eat much of my salad. The bread was okay, but was nothing special at all and is barely worth even mentioning.

A little while later, my steak and spaghetti came out, as did my husband's pizza. I got a refill of my iced tea, to which I noticed that they must use a granulated instant iced tea. One of my teas was a really pale, golden color while my next glass was almost a dark brown. There's necessarily nothing wrong with using instant tea, but staff should be instructed on using a consistent amount of it.

Steak - I ordered it medium, and it came out REALLY rare. I want to mention that I never complain about the food I am served, and have never sent anything back to a kitchen before. But this steak was so rare that I couldn't eat it, and I ended up sending it back to be cooked a little more. When it came out the second time, it was much better. However, there was almost no flavor to the meat, and it definitely wasn't worth the hassle in the end.

Spaghetti - I wanted to order pasta, since it seemed to be what they sell a lot of. It was HORRIBLE. The pasta was really chewy and tough, and the marinara was straight up tomato water. I couldn't even tell that there was sauce on it because it was just puddle in the bottom of my bowl. I only ate one bite before instantly moving it to the side.

Pizza - The pizza was really good to start out with. The bottom was crispy, and it was cheesy and greasy. The flavors of the meats on the pizza were really good. By the end of the meal though, that grease had made it's way down to the crust and it got pretty soggy. So, eat it fast!

Waitstaff DRAMA (I mean, service) - So, to the entertainment of being seated near the waitstaff station. Oh my goodness you guys. It was DRAMA central. I wonder if they had new staff working, because they were making errors all over the place. Two different waitstaff kept putting the wrong table numbers on orders, so everyone around us (including us) kept getting food delivered to their tables that didn't match what they ordered. There was a lot of bickering at the station because of the messed up orders and tickets. Then, the receipt machine started to beep because it was running out of paper, and no one knew how to fix it. At one point, there were 5 different waitstaff crowded around the thing trying to figure it out. That's fine, but several of them were just standing there either yelling at each other or just laughing at the people who couldn't fix it.

Overall, I did not have a very good time here. The service was not very good and the food was not worth what we paid for it. If you do stop by, just order onion rings and a pizza, and...

We had 32 people go to the Hilltop tonight for my sisters birthday just like we have for many years. My sister called last week to make the reservation and was told by the owner David that he would have to charge of $150 fee for the party room. When my sister told him we will go to to another place then he replied with I will waive the fee for you this one time. I don’t have to loose the business. So we decided to keep the party there instead of going to another restaurant. She talked to him a couple more times before going to the restaurant tonight at 6pm to update the number of people joining. So fast forward to this evening. The restaurant was never once business with more then 6-8 tables at once. Another large party was seated outside the room in the dining room. Which one of our servers we have a was also waiting on. We had 5 tables for a total of 32 people. The servers Nikki and Michelle were wonderful and did all they could to keep up with 32 people. The food took forever and we were okay with that seeming there was 32 of us. Again the restaurant wasn’t busy at all. There was a total of three servers on tonight two of which were on our party as well as other tables. We all ordered drinks, appetizers and our food. We all ate. Then it came time for the checks to be handed out. The owner waited for the restaurant to be empty before giving us our checks because he knew that what he had just done this us was going to cause an uproar. The checks are handed out and there is a ROOM RENTAL FEE OF $10 per check on there. The owner didn’t have have to guts to come tell us all that after saying he would waive the fee he still put a fee on our checks. On top of that they charged $2.95 service fee and the 18% gratuity was added as well which we all knew would be. One my bill alone there was an extra $28 added to my bill. And it was that way for pretty much everyone. The dishonest owner charged us $120 for the room anyways. When he was confronted to ask what the charge was for he said he didn’t say he would waive the fee. Then started backtracking on what he was saying. He also told us he had to charge us because he had to bring on extra staff for our group which meant he would have only had one server one the floor. We explained the fee was to be waived and that is when he proceeded to tell us to just pay our bills and get our of his restaurant and never come back and he was going to call the police to have us removed. Last April for my own birthday I called asked for the party room as I was having a party of 40 people joining us for a birthday dinner. I spoke with this same owner David and he never once mentioned a fee. Nor were we charged a fee. We were in the same room as we were tonight and we only had one server. We have ate there for 15+ years and had multiple large parties at the Hilltop and NEVER have been charged for the party room. After tonight events with the Hilltop Restaurant has lost the business from all 32 of us. I will never step foot in the...

To preface this review, I would like to note that there was nothing wrong with the quality of the food or the service from the waitstaff. Our appetizers and meals arrived promptly, and drink refills were offered at regular intervals. The waitstaff was very polite.

My issue lies entirely with the poor communication and organization skills of the management -- or whomever is in charge of booking reservations.

Do not book the party room at Bianchi's Hilltop. Do not have your birthday/engagement/anniversary/etc. here. Your reservation might not be honored.

We called to book the party room for an anniversary get-together on Saturday, May 8th. We were informed that it was available at 4:30pm and that another party had been booked at 7pm, so we would have to be out by 6:30pm. We were fine with this. We booked the room, which included the restaurant taking down a phone number to reach us in case of any issues.

We arrived on Saturday the 8th at 4:30pm and were informed that the party room was unavailable, as it had been booked for another party at 7pm. We reiterated that we were fine with this and per our phone call, we were told we had the room until 6:30pm. The woman seating us claimed to have only found our reservation earlier that day. She again denied us the party room and instead showed us to two tables and a booth in the main dining area, because the other party had "paid a booking fee", and they were supposedly coming in early to decorate.

At no point from 4:30pm to 6pm (when we left) did anyone step foot in that room, to decorate or otherwise.

Had we been been aware of a booking fee, we would have gladly paid it, but at no point during our phone call did it come up. Had we been informed at any point prior to us showing up that the party room was actually unavailable, we would have gladly made other arrangements. Instead our reservation was not honored, our party did not get to enjoy actually dining together, and now Hilltop has quite likely lost the business of multiple generations of an entire family that has been frequenting this restaurant for the last few decades.

I will not be back any time...