Avanti's Italian Restaurant - East Peoria — Restaurant in East Peoria

Our family has had several gatherings here for special birthdays and holiday family outings of over 20 guests. We plan to have our Christmas party with the family here this year. Friendly, courteous staff, always attentive and this is why we come back, again and again. We have two family members in wheelchairs, and the Avantis restaurant in East Peoria is wheelchair accessible, and chair fits nicely under table at end. Nice menu also with variety of items. Our favorite appetizers are the mozzarella sticks and the mushrooms. Their garden salads are nice and crisp. Our favorite entries are the Homemade Lasagna, Tortellini with meat sauce, and the Baked Cod with Italian vegetables. If all you want is a cold sandwich, you can't beat Avanti's Famous Gondola (lean ham/salami/American cheese/and crisp lettuce). Our favorite hot sandwich is the toasted ham & cheese, or my favorite the toasted turkey & Swiss cheese. My favorite appetizer is their fried mushrooms with ranch dressing. So Yummy! 🍄 Lots of menu choices, and one of our favorite Italian restaurant's to eat at with our family. 🍝🍷🍕🍞 Love their bread...always fresh and tasty. I've had over 30 years experience with this fine restaurant and I am never dissatisfied with the food or service.😀 We had our family Christmas party on December 15, 2018, and this year we went with Avanti's buffet. Oh my stars it was fantastic!!!! I think we have a winner on where to have future family Christmas gatherings..... everything was perfect, and our little elf waitress did a wonderful job. The food consisted of spaghetti with meat or Alfredo sauce, the best lasagna I have ever tasted, salad, italian vegetables, gondola sandwiches, and their famous bread on the tables. We all had a good time, and with our very large family it was nice not to have to do...

My daughter and I went in yesterday evening for dinner. The food was good but the service was not. We were seated immediately then waited about 10 min for our server dispite being the only people in the dinning room. We placed our order and after only about 5 min of recieving our food our server was asking us if we needed togo boxes. We were obviously still eating. I said no we arent done yet. About 10 min later she brought us togo boxes anyway. Then 5 min later the check. I informed her that we were planning on getting dessert. She sounded annoyed and at that point i was irritated and had lost my appetite. I ordered my daughter a piece of chocolate cake togo and we boxed up the rest of our food (over half). She brought out the cake and it was in a small togo box tipped sideways in a bag so the icing was everywhere. My daughter asked for a bag for all our boxes and we could tell she was irritated and she told her she would have to wait a minute as she was also dropping food off to another table that was seated next to us. While sitting that food on their table she dropped a plate of food on the table (it didnt spill) and only said she was glad it didnt shatter no apology or anything. She came back with our bag and told us to take our check to the front to pay. Our whole 30ish min dinner there (because thats all the time our server gave us) was aweful. We felt rushed from the moment she took our order. We will not...

My mom and I ate here Saturday evening. Our waitress was a little unprofessional, but she was nice. I believe her name was Tonya. She took our order and brought our drinks out and then our food. Then we never saw her again. We had to flag down another server to get refills. She only showed up at the end to give us the bill. We did see she had a larger table in the back, but she had many opportunities to check on us. At one point she walked past us, and we couldn’t get her attention. We also tried to get the hosts attention, and she ignored us.

When we went up to pay the bill, the younger blonde hostess asked us how everything was. We were honest and told her it was disappointing that our server never checked on us. She was very flippant and rude. She said, “yeah well she had a bigger party and that can be difficult.” I was a server and bartender for many years. I worked in a much bigger and busier restaurant. Sure, you get stuck in the weeds, but that’s no excuse to never check on your table. They weren’t that busy and it’s a pretty small restaurant.

It was very rude of the hostess to ask us how everything was, and then rudely have an excuse to try and invalidate our experience. Why even ask? This was a disappointing experience, and we’ve always loved Avanti’s. We decided we won’t come...