GIA MIA Geneva — Restaurant in Geneva Township

My wife and I went here tonight with another couple to celebrate our friend's birthday. Our friend called ahead for an informal reservation since they don't take normal reservations. The premise is that if you have called ahead, you are given preference over someone that just walked in. We arrived a half hour prior to the informal time and were told the wait would be 40-50 min. Okay, we understand it's Saturday, and it's restaurant week, so we're fine with the wait. After an hour, a group that came in and waited for maybe 10 min gets seated. My friend defends the place saying it's because the group size matched the available table better. I say that's not right because we've been patiently waiting for an excessive amount of time. More time goes on. We check in periodically to make sure we're not forgotten and to get an estimate of our place on the waiting list. We're told we're next at one point. Then a table opens soon after, and we think it's our turn. Nope. A group we hadn't noticed up to this point gets seated. We're told we'll be next again. They even give us a menu to pre-order a complimentary plate so it's ready immediately upon being seated. At the time, we feel they recognize how long we've waited because they told us we'd get a comped plate for our inconvenience. Also, they did walk around with small slices of complimentary pizza for those who had been waiting a long time. I and the rest of the group did think this was a nice touch. Finally, a table for 4 opens up after an hour and a half, and we're cautiously optimistic. They then proceed to seat another group there. I no longer have any patience and ask how a group that had been there 20 to 30 min can be seated ahead of us. I am near the table that rightfully should be ours, and the new group claims they had been there an hour and a half also, which is 100% false. I saw that group enter and stay in the waiting area just inside the door. We had been there for about an hour before moving closer to the bar to move away from the traffic coming and going. The hostess once again says we're next. I responded that they had said that twice already. I asked what justification they had to skip over us again. She only said sorry and that the other group had been waiting. If I hadn't been with another couple, I possibly might have caused a scene. At that point, the other couple say they want to leave, so we all leave. I am completely baffled at how this happened, not to mention how angry I had become. I've never felt this way at a restaurant before. My and wife and I had driven over an hour to see our friends and to celebrate a birthday, and the evening was a complete failure. The shame of it was the pizza we did have was very good, and we were looking forward to eating there. If there was a mix up, and our group got deleted or crossed off the list, own it and say sorry. If the other group slipped you a $20 or knows the owner, lie to us or make something up. But to say the other group had waited an equal amount of time is a slap in the face and extremely disrespectful. Either there was breakdown in the seating process, or we were discriminated against for some unknown reason. The worst part is that I'll never know why we were treated the way we were.

Addition to the original post from Jan 28th: I received a response within a couple of days asking me to email their management team my contact info to discuss the review. My follow up to their request was on Feb 10th. I received an automated Google response saying the group I tried to contact may not exist. I tried again a week later and got the same thing. I then called and left a message with an employee at GiaMia. I explained why I was calling, and she said she'd provide my contact info to her manager. I never heard back again. This was weeks ago. I'm sure this isn't the norm, but it...

The management of carryout at the Gia Mia chain of restaurants is REALLY bad. The dining in experience is wonderful, but unfortunately if you plan to carry out (like lots of people do with pizza...) get ready for ridiculous wait times and cold food. We've ordered carry out from both the St Charles and Geneva locations and at both places we waited over 20 minutes (last night at Geneva I waited almost an hour) past the given pickup time and received food that was already cold.

Last night (which albeit was Valentine's Day, a busy restaurant day, so keep that in mind) we ordered our food at 5:30 and were given a pickup time of 7:01. 90 minutes is a long time to wait, but we figured it's Valentine's Day so some delays are expected. We got there at 7:00 and there was a line of 5+ people in front of me outside already waiting for their food, plus about 10 people in the lobby inside. (There were also between 5 and 10 cars waiting for curbside pickup.) After waiting about 10 minutes, the hostess came out and took down our names and order numbers and said she'd call out once our orders were ready. At around the 50 minute mark, I called asking about our order. The boy on the phone was a bit flustered and tripping over his words (naturally, I'm sure he felt lots of stress, but the real reason for it would become more apparent later) and, after talking to the kitchen, said that "they were still working on it" and he'd bring it out when they were done. About 30 seconds later the hostess brings out our food - which was ice cold - with a $20 gift card to appease us. At this point it was abundantly clear that our food was sitting around for who knows how long and they tried to put a Band-Aid on it instead of offering to remake it like they should have. Whatever - at this point I was hungry and just wanted to eat.

All that to say, I'll be using my $20 gift card on a nice little dine-in lunch. If they got in some management to make the carry out run smoothly, this restaurant would be 5 stars for me. But since they can't get that right, especially in COVID times where I'm sure the majority of their business is carry out orders, I won't be ordering from them again...

• If you have food allergies, do NOT eat here*

I have a gluten allergy, cross contamination is usually okay. I ordered the Pasta Gia and out of curiosity, looked up the Garganelli noodles as I had never heard of them before. Ordered the dish with gluten free preparation, and was told it would be made with gluten free noodles. At all of the other Gia Mia locations that I have dined at, it has been prepared with gluten-free penne noodles.

When my meal came out, to my surprise, it came with the garganelli noodles that were listed on the menu. I asked the server to take it back to the kitchen and doublecheck with The Chef ensuring that it was gluten-free because I had never been served a noodle of this type that was gluten-free.

She brought back my dish, and told me that it was indeed gluten-free. She said “we have the same noodles in a gluten free version!” And quite blatantly lied to me. I wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t even take the dish back to the kitchen. About a half hour later, I was in agonizing pain and having a very severe allergic reaction.

Today, I finally called the manager because I’m feeling slightly better, as my reactions usually last about 4 days, and with a portion of that size I expect this reaction to last about a week. The manager, named Cameron, confirmed with me that I was served noodles containing gluten, as they only substitute gluten-free penne noodles as I suspected.

He apologized and offered that I could pick up a $50 gift card, when our bill was well over $100. And told me that I have to come to his location when I live closer to several other locations, despite telling him how sick I was and he still expected me to drive the 40 minutes to that restaurant.

They clearly do not care about severe allergies and do not take the time or caution to check and make sure that they are serving allergen safe meals. Spare yourself the stomach ache and possibly even worse— death if you have an allergy more...