Gino's East — Restaurant in Lake Geneva

Always love a good pizza, this was not in no such of a way and service was terrible. So we arrived about 4pm on Thursday and waited about 10 minutes by the door to be seated until we finally went to seak out someone to be seated. Once seated was informed right away that any pizza is a 45 minute wait even though there was only one other table of two peple there. Ok, not a problem, but it was more like 90 minutes before it hit the table and was cold. I mean cold, I could literally hold the deep dish metal pan with my bare hands even though it was brought out with a hot pan holder to carry it. When finally flaging down our waitress who was pretty much nonexistent the whole time we were there, and would never come back to check on us for drinks or anything, said she could throw it back in the oven to heat back up.......heat it back up, whaaaat!!!!! Now here it has been 90 minutes waiting on a 45 minute pizza and your going to throw it back in the oven to heat it back up????

Once the pizza was brought back it was less than desirable. It was bland with no taste and now burt on the bottom from reheating. As for toppings, that was little to nonexistent also. We ordered sausage, pepperoni, onion and mushrooms. I've seen more toppings on a frozen pizza. This is sopose to be a Chicago deep dish pizza, this pizza was far from it, not even close.

Also what pizza place doesn't have garlic bread? They have bread sticks like Olive Garden. Got an order of them and just like the pizza were cold and had no taste with a dinky side of sauce. This was a horrible experience, to say the least. Now, add in the high cost and this is one place I will never visit again. This place could also use a good cleaning. It has a great view of the lake, but not through the dirty windows, not just dirty, they have a greasy film on them from the cooking in the kitchen.

If you want a great pizza you need to visit some of these other pizza places.

Napoli's, Burlington (best Chicago stuff pizza) Durango's, Racine and Sturtevant (huge menu, something for everyone) Infoseno's Racine (best traditional Virgin crust pizza) Wells Brother's in Racine (great thin crust) Ruffalo's, Kenosha (fast and fantastic food dishes) Mama Mia's in West Alice (best garlic bread anywhere......hands down) De'marini in South Milwaukee (loaded with toppings) Papa Luigi's, Cudahy (great Italian food too)

We have some of the best pizza places here in the Midwest and Geno's East is not...

Enjoyed our visit to Gino’s east in lake Geneva, WI. Service was outstanding, pizza was out of this world but there were some minor issues.

We had visitors in from out of town who needed their deep dish fix. Have been to this location many times over the years as well as other locations in chicago. Arrived at 6:30 pm on a Tuesday night in mid June. It was getting busy but we were seated immediately at a table at the window with a nice view of the lake. By 7 pm there were folks waiting for tables.

Brittany seated us and was also our server. She mentioned she was also the bartender and a manager. She was great- constantly on the move, checking in with us and her other tables, running food and drinks . She was also patient, knowledgeable, funny and friendly.

Deep dish takes about 40 minutes to bake so we got our food order in with our drinks. Drinks arrived quickly. Next up was our chopped salad which was unfortunately lame- tomato’s were very over ripe (at least 2 were spoiling), the cubes of chicken were very dry and had a weird texture. A big disappointment.

The pizza is the star of the show and it did NOT disappoint. Incredible crust, saucey, well seasoned, generous toppings, a sea of molten cheese. Unique and wonderful.

One minor hassle- we ordered anchovies on half but unfortunately the kitchen didn’t designate which half as Brittany instructed. She carefully probed around and established the anchovy perimeter for us at the table.

The dining room is clean but overall there are some maintenance and housekeeping things that customers can see in back of house, service areas and even outside which deserve some attention.

Near the end of the meal Brittany checked in and asked how things were. Pizza was great but salad needed improvement. She was interested in the specifics and despite me saying that we did not want an adjustment on the bill, she removed the charge.

There are some attention to detail issues in kitchen and the building. All that said , the pizza is great, Brittany was a very good server and we will...

Called to see if they could take a reservation of 21 people and they accommodated but told us we would need to be split up and at the bar area… no problem.

Arrived for our 6:30 reservation and was seated instantly. Ordered our food and drinks and the waitress seemed overwhelmed by the experience yet positive.

Drinks took until 7:00 to even reach the table. When we asked the bartender if she had our drink order and why the wait was so long, she shortly replied - “I am taking care of the bar customers first”.

What? Given she was flying solo behind the bar, and we were understanding of that, her snarky reply and logic was less that appealing as a customer. So you are telling me you are just going to keep pushing our drink order back until you have no bar customers? It just doesn’t make sense.

We were then served our Caesar salads with spoons and wine in plastic glasses with straws. Ummm…. What? Oh yeah, and this was about 7:15.

Dinner entrees didn’t arrive to the tables until 8:15. The restaurant was EMPTY by this point. Maybe 3-4 other tables. We were told food took so long because there were only 3 cooks in the kitchen. My problem arises when people who came after us were served pizzas before us - again WHAT?

Two unhelpful hostesses stood by their podium all night while only one bartender and 3 cooks. Why do you need 2 hostesses? Couldn’t one of them help where needed and get food out faster?

Once we got our order, food was fine. Kids were finally fed, the adults joked about this terrible experience, and we will NEVER be back.

Our waitress was the ONLY bright spot in the night. You could tell she was defeated, but tried to do her best throughout the way. Which is why you got 2 stars for service. If it wasn’t for her, I would give none.

Do not come here if you are looking for a positive experience. Seems like reviews mirror mine currently. Maybe they are just severely understaffed or maybe they changed owners or have new terrible management. Either way, unless you start seeing more positive reviews - don’t waste your...