Buona — Restaurant in Lake Township

All I have to say is if you need to eat gluten-free like me, don't trust this place. They're backwards from other places because they do understand about cross-contamination, so they say, but they do not know which of their ingredients are or are not gluten-free. They told me all the salads were gluten-free, and I asked "even the ones with fried chicken"? And she said, "oh no, not those ones. " Ok, glad I asked. So I asked " is the spinach strawberry salad gluten free"? She replied "yes". I asked "are you positive, can you ask the manager"? So she asked one of the managers and he said yes. So, I brought all the food back to my family and we say down to eat. Then, I bit one of the walnuts and realized it's a candy walnut. In my experience, candied walnuts are never gluten-free. I'm pregnant right now and don't want to take any chances so I called and asked a third time if the salad was gluten-free. Except this time I asked specifically about the walnuts. He said "no, they are not gluten-free. " I was like what the hell! !? Are you serious? So happy I asked the same question a third time. It was laziness. All the employees should be trained to look up ingredients before responded to customers. Especially when the customer tells you straight up that it is a very serious allergy. Bottom line is they don't yet understand how serious these allergies are and I think they assume certain ingredients are gluten-free , maybe things like mustard, mayo, relish. ...etc. EVERY ingredient needs to be researched before you go telling people it's gluten-free, but thx anyway for trying. The manager offered me my money back but that's not what was important to me. I was just angry, but so relieved that I avoided getting real sick by eating the salad.

My friends really like the food though. It's all good if you don't have celiac. What a tease to think there was a place I could safly eat gluten-free in the neighborhood, only to have that come crushing down. Every time I get glutened, it deteriorates my gut and brings me closer to death. Not an issue to be...

The only reason they didn't receive 5 stars is because, when I placed my very 1st order from them ever, I did it online and it was about an hour before they were closing. Since I had never ordered from them before I was unaware that the dining area was already closed and the drive thru was only open. I had walked to the restaurant to pick up my food with my dog and after having to walk up to the drive thru window, I explained that this was my 1st time ordering from them. Therefore, I was unaware of their operating hours and was there to pick up my online order. The young man repeated my order back to me exactly, how I ordered it, I said yep that's it. So I took my sealed bag from him,, felt no need to open it and check it until I got home! What a big mistake that was! The only thing they got right was the cheese fries. The cheeseburger had no cheese, one squirt of mayo, a very desperate looking piece of lettuce, and I believe one pickle but it did have the avocado I added. The beef sandwich that I ordered purposely dry, (due to the walk back home) but with 2 cups of Au Jus on the side, did have the hot peppers and mozzarella I added, but there was not even one cup of Au Jus! I was very pleasantly surprised with the app, because I was able to order the Au jus on the side and even, more than one, so I made sure to order 2 cups. Reason being I absolutely hate when my bread is so soggy that it falls apart and becomes slimy. So when I realized that there was not even one Au Jus, I'm sorry but I don't know anyone who wants to eat a dry beef sandwich with hot peppers! I couldn't even eat it. With that being said I made it a point to leave a very descriptive review and was not afraid to express my disgust! They did redeem them selves though, by the manager contacting me with in 2 days and gave me a full credit at the restaurant. So I decided to give them another shot and they did not disappoint...

I like Buona’s food, but the Beverly location is way not worth the hassle. Around the beginning of January, I placed and paid for a carryout order online (so there wasn’t even a chance someone taking an order wouldn’t hear something). When I got it home, one item was not even close to the right thing, and another was missing completely. I called and they said to come back the next day and they could give a refund for those two things. Ok, cool.

I went back the next day and, despite having given the people my contact information the first time, they had no idea what I was talking about and said I should fill out their online customer service form. It’s a little annoying to have gone there just to be told to fill something out online, but it’s not a huge deal. The online customer service people sent me a credit that was good for a month. This was all a bit of a process, but everything had played out in a reasonable way.

The dealbreaker came when I tried to use the credit. I followed the directions on the customer service site and pressed the Redeem button, but when I got to the store, two different employees told me they couldn’t use the credit because it had already been redeemed. This despite that the online credit said, “ Show this confirmation screen to a staff member, so they can verify your timestamp and process your reward.” Well apparently they cannot.

My only recommendation regarding Buona in Beverly is that Joey’s Red Hots is only a few streets over, and Portillo’s isn’t far...