Lino's Ristorante and Pizza — Restaurant in Libertyville

I ordered Chicken Parmigiana from Linos for take-out last night. When I got home the 12 miles to Round Lake on Wilson, I opened up the container & found the sauce was creamy, thick & bright orange. I am half Italian. My mother is 100% Italian, her parents came over on the boat. I have been eating Italian food my whole life, & I'm 60 years old. Out of the many many times, many restaurants & many relatives' homes where I have eaten marinara sauce, I have NEVER had it made as a creamy thick orange sauce. It has ALWAYS had a red marinara sauce that is FAIRLY THIN & WITHOUT ANY CREAM. And I have NEVER had Chicken Parmigiana made with a creamy tomato sauce - always with traditional non-creamy marinara sauce. Lino's Menu says Chicken Parmigiana is made with marinara sauce. Lino's menu also describes Marinara Sauce made with fresh Tomatoes & Herbs- NO MENTION OF CREAM. The sauce in their menu that mentions cream is added is VODKA SAUCE. I looked closely at the menu a long time before calling in my order. If I'd known the Chicken Parmigiana had cream sauce, I would not have ordered it. I would have ordered Chicken Marsala. Now perhaps some people don't mind Vodka sauce in their Chicken Parmigiana. I had been out much of the day, was hungry & was too tired to drive the 12 miles back. So I tried to eat it. I didn't like it, but I was hungry. So I ate half of it. Last night I didn't want to deal with calling Linos about it, even though I was very disappointed. But today the longer I thought about it, I was becoming more upset. I am on disability, so this was supposed to be a real treat. I had waited months to go back to Lino's last night. So I called Lino's today. A young woman answered. I explained my issue. I said I was too tired to drive back from Round Lake last night, but today I would be willing to drive back with the half portion I had left, if they could remake the dish. She said the Marinara sauce at Linos WAS orange, thick & creamy. I said I never had the dish made that way. So she refused, & was NOT polite about it! Never in my life have I ever sent food back at a restaurant. But if I had been dining in, I would have politely said I didn't care for the dish as it was made, & could I choose another dish. And on this phone call, I WAS being polite. I have been in customer service for many years, & this is not how I ever treated customers. Regardless of whether Lino's marinara sauce is creamy or not - if I said I was NOT HAPPY with how the dish tasted, something should have been done to try to make me happy with my food, especially since I was willing to drive back 12 miles with half the...

I've ordered from Lino's about 20 times since I moved to Libertyville. It's always been good and consistent. Today I had guests over and ordered from Lino's. It had so much cheese it wasn't enjoyable. Half of it was thrown out, one guest even said "this is gross, I can't eat it." But it's all we had so we had to serve it.

Growing up in a family that owned a pizzeria, LaRosa in Skokie (in our family since 1957), I felt this pizza was best. But when I asked why this pizza was so overwhelmed with cheese they simply advised me to "order light cheese next time." I know that cheese is the most expensive ingredient. I also know that this was an error - either new pizza man or they misread the ticket. Again, their error.

Some people love extra cheese, but the amount of cheese put on this pizza was in fact, gross. And we should have gotten a credit for the pizzas.

Won't be ordering again from Lino's with this type of customer service. I'll go to Bills...

The first time had wandered in I got the lasagna tho only ate a couple bites and was going to save the rest for next day lunch but when I was going to eat it my truck stalled on hiway and by the time I got back with jump start to where it was on the shoulder my truck was towed with all of my stuff and my food tho that was the first meal had in days of struggle so lost another vehicle to vulture impounds to lose more work and place to stay .. but the other day was my third experience and I was so pleased I made note to take a few minutes to express my gratitude .. the roast beef sandwich is an A+ the coleslaw was so good I was about to go back just for more slaw but then saw it was my lucky day seeing they blessed me with a spare coleslaw which made me smile .. the fries were about purrfect maybe a bit under salted but that's better and leaves option to add .. atmosphere friendly and clean...