Joe's Place — Restaurant in Marengo

I know this past year has been extremely difficult for the restaurant industry as well as to many people, but this doesn't mean you completely forget customer service. We were first introduced to Joe's Place back when our children attended Marian Central Catholic HS as Joe is an alumni and catered many of their events. One of the items my wife absolutely fell in love with is Joe's Vodka Penne Sauce. Over the years, we have made an unknown number of trips from Lake in the Hills to Marengo just to bring home quarts of this sauce. About a week and a half ago, I called ahead to have two quarts ready and was told by the employee taking the order that she had found my previous order in their system by using my cell phone number and there would be no problem getting the sauce ready. The price for two quarts of sauce is over $16, but we wanted to support Joe's place since this has been a horrible year. I drove to Marengo and picked up the sauce through the drive through. I had to run multiple errands that day and did not open the package from Joe's until later and noticed that I received two quarts of their regular Penne sauce and not their Vodka Penne Sauce. I called back and was told by Debbie that the person taking the order wrote it down wrong for the kitchen. I asked, what can be done now that I have to spend an hour of my time and gas to drive back to Marengo to get the proper product. I was told they would just replace the sauce. I made the trip the following day and this time I went into the restaurant to pick up the sauce, met with Debbie again and express my frustration that I had to make 2 trips to Marengo, the order taker confirmed my order as it was in their system, and what could be done to compensate me. She told me that they would only replace the sauce. I asked if they could add an additional quart to compensate my time and costs, or even offer a free quart for my next order, and all suggestions were flat out denied. Upon returning home we called and left a message to speak to Joe directly as we have supported his business for years and his staff was not willing to support his customers. Over the past week and a half, we must have left at least a half a dozen messages for Joe and no return call. We were informed that Joe had an emergency last week and hadn't been in the restaurant much. Last Friday I was told he is expected back in this past Monday. I called again on Monday, spoke with Barb, whom I have talked to several times recently, and was told my message would be brought to Joe's attention. 48 hours later, no return phone call and even today I was asked if I wanted to leave another message. I am truly disappointed that I have to write this post as I expected more from a Marian Alumni and the values they taught him and his staff's lack of customer service. They make a mistake, confirm they made the mistake and do nothing to support their customer. There are many Italian restaurants in the area that will take our business and I firmly believe the cost of the sauce is significantly below the $8/quart I was charged, so there is plenty of margin to try to work out a compromise to keep customers, but their customer service also seems to be a victim of Covid-19 and has died as will my business with...

5/22/2016 Since my family were hungry and we don't want to wait too long time to eat, so we called Joe's Place before we go there and ordered a Joe's favourite,which is the only kind of pizza we usually choose( with green pepper,mushroom,sausage,and onion) for dinning in. My family does not like garbage pizza or any other kind of pizza at all. when we rushed to the restaurant made the payment ,we got a number for the food we ordered like usually do. When I was walking by the "PICK UP ORDER" location,I saw the waitress threw all those paper slips (the receipt and number) right on the pizza,and the number over there tells me it was my food,yes that was my food!. For rescuing my food from the nasty paper slips,I told the girl I could take the food to the table by myself if she wants,the girl told me they have some person to do that for me,so I said thanks and went back to the table and waited...

Pizza finally came,and we noticed the pizza was covered tons of pepperoni and olives(green and black ones),

My husband went to the cashier and told the lady they might have served someone else's pizza to us,The lady checked the order showing in the machine,and told that our order was not even close to be ready yet.

So we had to keep waiting.Waited about 7 minutes,nobody came and take away the pepperoni pizza on our table.We all have mouth,so we definitely talk.For the reason to keep the food in a good hygiene condition,then I had to take it back to the "Pick up order" location and told the girl it was the wrong pizza and also told the information my husband was told by the cashier lady.Two girls were at the pick up order location,one of the waitress who helped delivered the food said that was exact pizza we ordered, another waitress complained why I had taken away somebody else's pizza,the fact was I did ask her about that but,since she told she would have some one to do it,I was not permitted to take away the food with putting my order number on,I did not even touch it at all!(they talked in a very unkind way,looked like they are always ready for an argument,they did not feel sorry at all about those confusion they caused to the customer), I really did not want to argue, of course I told them I did not take the food by my self,it was the waitress brought that to us. They let us keep waiting, I saw the waitress put the pizza back to the warm oven again,after about 10 minutes, they came back with the same pizza and said that was the pizza we exactly ordered,like I said we really did not want to argue that much,we just accepted the pizza, picked out the pepperoni,ham and olives,we technically ate couple of pieces of pizza dough then left.

It definitely...

So disappointed with Joe's place lately and frankly feeling quite ripped off. When I moved here 2 years ago this was our go to place. Food always excellent and great customer service. Somehow it seems to be going downhill fast. We had food delivered a few weeks back and one of the meals was wrong. They apologized over the phone and gave us a credit for the original meal but I was dumbfounded at what was sent. It was the Asian salad. It was $9.99 for about a pound of lettuce with a small chicken breast, wantons and almonds on top... Last night I paid $34 for 3 meals. I ordered the monster burger for almost $10. It was underwhelming to say the least . It didn't come with fries or a drink those were $3.75 extra. Ok it is what it is but when I got my burger it appeared to be a large piece of meat with a small amount of toppings smashed and just thrown at the burger. It tasted ok but for a $10 burger wouldn't you expect at least a bit of presentation to make you feel you are getting something special? I struggled with the choice to even write this review but for the money spent I don't think anyone else would be satisfied with these...