Giordano's — Restaurant in Orland Township

I'm sad to have to write this.

Our family has been customers of Giordano's since we went to the original location. There have been ups and downs, but this is the first time I felt compelled to write anything negative.

Our visit was on Sat 2022-05-21 after 8 pm. Where we sat I could see into the kitchen. Maybe it would have been better if I hadn't.

The waitress was very nice, although very scarce. I found out later the manager had earlier dismissed two other servers and the remaining staff was scrambling. At least one of the dismissed servers apparently stayed on to help, presumably without pay or tips. We actually were served by 3 different people.

The male host that seated us was chewing gum. When I directly looked at him, he stopped, but when I wasn't he still did. He knew he shouldn't have been doing it.

When waiting for our deep-dish pizza (45+ minutes which is normal), I had lots of time to see the kitchen counter where they put the completed pizzas. They have a dry-erase board above this counter. I don't know why the health department allows this, as whenever you erase such a board, it creates dust that I'm sure will get into the food. At one point, the marker fell off the board's tray onto the floor, and rolled under that counter (it's on wheels). The delivery guy (in a blue shirt) got ON THE FLOOR ON HIS HANDS AND KNEES to retrieve it and put it back on the board's tray which is above the food. He DIDN'T WASH HIS HANDS before putting a customer's pizza into a delivery bag and leaving. A short time later, the marker fell down again onto the floor, and a waitress picked it up and threw it ONTO THE SAME PLACE WHERE THE FINISHED PIZZAS ARE PUT. She didn't wash her hands, either, and just continued on. The marker remained there but was eventually blocked from my view. After our pizza was done, it was put on that same counter. It sat there... and sat there... and sat there. When another server brought it to us, I had to ask her to have them put it back into the oven to heat up, which she did, and they did. Luckily, when she brought it back later, it was still delicious. I was concerned that it might have dried out, but it didn't. Another waitress was putting cash into the register near us and dropped a bill onto the floor. You'll never guess -- another pickup from the floor without hand washing.

• ALL of the above screams to me of very poor management and staff training.

The final issue is that there was a 3% surcharge on the bill. I HAD TO ASK ABOUT IT BECAUSE IT WASN'T MENTIONED ON THE MENU, OR A SIGN , OR BY THE STAFF. It caught me by surprise. This is a sleazy way of sneaking in a price increase. They hope customers will just pay and not notice. I think it was added in before the tax was calculated, which is adding insult to injury. While I'm sure they think they have a valid reason for a surcharge (I don't think so!), there is NO excuse for not telling customers before they order!

I gave the server (Michelle) a good tip even with all of the above, because I don't think it was her fault (maybe partly), but this really is a management problem, both at the store and at corporate.

I don't think we'll be going back soon. I'll miss their really delicious pizza but I won't miss the poor sanitation practices.

UPDATE 5/28: They publicly responded and said to send them an email and they would contact me. I did, and they didn't. Yes, I checked spam et al. Do they do this with all...

I would like to begin by saying that my pizza was very good (although not the pizza I had originally ordered), and the bartender at this location was fantastic. However, this was, overall, possibly the worst experience I've ever had with a restaurant. My order was to be available at 6:30 p.m. (a medium heart-shaped pizza with chicken sausage). I ordered it online at 4:45. I finally walked out with a pizza--with regular sausage--2 hours later. I asked several times about what was going on with my order and the bartender asked, but there was no help or explanation given other than they were working on it. When I finally spoke personally to the manager, he gave no explanation for the delay and told me the best he could do is begin cooking my pizza (this was after an hour and forty-five minutes of waiting) and give me a refund. I explained that wasn't helpful because I would end up waiting even longer. He responded by telling me, "You want a pizza, I offered to cook one for you. What more do you want?" I asked him to check again to see if my pizza was at least in the works, and he disappeared into the back. Ten minutes later, he reappeared with a regular sausage pizza and told me I could have that and my money back or could sit and wait longer. At this point, I wanted to get home to my wife to spend what was left of Valentine's Day with her. I also wanted to spend time with my daughter, but, unfortunately, she had already gone to bed. I ended up taking the pizza. I was promised a refund which has yet to show up in my bank account. I was also offered a $25 credit, but the manager would not give me anything in writing, only a promise that it would be "under my phone number." I also asked for a frozen pizza, and was given a small pizza after the manager rolled his eyes and was showing his frustration with me. Considering how frustrated, patient, and calm I was, I found this both ironic and insulting. By the time I left, approximately 50 to 75 people came and left with their orders, many of which were larger than mine and were supposed to be ready at a later time than mine. I feel like I was treated unfairly and was never given a true remedy for my situation. Other employees and customers there at the time expressed the same viewpoint. I'm hoping something can still be done to remedy this situation satisfactorily.

On a side note, I ended up sitting at the bar and having a beer once I realized I would be there a while (most people were there waiting 20 to 30 minutes due to the apparent high demand on Valentine's Day). The bartender was the only factor in this entire debacle that made it bearable. She was great at her job, friendly, had a great sense of humor, and tried multiple times to help me remedy...

Worst experience ever! Ordered 2 pizzas and 2 sampler appetizers, waste of $70.23. Was supposed to be ready for pickup at 6PM. I got there at 6:03, paid (receipt says 7:09) then was told my order would be a few more minutes. Order wasn't ready until 6:23, drove 15 minutes to get home and both pizzas were ice cold, not a hint of warmness. The appetizers were warm so I wonder if they forgot to make them and that's why I had to wait and the pizzas were left out to chill. I've been here before, eat in and take out, and was never treated like this. I doubt if I'll order from here again.

UPDATE: The day after I posted this review I was contacted by Laura, a manager of this location. She apologized for my poor experience and asked what she could do to remedy the situation. She was very helpful and offered to send me a gift card to cover my costs, it came in the mail two days later. Now I am trying to get all 5 of us together again to give them another chance, but with all the holiday things we can't get together until January. I'll update again after we do get together.

UPDATE! Finally got everyone back together to give them another chance. We went there Sunday around 5. This time we dined in. Service was excellent, only one misstep, waiter forgot my beer when refilling drinks, but when my son mentioned it to him he dropped what he was doing and went and got me my beer. Food was excellent and plentiful. We ordered a Greek salad and a house salad, too much for 6 people. For main course we had a deep dish (I don't care for deep dish, but those who did said it was good) and a thin crust (my choice) again too much for 6, we had plenty of leftovers for lunch today. Overall food, and drinks, were great and hot. Bill came to $148 for the 6 of us, that included our drinks, reasonable. Luckily the gift card from Laura paid for much of it. I'll definitely be going back. BTW for those wondering, there is no way they knew it was someone who had complained of prior poor service. So that didn't enter into the great service we...