Iacono's Pizza & Restaurant — Restaurant in Shawnee Hills

I recently went to Iacano's for a lunch buffet and dinner. I arrived at 11:30 when they had the buffet. They brought out pepperoni and sausage pizza and pineapple and ham pizza primarily. I think they may have had pepperoni and a cheese pizza. The advantage of the buffet is that you can eat all you want and the soft drink is included in the price. It seemed very slow about how many pizzas were coming out. I had to wait for the pizzas to come out for about four or five minutes. I prefer a buffet that has several pizzas to choose from. Then again, some people ordered subs and had to wait for the order to come out.

The place can seat around 80 people (I am guessing). There were about thirty people there during lunch. I was with a group of eight people. The place is a little cool, so dress warmly. I was good with a shirt, sweatshirt, and sweatpants on. It was also during winter I stopped by.

After eating, I used the restroom. It had less heat than the restaurant. It was clean but not glamorous. The cost of the meal was below $20.00.

The second time I visited was on Monday at 7 pm for dinner. I was with five people and wanted to try the meatball and sausage subs and their meat lovers' pizza. The meatball and sausage subs were comparable. I'd give a little more to the meatball sub. The pizza was what I would expect from a meat lovers pizza. The crust was cooked enough that the slices, which were smaller rectangles, were solid and did not flop around. I like my crust more cooked.

I believe the place is good for families and parties of up to twenty people, but the number of people who can sit at one table would be eight. In both experiences, I could hear everyone talking at the table, so the noise level was an acceptable problem because the food was delicious.

They do have a wide variety of...

The hostess told our party of 8 - four adults, four kids - that we could use two 6 top tables. Great! But then another hostess told us that the manager would not allow that, even though neither 6 top was reserved for another party and only one of them even ended up being used while we were there...and that by a party of 4. This seemed to me an effort to squeeze a few extra dollars from a potential party of 6 at the expense of my group's convenience, and it left a bad taste in my mouth.

Later, I ordered a beer, and the server insisted on bringing me a glass for it. OK, great. But the glass seemed to have some kind of liquid in it and maybe a stain across the lip. Maybe it was just washed and not yet dry, or maybe it was used/dirty, but she seemed a bit miffed when I never used it. Server also brought the kids different sized lemonades for some reason - some kid menu sized, others adult menu sized - so that caused some kid pouting which I had to defuse by ordering refills.

Otherwise, the visit was uneventful. The pizza was so-so: we liked the BBQ pizza, thought the others were bland. The beer list was uninteresting, generic Bud Light stuff. Atmosphere was fine, even though one of the TVs was broken.

So nothing awful, but we probably won't be coming back. The service was kind of clueless, and the food and drink mediocre. Better...

Just ate at Iaconos on a Tuesday around 5:15. Husband loved the pizza but wow, no food on the buffet! The staff didn't seem very concerned to keep the buffet filled. We sat near the buffet so we got to watch many customers come up to get their pizza and salad they paid for, only to find an empty buffet or a couple slices left of pizza. Being a previous server and caterer for over 15 years, I cringed watching people come up to the "buffet" and turning away to their table because it was empty. It was embarrassing to me and I don't even work there. Luckily we got there in time to walk through and get what we wanted, but others weren't so lucky. Lots of disappointed faces. One woman even waited near the buffet until the next pizza came so she could have a chance to get what she paid for. Just didn't seem very organized or professional. Our server seemed so underwhelmed with us and every table she greeted and waited on. Dining room is dark and had torn, ripped seats of chairs. Kind of dingy for the part of town the restaurant's in. We won't be back, but were surprised at the lack of a buffet when husband had read such good reviews on here. Seems like they need to update and change quite a few things. I gave a 2 rating because the food was worth that at least, but all else fell way...