Salerno's On the Fox — Restaurant in St. Charles

Okay. I'm just going to be as honest about this as I can be.

Arriving at 5:30 and seated with our Anniversary "get together" with the rest of our patrons. I say us because it was me and my partner that arrived there together.

After speaking with others about ordering some food I got the gist that the pizza was to take 40 to 45 minutes to make and I decided to have a Panini since I did not want to wait to eat a pizza. 5:30 is dinner time, know what I mean? Besides, the only thing about their deep dish pizza is you just get more more crust, which is basically bread.

Either way, Derrick was taking everyone's order and I said I'd have the panini. He told me that I could not order that now because of the time it took to cook a pizza. ?????

Well, because it was dinner time and I wanted to get some food before someone else's pizza order, apparently I was not allowed to.

About 30 minutes and 1 "empty" beer later the server finally came back around taking remaining "other than pizza" orders and completely skipped me. So I started timing things.

Three of us ordered replacement beers before this secondary "order taking" and still did not get the drinks until nearly 15 minutes after ordering them. Two of us that ordered the beers ended up going into the bar so we could get them quicker.

Finally, the 45 minute pizzas showed up one hour and 30 minutes after I was told by one of our group that they had ordered a pizza, and that it would take 40 minutes to make it. I was told 45 by the server, but whatever, 40/45 what's the difference? Just a minor lapse of communication I guessed.

But guess what? I never managed to order the panini I wanted, so I ate some of the ordered pizzas on the table.

Finally the server comes back and tells me that he feels that he had not taken my order. He literally asked me what I wanted. This is after we were all just about finished eating. And I told him I wanted "nothing". Which was by far not the truth and now I have to go and confess my Sins, because I lied.

All I can do to describe that evening would be to say, "That Sucked!". I thought I was going to go home hungry. It reminded me of when I was a kid and when I did something bad, my parents would send me to bed, without dinner, hungry. It was a punishment.

I was just pondering why I was being punished for going to this restaurant. Whatever... It sucked for me.

But it wouldn't be fair for a person of my good nature to just throw a single star review at them as if I were a typical, disgruntled , individual. Like I said. I'm gonna be as honest as I can in this review. But I never completely disregard a person.

If i were not traumatized, per Se, I would speak of the atmosphere, that appeared to having been pleasant if not for the unpleasant situation of which I had...

I am not sure where to even start. We were on our way to another restaurant when we happened to be in St. Charles and were very hungry. We saw Salerno's and it looked like a nice location and was busy even though it was still just later afternoon. Other reviews showed a good rating so we decided to take a chance and pop in. We should have just kept driving. Especially when they were not taking advantage of their outdoor seating on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. It started with no host at the stand and then an odd walk through a serving area to our table once we found someone. We ordered a couple drinks and a "wedge salad" immediately since we were hungry. Drinks arrived soon via a cart followed by the salad. Maybe we didn't read the description but it was unlike any wedge we have ever seen let alone had to eat. It was half a head of romaine swimming in vinegar, tomatoes, red onions and blue cheese. The topping had obviously been prepared much earlier and left to all sit together. The tomatoes and onions had no flavor except for vinegar. We were only given small bread plates to split the salad so it soon became a big mess. We spoke with our very friendly waitress (who seemed new) and ordered our entrees when the salad first arrived. My wife asked if they had a gluten free soup (no) and then ordered the grilled salmon. A few minutes later our waitress came back and said that the way the salmon was prepared it would have gluten? This was so odd that we just gave up and asked for our check. As our waitress was clearing our table (again via a cart) another waitress came by with her cart, bumped ours and then told our waitress to move hers out of the way. It was unnecessary and rather rude. We left and went in search of something more...

We ordered pasta and salad from Salernos for christmas eve pick up. That morning we called to confirm the pick up time and the owner/ person answering the phone was extremely rude. He asked what our order was and I told him I will give you my name so that you can make sure all is ready and included on what we ordered. He screamed over the phone and said... "i have 60 orders here do you want to tell me what you ordered" I was a bit surprised and responded that my wife placed the order and I will get her list and call him back. When I did call back 5 minutes later, again he answered the phone and was beyond ridiculously rude. I gave him our order and he said "Look I dont know where your order is " and I responded and told him we werent scheduled to pick up until 3:30 and if he had any questions he can call me back. I told him that my entire family has been ordering from them for 10 years. He screamed over the phone and said He has 60 take out orders and our one order is not a priority for him even though we placed an advance order weeks before. He told me to GO SOMEWHERE ELSE!!!!!! I was disgusted with his customer interaction, his ignorant rude comments and his lack of appreciation for his returning customers. I WILL NEVER ORDER OR GO TO SALERNOS AGAIN... On top of it we had our annual christmas party at his restaurant for 25 people and that business will be lost to him also. I went to ZAZA'S with short notice in a bind and they accommodated all of my order and apologized for Salernos ignorant behavior. DO NOT EAT OR PLACE ORDERS WITH SALERNOS... .THEY WILL NOT SERVICE YOU PROPERLY. THEY SHOULD BE OUT OF BUSINESS FOR THEIR ACTIONS....