Pantano's Gourmet Eats Uniondale — Restaurant in Town of Hempstead

I give the place 5 stars for the food, but 1 star for the service. Here's the story:

I had a large order for lunch, 20 people all ordering different things, drinks, chips, sides, etc... I got the list together and called it in around 10:30am for an 11:30am pickup. When I called, the line is picked up and INSTANTLY put on hold - no "hello", no "Pantano's", NOTHING. I had to sit there for a few minutes before someone actually picked up and helped me.

Now I had the whole order written out neatly on one sheet of paper. I asked if I could just take a picture of it and text it to them and the only option available was to fax it to them. Who uses fax machines any more? Why couldn't I text it, or at the least email it in? Having these 21st century options available would be something that I would expect, apparently they don't exist at this spot. I went through the order with the employee and off we go.

About 5 minutes later I get a phone call from their number. I was tied up with something at the moment so I couldn't pick up. After I get freed up, I tried calling to see what was up. They pick up and immediately put me on hold. So I wait. And wait. And wait. You know that feeling when you're on hold and it just feels like FOREVER as each minute passes by? Well after five solid minutes of listening to their stupid on hold recording, I hung up and called back. Again - sent directly to hold. I hung up and called back again. Again - sent directly to hold. I hung up AGAIN and called back AGAIN, and this time they ACTUALLY said something to me... "Please hold" and they put me immediately on hold. REALLY?!! So I just gave up and hung up.

11:15 comes around and I send a couple of people over to pick the food up. I should've sent them earlier because there was no organization to the pickup process. They counted the amount of items that were provided and it didn't total 20 so they immediately questioned if everything was there. The counter person working insisted that it was complete but after going over it closely and comparing with the master list a number of things were not there. Pre-made salads needed to be pulled from a customer-accessible cooler as well as some wraps. Some sandwiches were flat out not even made. After about 25 minutes of waiting, the order was finally completed. My group of people now had a shortened lunch break because of all of the delays.

Aside from the service, the food is delicious. But man, was it a terrible customer...

I made a huge order because i was ordering for my office. The gentleman who helped me over the phone for my pick up order was very patient. I had three different orders with special instructions and all separate payments. Yes, i knew it was a lot. He kept his professionalism and grace. I walked into the restaurant and it was clean, smelled sanitized and things were neatly place and organized. As soon as i was greeted by a nice lady at the register when i told her my name my order was close by being prepared. The service was fast and friendly. The gentleman who helped me over the phone let me know we were waiting for my fries and he prepared a lemonade which went with the upgrade for one of my orders. While waiting for the fries we shared a nice small talk about the great service and he let me know getting the lemonade was a better deal than the can soda because the lemonade was 20 ounces and the van was 12 ounces. The staff was great! Now to the food. I tipped in the jar because it’s a great experience. It only got better when he helped me to my car. He placed the food neatly in my car. I started with my appetizer the mini crab cakes. You get five for $10.95. They were seasoned nicely to taste and perfectly baked outside batter. May have been imitation crab meat but hey they were good! The macaroni salad that came with my pastrami Mac melt wasn’t the best. They used rigatoni noodles instead of elbow and it was dry. The Mayo was at the bottom of the cup. I doctored that up and it was okay. But boyyyyy did the pastrami Mac melt melt my taste buds! Wow is all i can say! Temperature wise the food was hot and fresh. The taste of the pastrami was so delicious and savory it went perfectly with the type of bread that was used. The Mac was cheesy and also seasoned (i noticed the pepper) went so well with the meat! This melt is a must have if you like big flavor. This place is fantastic and i will always dine here. Thank you to the staff at Pantano’s for “loving to feed us!” Keep up the...

I work at RXR plaza and was craving an egg sandwich. My coworker suggested that we try out Pantano's deli. So with an open mind and an empty stomach we ventured over there. Pantano's is a deli located on the south side of Hempstead tpk. Upon looking at the building i thought to myself "this is what it would look like if Twitter opened up a deli". The deli itself seems to be pretty clean so points for that. I ordered what i thought would be a safe bet. I ordered the big boy gladiator on a hero and my friend ordered a 2 eggs w/ cheese on a toasted plain bagel with a hashbrown. Because I got the hero i got a free coffee. The coffee was very hot so naturally i asked for a hand cover but they dont carry them for some reason. They gave me a second cup to cover the first cup which is fine but all I needed was a cover. Either way we took it back to the office and ended up being pretty dissatisfied with the product considering I paid over 11 bucks for my sandwich and my friend paid over 8 bucks. The reason his bagel was so expensive was because they don't know how to do substitutions instead if you do a custom order everything is alla cart, which doesn't make sense. The sandwich was very greasy and there was barely any meat. It looks big but thats because its mostly bread and they wrap it up with thick paper and then tin foil. My friend was pretty dissatisfied with his bagel. His bagel was very greasy, looked like they used a panini press instead of a toaster and was overpriced. The coffee was actually pretty good but that was the only good part of the experience. I highly doubt I'll be coming back here again. The target audience here seems to be unsuspecting suckers who overpay but dont realize it. Honestly, they just gotta take pride in their products and make a really good sandwich that would be worth the price. Unfortunately, they don't seem to care. Oh and btw if you use a credit card there is another charge but you can't tell because the receipts are...