Gary's Restaurant — Restaurant in Town of Verona

I hesitated writing this review because times are tough for small businesses, and I know dependable staff is hard to come by. However, after our poor experience, and reading very similar reviews of several others, I am hoping this additional review will raise awareness to the owners and/or save someone else from a not great experience. We had received a gift certificate for Gary's for $50. Arrived at 6:00pm, no one else waiting to be seated. We waited 10 minutes without being greeted by either of the two waitresses. We finally ask the bartender who said one of the wait staff is around somewhere and will be with you shortly. Now, 20 minutes standing waiting (we drove 40 minutes to get to the place and we had the gift certificate to use otherwise we would have left), we see one waitress set a table for 4, she approaches us and said your table for 4 is ready. We said there is just two of us; she asks us....what happened to the party of 4? Once seated at the table, we wait another 20 minutes. Once the waitress arrives, we order our drinks, sampler tray appetizer, and meal all at once (we were told they were out of side salad). She asks if we want dinner rolls and we say yes. Within 3-5 minutes our water and soda arrives; also, we are told that they are out of mushrooms for the sampler platter, so we said jalapeno poppers can be substituted. We wait 15 minutes and I flag the waitress to ask if the dinner rolls were supposed to be served before, or with dinner. Waitress says I'll get them now. Another 15 minutes goes by and we receive our sampler platter. Of the TWO jalapeno poppers received, one was the same color as my husbands coke, burned. The breading on the onion rings fell off as soon as you touched them to pick one up, and the pizza rolls were super crispy. Still....no dinner rolls received. As we're eating our appetizer, we see other tables being served the side salad that 15 minutes ago we were told they were out of. Upon our meals being brought, we had to ask for our mac salad and dinner rolls, as well as a refill on the water glass. My fish was very good, but sweet potato fries were burnt; my husbands pasta for his chicken parmesan was very chewy. This is clearly a local place, as people going/leaving the bar were greeted by first name, and we love to support that. The view is beautiful. We left the waitress the normal tip as we would if the food and service had been great; she apologized for the wait and said she appreciated our visit. However, I believe this was the worst restaurant experience we have ever had. I would have rather been greeted immediately (instead of being ignored) and told we would have a 30-45 minute wait before we could be seated, and we would have happily gotten a drink and sat at the bar or walked outside. I truly hope for the best for Gary's as it has been around a long time and has...

This place feels like a “locals” spot. Not being a local, the vibe was not as welcoming. Waited over 20 minutes for the server to even come to our table. At 20 minutes in, all I got from the hostess was “yeah she’s behind”. She offered to get us soda but then never came over to take the drink order. Food was ok for the price. Scallops were very small for the price, and not that great. Never got an itemized receipt just a total to pay. After waiting another 20 minutes for the check We were ready to leave and didn’t even realize until we left. Total time in restaurant was over 2 hours. The view of the lake was beautiful, but not...

Very dark in the dining room had to use the flashlight on our phones to see the menus. Waited over an hour for our meals, only one other table in the dining room. Food was not worth the wait or price. Spaghetti and meatballs was not good, sauce tasted like a tin can and looked almost brownish in color. The meatballs were blah and needed to be seasoned better. The roasted red peppers were so chewy they you could not eat them. Waitress took the Spaghetti and meatballs off the check, but honestly it was still not worth the wait or price. We were hoping to find a good place to stop at again. We will try someplace...