Salerno’s

It’s a Wednesday at 12:25 pm. I walked in at noon. Not one other person here. Well, wait. One guy at the bar drinking a glass of wine and maybe eating. I’m leaving at 1 pm and there are 3 other tables here and a few people at the bar. Everyone seems to be enjoying themselves though.
This restaurant can do pizza, I think. I’ve had it before. It’s fine… I ordered a Chicken Vesuvio sandwich for lunch. Says it comes with tomato, onion, olive oil, and mozzarella open face. It came with all of that plus some weird sauce that looked kind of like gravy or Italian dressing. The chicken was not cooked all the way through — it was soft and disgustingly cold in the middle. It had a gray frozen texture to the middle of it. It also came on a pretty boring roll that wasn’t toasted — just simple white bread that you might expect from a Subway? Presentation was poor and the fries were soggy as heck. Since I assume they can’t mess up pizza, I sent it back and ordered a medium thin crust pizza. They also forgot to bring my sides I ordered — but hey, screw it, I’m now getting pizza instead. I’ll let you know in a few minutes how the pizza is.
The salad bar is sad. It’s just a few bowls with some lettuce and pepperoni and some cheese and whatever other boring ingredients you might have at the smallest salad bar ever. That said, I ate some salad, with a tiny bit of grated cheese that wasn’t Parmesan, but I expected it to be — and some ranch dressing. Nothing is labeled so you have to guess at the dressings. All of that said, the salad was fine. I chose the romaine mix. Not the almost shredded iceberg lettuce.
Pizza was actually good. Though I stayed here about a half an hour longer than I had planned since they had to make me something new. Lesson — Don’t order the chicken. Pizza is pretty good. Stick with pizza if you come to eat.
Also, the manager did not come over and speak to me at all or apologize. I had to get up and bring my sandwich to the kitchen to find someone to return it to.

We usually try to go at least once a week. We have been there manyyyyy times. Even had my hubby’s 60^th bd party here. Great place to watch a hockey or football game. Our favorite server is ANGELA… She is awesome. Sad reality we haven’t been back since Dec 26^th. The service that night was the WORST! This place was packed to the rafter, I thought that very odd. Every room every seat. Seems the management was more worried about the guy performing at 9pm to really give a crap about regular customers who just want to eat! We got seated at this table way in the corner by the stage. Mind you we had a reservation for 6 @ 6:30 and no clue some clown from the VOICE (didn’t even finish in the top 24) was performing at 9pm. Better tables all being reserved for the show (9pm start) The manager on staff that night (as he always is) watching a commotion with a group of women one of which was in a wheelchair not 5 ft from us. My hubby couldn’t get out of his chair, they were that close and thought it was ok. They decided to plant themselves right in front of the stage. There was NO room to walk especially with the wheelchair there. He comes to us and asks when we are leaving… My god, we just got here. He proceeds to tell them, they can have our table when we leave he even asked us when we were leaving… RU KIDDING ME DUDE? That was STRIKE 1… Strike 2… it took forever to even get our starters and a drink. Finally got the starters after 45 min. Only to have our dinners to arrive 15 min later and my dinner salad as well. The whole time we have people staring at us, and running up to the stage due to the performer setting up. They we acting like he was fricken Adam Levine for god sakes. STRIKE 3… My lasagna was nothing more than noodles with sauce thrown on. What the hell? WORST EVER! I picked at it, as I did my salad, that I should have had way sooner. And the whole time this guy shows up early, sets up and starts playing earlier then scheduled. OMG! 6:30 reservations and no dinner until 8:00. And we had to leave by 8:30 as we had movies tickets across the way at the theater. We had to walk up front for the check so we can pay and leave.
Salerno’s here is a tip… When you are having a performer on a Saturday night, how about NOT seating those people til around 8– 8:30pm? This way regular patrons can eat in PEACE and not get the bum’s rush! I am sure we sent more money on our 6 then most people did watching the guy performing. And we never got to finish OUR FOOD! Also, get a few more people as to wait on your customers so well. Having to eat our starter, then 5 min later our dinner with our salads at the same time is a bit much. Bad service for sure this night. Poor planning on your behalf… Shame on you… Angela, you’re still best best! Sorry we were abrupt that night. It, wasn’t your fault… It was MANAGEMENTS!

The service by Angela was amazing. Very attentive and friendly. 5 stars because of her. When you go ask for «Angela» and you will get excellent service and a great dining experience. Food is excellent! Wings, pizza and panini were awesome! Sports bar with very nice décor! My 9 year old son had a lot of fun, a true family atmosphere. The owners made us feel very welcome!

Went to Salernos last night. It was 30 per person. Oh my god the drinks just flowed. The, staff was right on. At table every 5 minutes. Entertainment was excellent. DJ Joey G had the whole crowd up and dancing everywhere. It lasted to the wee hours. Salernos knows how to throw a party. Waiting for the next one.

Could I give this place zero stars? My wife and I stopped for a quick lunch before going to the movies. After waiting over 45 minutes for a calzone and chicken sandwich the waitress informed me that the order was never placed for my calzone. The waitress didn’t seem too concerned either way. My wife and I were upset and said we needed to go to make the movie. The waitress said it’s ok she will just eat our sandwich for her lunch. Can’t make this stuff up. Place used to be good before the remodel. Will never go there again.

I found a Jewel!
Really enjoyed my experience at this restaurant, the service was second to none and very personable. The food was beyond great, I started with a freshly prepared Caesar salad and followed with a grilled Italiano Panini.
Portions were much more than expected, and was barely able to finish. The tab was a shocker, salad, panini and Coke was just $ 10.00.
May sound a bit high to some for a sandwich, but as I said before, it was plentiful and fresh.
This will be one I’ll be visiting regularly, guaranteed!

Great place place to watch all sport’s event’s good food. great staff .and it’s a OTB

Nice bar, good drink specials, friendly service, but some short cuts get taken on the food.
We came here on a Thursday and I was excited for the drink deal of half price wine. I think I’ve only ever seen half off fa wine bottle, but this deal includes glasses too. I started my evening with a $ 3 glass of cabernet that was delightful! #noshame. They also had $ 2.50 domestic bottles, but my guy ordered their goose island seasonal which was only $ 5, which is not a bad deal for a good craft beer by any means!
I did read reviews on how their salads are ice berg, but thought with the new remodel, they were surely upping their quality game with the «Louisiana spring mix salad». Obviously it would be full of a classic spring mix! As it arrive, it tricked me by looking all dark, leafy and delicious because there was a massive layer of ice berg underneath. ICEBERG MUST DIE! Ugh… I’m passionate about salad, can you tell? I ended up with a huge side plate of extra ice berg, which I felt bad about, but I seriously can’t eat the stuff.
Iceberg rant aside, the salad was OK overall. I think it had a bit of an identity crisis. It came with chicken, avocado, artichoke, peppers, tomato and vinaigrette. It sounded good on paper but didn’t all really mix well in the salad.
My guy had their trackside (turkey/​bacon) panini. It had thick pieces of turkey, lots of bacon and cheese and he said it was very good. It was $ 2 less than my salad, to boot. The fries seemed to be another short cut and tasted pretty flavorless and weird.
I think I would come back for the nice service, cheap drinks and maybe and app (anything that didn’t involve fries or lettuce!). I’ve had salerno’s pizza at Evivva which was incredible, and these are the same guys, so I’d definitely be up for a pizza too!

Lathe variety of drinks. The wings here are nice and chunky and so delicious! Servers were okay. Friendly but not too attentive as they should be. But overall everything else is great here.

Had dinner last night at Salernos. wonderful experience to the hostess to the waitress and especially the management! food was great and!!! very welcoming. felt like I was having dinner at my own families dinner table. definitely going back!

I grew up in Berwyn, where they had their location from the time I grew up. Went to this location with my wife, bragging that it would be great. Unfortunately, that was not the experience. Went in, waited to be seated. People running around, but tables were not full. They wanted to seat us in the sports bar area. I requested that we be seated in the dining area. They said I had to wait, they were cleaning tables in there. I waited. When I was seated, the room was in disarray due to them having large parties at one end of the room. What I didn’t realize was that it really wasn’t a dining room at all. It was a room with a small bar and there were pool tables that had been pushed off to the side for the people to sit and eat. My expectations were for a quiet type of dining room. My bad, I guess.
Now, had to wait for the waitress. She came by, and seemed distressed. We placed our order. An open faced beef deluxe which had a specific way of display described on the menu, and a bowl of spaghetti. Also, a bowl of chili (an appetizer).
It took almost 20 min and the waitress came by with the look of forgetting us and said «They will be done with your food soon.» I told my wife «Wait, they’ll bring the chili now.» Low and behold, there is was 20 seconds later. The food came a few minutes later.
The spaghetti was o.k. And, the beef was o.k. except that the presentation was incorrect. It was supposed to be an open faced, baked beef with mozzarella sandwich, and it was a regular. Not open faced or baked. But, ate it anyway due to the fact that I didn’t want to wait another ½hr to be served. (and I’ll bet the waitress took the order wrong)
All in all, the food was o.k., but management needs to get it together with their employees for listening to orders and knowing what is going on.
I miss going to my childhood Salerno’s. This did not ease the void.

Chicago on Grand Avenue, Bolingbrook, and now Hodgkins. Three Salerno’s; three different worlds, with different tastes and personalities. This location is half sports bar/​restaurant and OTB facility. It is tucked away on a winding road behind The Quarry shopping center and near the theater. I’m not sure what used to be here, but the building is either new or heavily reconstructed, beautiful both inside and out.
The bar and dining room is decorated very nicely with exposed brick walls, a cozy fireplace, and plenty of different seating options: Bar seating, high tops, booths, and some comfy looking couches situated near the fireplace. Flat screen televisions are strategically placed for views from all the seats, but yet manage to be very unobtrusive.
I am a big fan of Salerno’s pizza, but on this night I was in the mood for pasta. I went with a glass of Reisling and the angel hair pasta with garlic, olive oil, and grilled chicken. What I can say about my meal is this: I’ve had better at other Salerno’s locations. None of the flavors seemed to meld, and the chicken was hot, but the pasta was just room temperature. I did bring half of my meal home and doctored it up a bit the next day. With a little TLC, it turned out not to be a total wash!

Hands down this place is AWESOME! It is an absolute MUST try! The food the service and the atmosphere is awesome! Great portions too!

I had my daughter’s Bridal shower on Sunday, in the smaller private room it was
beautiful from beginning to end. Frank G. helped me in the planing. The food was
wonderful and the presentation first class. All of the guests loved it. The staff and our
main waitress, in particular, was outstanding. Thank you for a terrific afternoon.
Salerno’s, you ROCK! Thank you, Janet Perryman

Attended a bridal shower here. My first and only visit. The place (except for our party) was empty, but the parking lot was full.
The food was served buffet stlye, but that’s no excuse for it being terrible. The chicken was ok, a bit greasy and served in a tray of liquid juices. The salad was 95% chopped iceberg lettuce with a bit of shaved carrot added for color, yum (sarcasm). The roasted potatoes were so overcooked, brown and dry, that at first I mistook them for sausages, of which there were none, which was a shame because they really would have added something needed to the perfectly bland mostocholli. The sliced bread and butter was the best thing on the buffet, and ironically the only thing not made by Salernos. Eventually I learned that the potatoes could be turned edible by smothering them in salad dressing and parmasign cheese.
Aside from that, despite the place being empty, it took me 10 minutes to get a beer at the bar.
The only good thing I can say is that it looked to be a nice place.
I will never go back here. Great job Salernos (more sarcasm).

Had the clams. They were great. Peartinis amazing. Sat outside next to their awesome bar.

A few improvements would make this Salerno’s such a great place. Please upgrade your salads! No iceberg lettuce! This shows signs of not caring and cost cutting! Italian restaurant and the espresso machine not working???2^nd time this has happened to me at your restaurant! Waitresses need to be more attentive. Not busy when we went and the busboy did a better job of attentiveness than the waitress.
On the plus side– calzones and panini’s are great! Risotto always a sure thing. Pizza is great when you order extra thin crust.
The restaurant looks great… keep working on service and salads!

I have a feeling they have a really huge identity crisis here. They act like they are the who’s who of the Hodgkins Illinois and that everyone wants to come in. We walked in on a busy Saturday before seeing a movie and saw a lot of empty tables (not in the bar section) and were told they were reserved, and they also have visibly available seating for 2 in the bar section. I’m not sure if they were expecting tons of people to show up to their «high brow» establishment but two-​paying customers are right in front of you and you have plenty of open seating — you might want to make it happen you are a PIZZA JOINT.

Been to many italian restaurants. Tasted alot of great food. This one is great for the price and perfect for sports viewing. Such a great environment to be in. Music is great choice. Such friendly and well presented staff. Daily deals are awesome. Food is so good here. You Definitely get more the youll pay for in quality. Beer is perfect. Great family spot, sports bar, or a nice up beat dinner for two.

As a kid growing up the Salerno’s on 16^th Street was a special treat. Countless dates and parties in the friendly confines of the cozy little place. This was one of the best joints in the neighborhood for quality food and top shelf
I recently learned that this restaurant (Hodgkins) was owned by the same family. I was very quick to fill their doorway with my massive physique.
That is not going to happen a second time.
We were seated pretty quickly — which was nice — but it doesn’t matter how quickly you’re seated if the waiter decides to wait until the next full-​moon to visit the table.
He eventually shows up — we order the food — no incident there.
The food comes and the fries are cold. The sandwich was about half the size of ANY other restaurant serving a comparable sandwich. When you get a combo sandwich it has Italian beef and Italian sausage. This type of sandwich — and fries should fill you up.
Not so much. This was a kiddie-​size portion. I don’t bring a kiddie-​sized appetite.
Now I got the sandwich and some hot giardiniera. This was a bad idea because the waiter was on a three-​day furlough. He was always just a few feet away from us at other tables — but never seemed to notice me waving my arm.
He finally decided to grace us with his presence — but then another long wait for the refill and then the check.
The old restaurant would have never allowed this type of service. No self-​respecting restaurant would ever charge that much for that little.
Another great one bites the dust — a kiddie-​sized portion of dust.