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Cape Coral - Uno Chicago Grill |
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Written by R D Lang
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Thursday, 03 April 2008 |
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In early January, Uno Chicago Grill opened a new eatery on Pine Island Road in Cape Coral, placed right alongside Carrabba's Italian Grille, The Shrimp Shack, Foster's Grille, Timbales Puerto Rican Cuisine and Lounge, and the soon-to-open Bonefish Grill. All of Pine Island Road is exploding with commercial development, even in the recent economic downturn, but this particular section of road is becoming an established dining destination for the entire city of Cape Coral. The multitude of reasonably priced restaurants conglomerated in this growing section of the city answers the middle-American call for low costing, quality meals from names they know and trust. The developers have pegged Cape Coral as a blue collar, low to mid-scale restaurant city with an enormous appetite for national chains...and, for the most part, they've been right.
It was 2:15 PM on a Wednesday afternoon in early April as I pulled into Uno's, and the crowded parking lots outside all of the surrounding restaurants stood as testament to the hunger of Cape Coral for what the before-mentioned developers have been serving up.
The exterior of the building is impressive. The Uno's logo emblazoned across the facade looks modern and inviting. Yellow and black awnings cover all the windows. There is a primly landscaped cement foundation with attractive brick flowerbeds and palm trees outside the main entrance. The brick flowerbeds are just the right height to double as benches for peak-hour wait-listers.
The inside of the building is even more attractive than the exterior. Dark wood. Exposed air ducts. Dim lighting from ornate lamps. They've developed the look and feel of a converted warehouse space inside this brand new building. Lots of wine bottles and Italian-esque ingredients grace shelves and display areas. There are also many antique photos displaying the longstanding heritage of the Uno's concept, harking back to their first store which opened in 1943.
The host stand was disorganized and ill-equipped to deal with the large lunch crowd that had appeared. But, within a few minutes, we were seated in a spacious and private booth. It appeared that most of the available seating in the restaurant was comprised of similar booths.  A Booth at Uno's
We were presented with huge, plastic covered, comprehensive menus with a mind-numbing number of options for a mid-day meal within them.
The bar at Uno's is a huge, cavernous affair with plenty of TV's and ample seating. The mixed drink list on the menus we were given matched the bar in scope. An almost ridiculous number of colorful, trendy, well-described, and often-times frozen mixed drinks dazzled our eyes on the glossy pages before us. Mango Mojitos. Pomegranate Margaritas. Windy City Hurricanes.
Before long, an undertrained and overburdened waitress happened by to take our drink orders.
My dining partner ordered the Uno Signature Sangria, and double checked with the waitress to make sure it was a red, and not a white, sangria.
"It's not red...it's actually kind of purple," the waitress replied.
We agreed purple would be all right, and finalized the sangria order.
I was pleased to see Uno's offers one of my favorite beers, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.
"I'll take a Sierra Nevada."
"What's that?" the waitress responded.
I informed her it was one of the beers listed prominently on the menu she gave us, and she accepted my order and told us our drinks would be by shortly.
The drinks arrived quickly, and the waitress asked if we were ready to order.
The menu concept at Uno's is apparently crafted around a corporate vision of healthy food. Uno's was recently named "America's Healthiest Place to Eat Out" by Health Magazine. Some of the health endeavours evident on the menu are, no trans-fat oils being used, lots of grilled items, antibiotic-free chicken, whole grain pasta and brown rice. They also offer half price salads when you order a pizza "because we want you toget some greens in your diet", and plenty of gluten-free options.
We decided to begin by splitting a house salad with a blueberry pomegranate vinaigrette. For entrees, my dining companion opted for the Chicken & Penne With White Wine. I went with the Crispy Chipotle Chicken Sandwich.
About five minutes after we gave our order to the waitress, she re-appeared by the side of our table with a troubled look on her face.
"Did you guys order yet?"
We informed her that, indeed, we had placed our order with her about five minutes prior.
"Oh yeah..you ordered."
Ten or twelve minutes later, a second waitress brought our entire order, all at once - salad and main courses, and auctioned off the entrees to the two of us.
"Who ordered the Crispy Chicken Sandwich?"
The salad, which the kitchen neglected to divide onto two plates as we had requested, was a fresh garden mix with a smattering of croutons. A tasteless breadstick was tossed on top. The dressing was tart. Unfortunately, the salad remained mostly uneaten. We had our main courses to contend with, and the excessive air conditioning threatened to prematurely steal their heat.
The chicken and penne dish was a large portion of pasta in a creamy wine reduction tossed with cubes of seared chicken, broccoli and plum tomatoes. Another bland bread stick garnished this plate, as well.
My Crispy Chipotle Chicken Sandwich was of large size, too. The bread was overstuffed with fried chicken cutlets, a large onion ring, lettuce, tomato and red onion. The chipotle element was in the form of a highly suspect chipotle mayo with no smoked jalapeno flavor present at all. A dill pickle spear and a super-sized amount of wonderfully seasoned french fries competed for plate room with the sandwich.
Our waitress did two entree check-backs on us. I'm convinced she forgot about the first one.
We both agreed the meals were satisfactory and more than appropriately portioned. We were much too full to consider dessert.
Check service was handled efficiently. The two drinks, salad, and two entrees came to a very reasonable 36.00 before gratuity.
In summation, our Uno's experience proved to be precisely what we expected it to be...a filling, large-portioned meal shoddily served in a relaxing and attractive setting. As such, I've chosen to rate this restaurant as "Neutral". Certainly not a place I'd advise anyone to visit for a unique dining experience. But if your looking for a quick, frugal bite to eat and don't mind negotiating the slipshod service...have at it...you could do a lot worse for your dollar.
But, two questions come to mind as I write this review. The first has to do with the news that the newly-built Olive Garden took in a record number of applications when they began hiring this week. I think the number I heard was 1,700 applications for around 125 available positions. With this number of potential service-industry employees scouring the Cape for jobs, how can any restaurant in the city justify the lack of good help at their establishment?
The second question is...what will it take to get an upscale chain to take a chance on our beloved Cape Coral? |
Discuss (2 posts)
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Re:Cape Coral - Uno Chicago Grill
May 22 2008 03:37:24
Thanks for sharing your experience jrzeegrl.
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#20 |
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Cape Coral - Uno Chicago Grill
May 19 2008 12:28:17
This thread discusses the Content article: Cape Coral - Uno Chicago Grill
We went there yesterday. Why is it, that if you decide not to order an appetizer, suddenly the service goes down hill. (one of the reasons we don't order appetizers at a chain restaurant is because 9 times out of 10 the entree arrives within seconds of the appetizer. Bums rush?
I digress. So our experience yesterday was the worst we have had there. I probably would not have even bothered venting here had it been OK yesterday. My gripe was not with the food, but rather with the service.
My husband ordered the vegetable soup and the chicken caesar salad. I ordred their signature chicken meal. His soup came out, he said it wasn't too bad. He was barely finished with his soup when the chicken caesar salad came out. Mind you, there is a lunch size and a dinner size. His first words to me were "I hope this is the lunch size". It was rather small. The waiter also brought a house salad he was going to bring out for me. I didn't order a salad with my meal. He got all confused, didn't know what I ordered, apologized, ran to the kitchen and came back to apologize again "he had placed the incorrect order for me". Mistakes happen. While my husband ate his salad, I ate his breadstick. The waiter then came back to me and asked if I would like something to eat while I waited. I told him I was content eating the breadstick, he again apologized and left. By now my husband was done eating his small salad and then finally my food came out. The waiter told me he would take $5 off the bill. Nice gesture, but I just don't get much enjoyment of having my dinner partner watch me eat. Oh, I forgot to mention at this moment my husband asked for a refill on his iced tea. tick tock tick tock tick tock ( you guessed right, the tea never made it out to him)
The waiter once again came back, asked me if the food was worth the wait. I had to admit it was very tasty, and I would def order it again. I reminded the waiter my husband didn't get his tea, he apologized again, and I asked for the check, who knew when we would see him again.) The tea came, the check came. The waiter reminded me that he took the $5 off the bill. I double checked, he may have taken the $5 from the bill, but he added the $3.99 for the salad that he took back because it wasn't mine! Then I gave my husband the news, he DID get the dinner salad. He was shocked and said although it was good he would hate to see the size of the lunch salad. He did not feel it was a good value. I agreed.
We had to wait for his return to fix the bill. On my way out I thought I saw a manager sitting at the reception area, too bad he was on the phone. I would have liked to have asked if our waiter was new. If he was new, then I would chalk this up to inexperience. If he was not I would have let him know how our service was. Good thing he was on the phone. We'll go back, but will request to sit in the dining room, not the bar.
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