Buona (Pleasant Prairie)
7523 115th AvenuePleasant Prairie, Wisconsin isn’t Chicago. But I guess it’s close enough.
We had quite a weekend in Pleasant Prairie last week for the Southport Summer Classic figure skating competition at the Pleasant Prairie Rec Plex.
Thursday we were subjected to an absolutely ridiculous six hour delay due to the ice melting. Friday L had a rough day in her event.
We needed to get L away from the Rec Plex for a while so we took her to the Pleasant Prairie Premium Outlets then we all went to lunch at Chick-Fil-A. I didn’t want Chick-Fil-A so I held out.
The kids wanted to go back to the Rec Plex after we ate lunch because they still had friends they wanted to see skate. It was also good for L to go back to the rink and not dwell on what happened earlier in the day.
J was pretty tired though and asked to go back to the hotel. We were staying pretty close so that wasn’t a big deal. B actually wanted to go back to the outlet mall to get a new pair of shoes. We dropped L off, got B’s shoes, dropped J at the hotel, then B and I headed back to the rink.
I wasn’t comfortable leaving B at the rink. He’s still pretty young and sometimes I just have to redirect him away from people so he doesn’t wear out his welcome. I’m pretty used to eating only one meal a day at work so I just looked at this like a work day.
We left the rink around 8:00 and headed back to the hotel. I asked everyone if they were hungry. My plan was pizza if someone else was hungry or Italian beef if it was just me.
It was just me.
I headed to the Buona on the corner of 115th Avenue and 75th Street in Pleasant Prairie. The Chicago based chain shares a building with another Chicago based chain (and owned by the same people) The Original Rainbow Cone. The building was built just a few years ago just east of the I-94 interchange.
The restaurant was pretty busy but it was 8:00 PM on a Friday night. The ice cream part of the shop was a little more busy than the restaurant but they share a parking lot and a dining room so it was kind of deceiving.
You can order either via kiosk or at a counter. The kiosks are on the divider between the entryway and the dining room as you walk in.
If you’re not a kiosk person, the order counter is just a few steps away. Menus are on the back of the registers which make them easy to read.
I put in my usual order for an Italian Beef Combo with hot peppers and baptized plus an order of fries and a drink. The cost was right around $18 because I went with the large sandwich. I hadn’t eaten so I was pretty hungry.
I grabbed a number and put that in to the kiosk so they could find me. Buona isn’t fast food so you don’t get the food right as you order. You take the number and someone brings it to your table. This whole process made things much more of a frustration than it needed to be on my last trip to a Buona in Flossmoor, IL.
The dining room looks exactly like the dining room at pretty much every other Buona I’ve been to. Laminate floors and orange highlights dominate the room. Like I mentioned earlier, the dining room was pretty full and I didn’t want to take up a four top. I thought about one of the rails but I would have taken the one looking out the window and there was already a group there. I just slunk in to a small two person booth along the wall that separates restaurant from the ice cream shop.
It only took a few minutes for someone to come out of the kitchen with a tray of food. So far, so good.
I picked the fries up first because I like to give the sandwich a bit to marinate. The fries are fine. I’ve written about this before. They’re just boring and uninspired. The best Chicago beef spots have greasy hand cut fries. Al’s does and that’s why I love Al’s so much. Like Portillo’s, Buona just goes with a boring, frozen crinkle cut fry. They’re fine. I still order them every time and still eat all of them.
Now the beef. It takes a lot for me to be disappointed in a beef…but buckle up…this is gonna be a ride.
I snapped this picture when I was ordering because I was going to make some stupid condescending statement like “Why would you even order a beef if you didn’t get it baptised and hot?” I’m glad I took the picture though.
I unwrapped the beef and noticed right away, there were no hot peppers. Well, damn. I was really craving that. It was fine though. I was hungry so I just picked it up and took a bite. I should have known something was off when I picked the sandwich up and it didn’t fall apart in my hand. Yup, it wasn’t dipped either. The bun was dry. Neither of my “upgrades” got to the kitchen apparently. It was fine. I was hungry and tired and it had just been a long day. I decided just to eat it. The sliced beef is really tasty and the Italian sausage buried underneath it did provide a ton of flavor and a little bit of spiciness. It was by far not the best Italian beef I’ve ever had but it was still better than Chick-Fil-A.
So..yeah. Not the best Buona experience I’ve ever had. Buona is still one of my favorite Italian beef places and I’m still really excited when I find one in whatever city we’re traveling to. Mistakes happen. It’s fine. It won’t affect my decision on whether or not to eat at a Buona in the future. Hell, I’ll probably try again next summer when we’re in Pleasant Prairie and I’ll write a new blog post about how they nailed it.
SW Michigan Dining 