I don't know that I'd describe Lino's as legendary based of my experience, but historic is certainly viable.
On my singular dining experience here, I gathered that this is a place everyone in Rockford has been to, and for the most part, a place that they've been going to since the beginning of time. They have an auxiliary parking area due to their popularity and the building is giant with a big 'ol fountain inside and an elevator leading to the basement with a loooong and winding hallway to various banquet areas.
My dining experience consisted of the banquet service, not the standard menu, so take my review of what I believe to be a not-very-typical Lino's dining experience for what it's worth, as banquet food is (and correct me if I'm wrong) usually notoriously bad, or at least sub-par. For me, and the rest of my Lino's veteran-filled table, the dining experience fell right in line with sub-par... but I still gotta give mad respect for a place that's been doing what they do for as long as Lino's has.
The banquet service wasn't very cordial and the servers seemed moderately to decently annoyed with most of the dining party, especially those who tried to make any changes to dishes, which as a former server, I totally understand. They were made to wear what looked like medieval French maid costumes (if you can even picture that) and the basement was about 5000 degrees with zero air circulation.
The food was, er, uhm, well... I'm trying not to sound harsh but the only word that keeps coming to mind is 'regrettable'. Soup was good, salad was fine, garlic bread was decent-ish, pizza bread was kind of lame and very dry, plain pasta w/ marinara was fine, but defo something you could have whipped up at home and the sauce was the same, almost neon, bright red color as ketchup. Odd.
Everyone at the table who ordered the eggplant parmigiana (myself and 3 others) converged and discussed, as we were all very skeptical as to whether there was actually any eggplant in the dish. Lots of sauce, tons of cheese, plenty of bread crumb bits, but no eggplant to be seen, felt or tasted. If there was any eggplant, it must have been sliced paper thin and caked in breading, then smothered and drowned in cheese and sauce. Digestion pains were imminent and almost immediate.
I liked the spumoni ice cream scoop with the little pistachio bits in it, though mine was freckled with freezer burn (still tasted just fine) and not a huge deal but still worth noting is that it was a grey-ish-brown color, something I've never seen with spumoni before.
I would go back to give the regular menu a fair try, but as it stands, I wasn't very impressed by my first impression of Lino's (banquet dining), or the following tummy ache. read more