We had heard great things about this spot and were excited to stop in for dinner. I thought it was counter service but they must have just switched it to table service, because they are definitely (hopefully) working through some kinks there. I couldn't believe our experience was at the same restaurant that came so highly recommended to us by others.
I'll start with the good: The food was really, really good. We shared bread and the cacio e pepe and rigatoni vodka and everything was really good. Which is why it's so unfortunate that the service and experience as a whole was so terrible.
We were told it'd be 40 mins wait for a table, so we left our name. We barely had time to walk down the block before we got the table ready text, which we thought was odd but were pleasantly surprised by. The seating situation is not comfortable for table service. Maybe it works for when it was casual counter service, but if I'm sitting down to order and it's taking more time, I expect to be comfortable. The booths looked so uncomfortable, our table was shoved up against the wall at the back by a huge industrial fan by the door to the back area, and the lighting in the nicer front room was so harsh I'm not sure how anyone was sitting up there comfortably. It would have been fine if we weren't there for nearly 2 hours. We were seated by the hostess and 20 minutes later hadn't even been greeted or brought water. We watched other tables who were seated after us have their orders taken, but nothing for us. There seemed to be only one waiter for all the tables on the one side of the restaurant, and he was in no rush to actually get anything done. Finally I think the hostess noticed our frustrated looks and came and brought water, then she came back to take our order. The food took forever to come out. I think it was around 20 more mins to get the bread, and at least 30 more after that for the pasta. By that point we had gotten so hungry we really weren't hungry anymore, which was a shame because the pasta was really good (made for good leftovers later). Nobody came to check in on us after we received the food, and we didn't talk to anyone again until we flagged down the hostess (who seemingly had taken over as our server?) for boxes and the check. We had wanted to order their peach dessert but decided against it as there was nobody to take our order and we didn't want to be there another half hour plus waiting for it. When the check came, the one waiter for the section (the one who I think was supposed to be taking care of us as he was working literally every other table in the section, but hadn't done a thing so the hostess had to take over) brought the check and it was just weird, there was no sorry for the wait or sorry that your servicing was a bit odd being served by the hostess. We were so glad to be out of there and wished we had done take out or gone somewhere else, it wasted a huge chunk of our Friday night sitting there so uncomfortable just waiting and waiting.
I think we'd be willing to give this place another chance based on the food alone, but it doesn't seem our experience was unusual since they've changed to table service based on other reviews I've seen, so they'd need to change something majorly for us to want to do that. I would recommend this place for the food, but the experience kind of ruined my ability to do that at this time. read more