We chose L&B Spumoni Gardens because of the strong reviews and because it seemed to be one of the…read moremore popular places in the area. Unfortunately, our experience was extremely disappointing.
We ordered a glass of wine, a beer, an arugula salad, and our main food order. Everything started out fine, and the salad came without a problem. But then we waited. And waited.
About 30 minutes after we had ordered, I asked our waiter where our food was. He apologized and admitted that he had forgotten to put the order in. By that point, we had already watched other tables receive their food, including people who had arrived well after us.
We continued waiting, and after roughly 40 minutes or more, our food still had not arrived. At that point, the dining experience was already ruined and we decided to leave. Ironically, just as we were getting ready to go, the food finally started coming out. I told them we no longer wanted it.
The waiter did apologize again and offered us a pizza to take with us, which I assume was complimentary, but by then we were simply ready to leave.
Even paying the bill became unnecessarily drawn out. We were charged the full amount for the salad, beer, and wine. I sat with a $50 bill ready to pay, was handed the check, and then ended up standing around for another five minutes waiting for someone to actually take the money. There was no apology from the person handling the payment.
I understand that mistakes happen, and I appreciated that our waiter admitted he had forgotten to place the order. But when a restaurant makes that kind of mistake, the recovery matters. After waiting that long, watching later-arriving customers get served, and then having difficulty simply paying and leaving, an apology and a pizza at the very end didn't really fix the experience.
Unfortunately, based on this visit, I can't say the service lived up to the restaurant's reputation.