Okay, so we're driving through the fairly non-touristy and workaday town of Poggibonsi, Italy in…read moresearch of lunch (we were considering pizza al taglio as our best and most likely option) when what should we come upon but the "1950 American Diner," on Thanksgiving Day no less. We took it as a sign and decided we had to stop. The inside is surreal. U.S. flags, state license plates, hubcaps, neon everywhere, Marilyn Monroe in the foyer. Typical old-style diner seats, even a pinball machine in the corner. This place makes an Elvis shake (yah, with peanut butter and banana) and was serving up a special Thanksgiving meal today - we decided to go for burgers and shakes instead and were not disappointed. My middle boy had the 1950 DOC burger; I got the Juicy Lucy (purportedly a well known recipe from Minnesota - you learn something new everyday)... Definitely worth a stop if you happen to be wandering the outskirts of Poggibonsi and have been subsisting on pizza and gelato for a week or two...

This place is posted twice. My review is published under:…read morehttp://www.yelp.com/biz/surfer-joe-livorno-2

Good service, nice sized portions.read more

We tried to eat here but couldn't get service waited over twenty minutes no acknowledgements…read moreanything. A lot of looks though. Best I can think while American we look very much like our heritage German. Maybe they are xenophobic hate Germans and or Americans. Boycott them now stop the hate

Incredible nice restaurant. Seafood is just gorgious, and the lady running the restaurant is really…read morenice. It's not the cheapest but still worth every cent! We'll be back, for sure

Meh. We've had better. With a dozen Oceanside coffee shops in walking distance, there isn't a big…read moreappeal to this place. We got a coffee, a dessert, and an aperitif. We tried to sit near the ocean but they didn't let us, saying it was for diners only. However the place was 2/3 empty (and still is). They told us we could sit in the back near the street. The wait staff is young and inexperienced. The "torta di Nonna" was - and I quote - "tasteless - empty calories without the advantage of taste". And the lady reporting this is actually an Italian Nonna. So, she has the right to speak to the tastiness of "Nonna cake". ;) The location is prime but there are no direct ocean views, decreasing the appeal considerably in my opinion. There is a significant amount of street noise here. Also smokers seem to enjoy puffing up a storm outside, so if you don't enjoy secondhand smoke you may not enjoy this spot as much. Technically this may not be allowed, I'm not sure if the no smoking rules enacted in Italy apply to outdoor seating. Our barista was very good and a super nice guy though. So one extra star for his service. These Oceanside cafes in Livorno are typically paired with another one next door. The one next to this one is "Il Delfino". I'm curious to give that one a try next time.

The atmosphere of the place actually looks great and inviting. When we went there were lots of…read morepeople on the patio. This tricked us into taking a seat there. What we realized an hour after still waiting on our food is that the quantity of visitors was strictly due to the fact that the turnaround time is incredibly slow. It took a sold 70 minutes for meal to arrive. Most customers were sitting and waiting either for their food, drink, or to pay. I had ordered fish. It turned out to be breaded and fried and served with chickpeas. Do you guys know how tasteless chickpeas are? The menu had indicated that the dish was salt fried and served with peas, so in some sense it was right on, though I was envisioning a beautiful piece of fish with green peas. The quality and taste of this particular dish were just horrendous. Next, the service was incredibly slow. Drinks were brought out by waiters one at a time. So a waiter would get your order (example coke and a beer for my partner), then the waiter went into the restaurant, poured the coke, came out with your coke, then went back in for that beer that your partner asked for. Anyways - it is rare that I write a negative review, but this is it. The reson for the 2 stars: location is awesome, you can sit nicely outside and the beer was alright.

A small family run restaurant located in the non-central Piazza Mazzini that we discovered almost…read moreby mistake while walking along the seaside of Livorno on the way to the port. Even the look from the outside is not the best, but for some reason we felt we wanted to try it and got a table outside. There's no patio, nor cover, but simply a few tables on the footpath an without any kind of fence around. Food choice wasn't very large either, but there were all local specialties including the famous "cacciucco" that is typical of Livorno. Well, despite the not-so-great look, food quality was great, so much that we returned once again during our stay in Livorno to enjoy some more fish and sea-food with Tuscan wine. If you happen to be in Livorno, give it a try!