buca di beppo italian restaurant

hit in the head with a large glass tumbler andwaiterdoesn't stop!. bad experience during christmas season. ordered salad and 2 entrees. our server brought out small salad plates. a bit later a server brought out our entrees. i asked why we hadn't got the salad first. the server shrugged and walked off. about 10 minutes later ourwaiterarrived with the salad and told us "salad bar is backed up", dropped the salad and left. while trying to eat our dinner on the tiny plates, because ourwaiterwas nowhere to be found, anotherwaiterpassed our table with a giant stack of dirty dishes. one of the top goblets flew off and struck my daughter in the head. thewaiterdidn't even stop! the manager came over when she heard all the uproar, and we were offered a free dessert for our inconvenience. horrible experience! worst restaurant experience ever!

horrible service. i had never been to bucca before and was so excited to try it. everything on the menu looked great! but, the evening was ruined due to awaiterwith a horrible attitude. he seemed distracted when we were ordering and kept looking away as we were talking. he did not take us seriously (we are 17/18 year old girls) and had a rude tone. he also seemed very annoyed at our method of payment as well. we ordered our food and ourwaitercame back 10 minutes later and told us the restaurant had to be shut down due to plumbing issues....gross! he gave us the option to get carry out, but we discussed it and decided we didn't want to give our money to a place like this. not going back! too bad....it sounded so good.

in the isle. last saturday, was our first time there. great location, on the country club plaza. we made reservations online. they seated us 20 minutes late. we did not ask to sit in the bar, but with a table of 10, we landed there. they put a couple of tables together, but three of our chairs were still in main exit isle. after 15 minutes, many people went by exiting and bumped our chairs. (including one of those wide baby strollers.) finally, two of our party moved out of the isle, and made all the people in the booth scoot together to accommodate them. ourwaiterdisappeared and seemed unaware of the problem. maybe thewaiterhad a couple of rooms to wait on? certainly none of management was around and aware. two of us remained in the isle with chairs like those that you sit in on your patio. they are rod iron and hard. the appetizers did not come until after our main menu items. they took the appetizers off our bill, and we had an online coupon that helped. they should have asked us if we wanted to sit in the bar. we had a baby with us, and were celebrating my daughter's birthday. they should have told us that with a party of 10 they could not handle it. they have limited seating. in the place, the other tables i saw seemed to be for 4 to 6 parties. the lasagna was acceptable; the other pasta dishes were medium quality at best. fazzoli's seemed better! certainly cheaper. we left without desert. the bar was loud, our butts were tried of the chairs, and the booth was crowded and hot.

poor service ruins whole dining experience. my family and i first visited this location on august 4, 2012. my husband made a reservation for a table for 4 at 7:00pm. we arrived early and sent our two teen boys in ahead of us as they move faster than we do and we noticed a line forming so we wanted to make sure we got a table instead of a booth. my sons were seated and asked if we could switch from the booth they were seating us at to a table since i'm a bigger girl and booths tend to be uncomfortable for me. they were told no. my husband and i walked in about 2 minutes after the boys had been seated and again asked if we could switch to the table across from our booth, it sat 4 as did the booth so we figured it was no big deal and since we requested a table when we made our reservation. we were told that it would be checked into (don't know if it ever was but neither us nor the server brought it up again). we put in our drink order and the server returned with the drinks and bread. she poured olive oil and balsamic into a bowl without a word and disappeared. when she returned she took our order and we asked for a new plate of olive oil since none of us like balsamic very well. she didn't bring us a new plate till the food came out. we also had no plates to put our bread on. we ordered an appetizer, two entrees and a side for 4 of us to share.
the food came out before the app. we again had to wait for dinner plates while our food was getting cold in front of us. then when our side finally arrived it was over cooked (my husband had ordered the italian sausage and peppers to share with my son but it had been cooked into leather as though it had been microwaved). i asked our server for extra napkins and she never brought them, she was also very slow/inattentive on bringing drink refills. our entrees were chicken carbonara (very good), lasagna (pretty mediocre) and for the app we got the trio. the trio was disappointing for the cost, two huge slabs of overly fried mozzarella, only 4 stuffed mushrooms and what seemed like a pound of "shredded" deep fried calamari, totally not worth the $20 price tag.
when my husband complained that the sausage was over cooked our server looked dumbstruck, stood there for a second and then walked away while mumbling something that sounded like "go get my manager", the manager came and was very nice and took the sausage off the bill. our server left the bill but it was the manager that bagged up our leftovers, the server came back and took our credit card and we were finally able to pay & leave.
also as a side note the table we asked to have was empty till about 15 minutes before we left. we overheard the 4 women talking about how they were so happy they were able to get a table after a brief wait, i assumed that meant they had no reservation and that there had been no reason we couldn't have been seated there.
my husband and i have both worked in restaurants as servers, cooks and management so we tend to be more patient than the average diner but we also have very reasonable expectations and they were far from met on this visit. honestly i've been to buca in several cities and this was by far the worst experience i'd ever had. i genuinely hoped it was a fluke.
i posted a review on yelp about our experience and received emails from both the assistant general manager and another manager. they explained to me that they were disappointed that we had had a bad experience but that it was not the norm for them. they sent me a $50 gift certificate and many apologies.
my husband and i decided to use our gift card on october 7th, 2012 as we would again be in the area running errands (roseville is about 45-60 mins from our home). once again we called and made a reservation for a table for two at 7:45. we walked in a couple of minutes late but it seemed to be no big deal as the place appeared half empty, mind you it was almost 8pm on a sunday night so this wasn’t unexpected.
after some confusion as to where to put us we were seated at a booth/table and given our menus. it took 10-15 for ourwaiterto stop at our table just to get our drink order. he came empty handed, no bread. we had already had more than enough time to choose our food so we ordered drinks, an appetizer and our entrees all at once and presented him with our gift certificate at the same time as per the “instructions” on the card.
ourwaiterbrought our drinks but still no bread. about 15-20 minutes later our appetizer arrived via a different waiter. while we were eating the app, my husband finished his drink but no one ever came refill it. mind you we still had not received any bread, all the tables around us had bread but we did not. approximately 25 minutes after the app had been delivered my husband’s entrée arrived. he had ordered a salad as an entrée with a side of spaghetti marinara. only the salad arrived, again via a different waiter. may i add that at this point we had been seated for 40-45 minutes, had already run out of one drink and still had no bread. we hadn’t seen our actualwaiterin at least 30 minutes. ourwaiterfinally swung by our table to get a refill for my husband, i quickly asked him for bread and how much longer would it be before my entrée arrived. i was told that he thought it would be out soon.
when ourwaiterfinally brought us bread it was cold. i again asked about my entrée. he again told me that it would be out soon. i told my husband to stop waiting for my entrée (he was politely waiting to start eating until i also had my food) since my food was “on its way”. by the time my husband had finished his salad/entrée my food had still not arrived so when i saw ourwaiterwalking through the room i signaled him and requested that my food and my husband’s side of spaghetti be wrapped up “to go” because i had a long ride ahead of me and i had already been in the restaurant over an hour. i was hungry and tired, it was time to leave. thewaiterwas all apologies again but i was past the point of listening to excuses and just wanted to go home. it took another 10 minutes for us to get our bag of boxed up food, though he was kind enough to bring our bill as well. he then walked away without waiting for our payment. upon checking the bill we realized he had not applied the $50 gift cert. to it. my husband stood up to go find thewaiterto fix the bill and i went to go sit in the car. the bill was adjusted and we went home.
this was honestly the first time in my life that i walked out of a restaurant without having eaten a single bite of my entrée. this was also the first time in mine or my husband’s lives that we did not tip the waiter….we always tip and almost always tip very generously. to say that i was disappointed that the service was horrible yet a second time would be a gross understatement.

banquet disaster. in general i do not complain, but in this case i feel that i must. my banquet experience at buca di beppo in roseville, was terrible. i made reservations for my son's rehearsal dinner for 27 people. i made the reservations 5 days in advance. i communicated with the sales person at least 4 times before our dinner to make sure everything was okay. our reservations were set for 5pm sharp, and i was told if we were late our space would be cancelled. i arrived at the restaurant at 4:47pm, ahead of everyone else to make sure everything was okay. i told the girl at the front desk, who i was, and that i was here for the crawford rehearsal dinner. i was told that the room was not ready yet but that it was currently being setup. people from my party kept coming in, filling up the waiting area. it got really crowed in there. we did not get access to the room until 5:34pm. this was very embarrassing for me. during the wait nobody kept me informed. i approached the girl twice to ask if the room was ready yet. i felt completely ignored.

when the food was being served, there was not enough bread. i told a waiter, he left, and nothing was done. when the chicken parmigiana was served, there were not enough pieces for the table so i told a differentwaiterthat we were short. i was told that he would check our order. he never came back and again, nothing was done. not once, was i ever asked if everything was okay.

in conclusion, this was the most impersonal treatment that i have ever received at any restaurant in my life. our reserved room was not ready on time, which was very uncomfortable. there was not enough food, and when i complained, i was ignored. this experience was a total embarrassment for me in front of my family and my new in-laws. i feel that it is my responsibility to warn other people so that they can be spared this humiliation.