Zio Paolo's Trattoria

On February 14th, 2014 my boyfriend and I showed up for our 7:30 pm reservation, at 7:15 pm and we were seated right away. We sat for 10 min before the bus boy filled our water glasses, and maybe another 5-10 before our waitress dropped off two napkins on her way past the table. Finally another 5 min after that she came to take our drink order. I would love to tell you what her name was -- but there was no introduction. While she was at the table taking our drink order we also ordered our appetizers as well as our meal, just in case we didn't see her again. My boyfriend ordered boneless buffalo wings, and I ordered the stuffed mushroom caps for our appetizers, for dinner he ordered the baked stuff haddock Maria, and I ordered the chicken tortellini. We had no idea there were even specials that night until he ordered his haddock and she questioned which one he wanted. We waited 20 more minutes to get our appetizers, and never saw the waitress again until about 35 - 40 min later when our meals came out ICE COLD. I ate a bite of tortellini and my boyfriend had one bite of mashed potato's AND THEY COULD HAVE JUST CAME OUT OF A FRIDGE! The waitress, busboy, and even the manager (who learned was her later on) WALKED by us with full plates of food. Finally the waitress saw the look on my face from the table diagonal from us and said to them "I think they need something hold on" We then told her that everything was COLD. She asked us if we wanted her to WRAP it up. Ridiculous, why would I want to go home and wrap up a meal that I went out to eat for!? She cleared the meals when we told her that we did not want to take them home, leaving the mushroom appetizer that I did not finish so I could save room for my dinner (those were very good though) -- she was suppose to be bringing me a box to box those up, which never happened. When she came back with the bill she told us that "the best I can do is take one meal off" -- again totally unacceptable when NEITHER one of us ate ANYTHING of our meal. She told us that the manager said that was all she could do. We asked to speak with a manager and she said we could not because she was on the phone. My boyfriend told her that she better get her off the phone because we were not paying for things that we did not even touch. Finally about 10 min later the manager (no idea what her name is either because she didn't introduce herself -- strange) and told us that she couldn't take it off because we ate most of it -- in a 5 minute time span that seems unlikely. She also stated that we didn't want it to go so it was thrown out, WHY would we want COLD food to go home with us to warm up on our own when we CAME OUT TO EAT. She again said all she could do was take off one meal. We told her that we were not paying for any meals because they were untouched. But said we would pay for the appetizers (still sitting on the table with only two mushrooms gone), and drinks. Finally she took both meals we did end up paying for the appetizers, but feel that customer service we received was unacceptable. How can you treat customers like that???? We never should have had to fight to get meals taken off - most restaurants wouldn't even question it. The lack of attention and the fact we were pretty much blamed is totally ridiculous. She did offer us a $25 gift certificate in case we ever wanted to come back but we declined because I would NEVER want to come back there again. We are spreading the word, and making sure everyone we know what our experience was like there. And everyone we have talked to has said that your establishment has gone down the drain in the past few years, and they won't go to any of your restaurants anymore. I do not want any kind of gift certificate to make this right.... I waited some time to write anything because I figured it would pass, but almost a week later and I am still disgusted.
Jun 26th, 2014

Apr 10th, 2012

Jul 27th, 2004