Great Food! But they hate Groupon!
FOOD
so my friend had this groupon and asked if I wanted to join.
The bread wasn't to my liking. It was really dry and crumbly. I heard however the Italians like it this way. Is that true?
The waitress didn't give us the oil and vinegar and we had to ask for it.
We had the Mussels Marinara - $10.00. P.E.I. mussels, steamed in a white wine, and garlic spicy tomato marinara sauce. It was delicious. The tomatoe sauce was perfect and mussel helping was generous for 2 two people.
We then had the Calabrese Pizza- $13.00 with Tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, red peppers, hot salami and black olives. I honestly couldn't believe how great the pizza tasted. The combination of toppings were complemented each other and it was just a burst of happiness in my mouth.
We also shared the Spaghetti Calabrese - $15.00 which was spaghetti in a light tomato basil sauce with sliced italian sausage. This was equally as good and I was just in heaven.
The total came to $38 before taxes.
ENVIRONMENT
Driving up to the place seemed so odd. The restaurant looked so out of place as it looked like it was in the middle of all these manufacturer stores and it was in the middle of no where.
Walking inside however, it seemed like we were walking into a new world. It was dimly lit and there were different sections of the restaurant.
The washrooms even had little couches inside each stall (I have no idea why). It was probably to imitate an upper class feel.
WAIT STAFF
Now here is where the restaurant lost its 1 star. When we first got in, they were going to seat us next to the door when the restaurant had tons of other space. I understand that most people we sitting in that area but please don't put us right next to the entrance. That's just rude. We asked to sit next to the section where most people were sitting. They accomodated us (well they should because there were other people sitting there too).
The waitress was really helpful in deciding what we should order. We really enjoyed our meal. She even complimented me saying I had a nice spirit. At that point, I was good to give her a massive tip. HA.
Then when our bill came and we gave her the groupon, she looked at us in disbelief in the sense of "how could you use this here?". I was stunned. She took the groupon coupon and left without a word or eye contact with us. She gave us the bill without even looking at us and told us we had to pay the taxes and gruitity from out of pocket because we didn't make the $45 groupon amount.
I was in complete shock. She was so great to us before and all of a sudden she became so cold. I understand we were using a groupon but I really enjoyed the place so much that I would have gladly gone back w/o a groupon. And isn't that the purpose of groupon? to introduce new customers to the restaurant? I honestly would have never found this place because it's in the middle of no where and hidden between all these manufcaturing and retail stores. And I was going to give her a nice tip too so I'm not sure why she had this preconceived notion that well...I'm not exactly sure what she was thinking.
We still gave her a decent tip because our meal was great but I left with a sour taste.