If a restaurant is going to act like it's doing its customers a favour by bothering to serve them, then the food had better be out of this world. Sorry, La Bettola, your food isn't anything special. Here's the rundown of our unpleasant Friday lunch experience:
1. Our server was impatient and unfriendly. She took my food order and then half-turned away to leave and I had to catch her attention again to tell her what I wanted to drink.
2. They serve pizzas whole. You'd think they could do customers the courtesy of cutting the pizza into manageable portions, or even offering to do so after it's been brought out, but no. When my colleague asked if she could have her pizza cut, the server responded "you can do it yourself; that's why we provide steak knives." Steak knives. Would it kill them to have a pizza cutter on hand? Apparently so.
3. They don't split bills. The best they'll do is let everyone at the table pay their portion separately after we've done our own calculations.
We were getting ready to leave the infamous 1-cent tip in protest of exceptionally poor customer service (well, 5-cent tip now that pennies are obselete), but...
4. Gratuities are included on the bill! Which explains the rudeness I suppose. Why try when you're automatically guaranteed a tip just for showing up.
Inexplicably, the place was packed. I guess there are a lot of clueless yuppies out there who think poor customer service and inflated prices are a sign of culinary genius. I won't be going back - there are plenty of other places to eat downtown.