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| - My mother received a coupon and wanted to try Il Vinaio before a show at the Mesa Arts Center. I had only been for dinner there once before a couple of years ago, and remembered that the service was so deplorable that we were worried that our host was embarrassed to have brought us there. But the restaurant was new and I understand that it takes time to work out the kinks. Turned out that this particular kink has not yet been untwisted.
The service is incongruent to the nice atmosphere and good menu. It's not just that the servers dress in jeans, tennis shoes and, I think, t-shirts, but that the quality of the work revealed the absence of proper training. Ex: no tray-jack, just set the entire large tray directly on our table, serving entrees while all of the appetizer and salad plates were still uncleared, never removing dinner plates, (we had to push the empty plates aside to do the check), no bussers which decreased the amount of time we saw our server and greatly contributed to poor service.
"Hi guys. My name is N_____. Let me tell you guys about the special." And then she literally began the description with, "It comes with...." She said the entire special backwards so that we had to wait until the end to know what the entree actually was! It went like this," It comes with X and Y over some (pasta?) and then you can get either A or B (fish or chicken maybe)." The way she told it was impossible to get a visual and I was so distracted by the delivery that I couldn't remember what the special was 10 seconds after she "described" it. Oh goodness.
I ordered from an exciting gluten-free menu, which is a rare treat. I chose the braised lamb ragu with pappardelle pasta. My daughter wanted the same dish which was on the regular menu. However she told the server that she would go ahead and get the gluten-free as well, in order "to make sure the [identical] dishes don't get mixed up." When the meals arrived, the lamb ragu was over CAPELLINI. When I told the server, she unapologetically said, "Oh, angel hair is the only gluten free pasta we have". I told her that my daughter never would have ordered the lamb ragu in gluten-free had she known. Our server didn't do anything with this piece of information to satisfy the problem. This would have been a good time for her to have told the owner that his/her error on the menu had caused two guests disappointment. Maybe at Il Vinaio they think, "Ahh, pasta is pasta. Who cares what shape it's in?" Uh....we do!
Important note: Ineptitude aside, the lamb ragu was DELICIOUS.
However my father, who just had dental surgery, ordered tomato soup as his entree along with a sweet potato side. I don't believe that the same person who made the lamb ragu could possibly have made that soup. It was very watery and barely tasted of tomato. Dad's incredulity that it was being passed off as tomato soup caused him to want everyone at the table to try it. And unfortunately for him, the sweet potato mash was not sweet as sweet potatoes usually are. After complaining about the soup, he received the black bean soup. The beans were undercooked, thus hard and unchewable for him. To top it all off, he had ordered an O'Douls over a half hour prior and had given up on it. In our attempt to assuage his suffering, we reminded the server who then brought it.
When she brought the bill, I asked if she had taken anything off for not serving papardelle as the menu said. She replied, "I already took off his soup, sweet potatoes and O'Douls". I reminded her that the beer was 30 minutes late, and that the food he ordered was not good. I should have told her that in the restaurant business, once a drink takes 20 minutes to get to a guest, you give it to him with a sincere apology and it's comped. And when your guests find your food inedible, of course you do not charge them for that either. Neither of which is a favor.
I then talked to the owner about the menu item switch. She apologized for it. I told her that I didn't mind for myself since I'm just glad to get a good GF meal, but that something ought to be taken off of my daughter's entree since she never would have ordered the dish had she known that it was not as described. The owner did absolutely nothing except to apologize again. I was stunned by the owner's inaction. She probably figured we were never coming back so why compensate for that particular error. If that was her thinking, she assessed the situation incorrectly. It's so hard to find a good gluten-free meal that I would definitely have gone again.
I noticed a lively bar with about 10 seats. Il Vinaio is probably great for a drink and some socializing at the bar. Also I would mention the GF menu to anyone needing to follow that diet. But I offer a warning about the service. The establishment is too nice and has too much going for it for the owners to overlook this shortcoming.
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