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| - My husband and I love this place for dinner. However, when I go here for lunch I have to adjust my expectations.
I drink wine with my meals and have gotten several musty/old glasses of wine here. The staff does not keep track of how long the wine bottles are open - they just glug them right into your glass. I have had dried bits of cork in my glass, strings of sediment, and undrinkable glasses. It is up to the customer to ask the server for a glass from a new bottle. My tastebuds are generally frazzled by this time so I just ask for "something that hasn't been opened yet". This totally derails the experience of a new-found wine.
The food is good - the menu is SO varied that Zeppes doesn't seem to specialize in any one type of cuisine - even though one would expect down-home Italian family recipes.
The waitstaff is like a family - which is sometimes a good thing - sometimes not. On my last visit at lunch, my waitress had her pre-teen daughter helping her. The mini-waitress did a great job, however when I commended her, I got a sob-story from her mother. The daughter was working so she could afford a field trip for school. I literally sat through a half-hour long diatribe of how the father had abandoned her and she was trying to raise $xx.xx to go on some field trip. I have always been a generous tipper, especially with this particular waitress. Why do I need to listen to this while I'm relaxing at lunch? And why didn't this waitress apply some of my previous 40% tips to her daughter's educational enrichment?
Beyond that, the atmosphere is romantic, the service is personal, the pizza and calzones are amazing! The beer selection is lacking, the wine list appears to be better than it is because of freshness issues, and the salads/Italian dressing/garlic rolls are outstanding!
The desserts appear to be store-bought rather than homemade (although they are good). The Limoncello is a sweet knock-off of the strong, lovely treat that many Italians keep in the freezer to serve at home. Sadly I bragged about Limoncello to my newbie husband. We should have purchased a bottle at the liquor store.
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