| rev:text
| - I have to admit, I am using the Yelp star rating less and less - and the Italian Grotto is a perfect example of why.
When in Scottsdale a few weeks ago I asked a couple long time residents working at Don & Charlies where else they suggest going for dinner when I was coming back in a couple weeks with my wife. 2 of the 3 mentioned the Italian Grotto as another old school Scottsdale place with local flavor and good food.
Checking the Yelp reviews it seems a lot of people have bad service. What I have found is that I rarely get bad service, so I always discount those reviews. So I went ahead and made a reservation for the following Saturday night after our Spring training game. I am glad I did.
In summary - we were seated at the time of our reservation, the waiter was great (well spoken, friendly, informative, and prompt), our table was good, the food/wine was very good, and the prices fairly reasonable. I would recommend this place, except maybe during the 3rd weekend of Spring Training (the busiest weekend).
More details follow ...
Due to an incident my wife had at the ball game, I called in the afternoon and asked if we could move the reservation back from 7:00 to 8:00 pm - the gruff sounding owner answered and took care of it. We showed up at 7:45 to find a line of people waiting. I slipped past them and waited patiently for someone to assist me - they were very busy so it took a few minutes. Finally the owner came by, I mentioned the reservation, and he confirmed we would be seated shortly. Meanwhile several people in line were glaring at me and made comments to my wife about me "cutting in line".
The owner was seating the first family in line when 3 guys brushed past everyone, walked in, looked around, and sat at an empty table by the bar area. When the owner saw that he asked them to move since the table was for people waiting in line. We could see the discussion from the door and the entitled young men were not leaving easily. The men finally got up and stood in the bar area right by the same table.
Starting to see a trend here?
A few minutes later the owner motioned to the next couple in line and seated them at that table, He then motioned to us and sat us in a booth nearby. As we were being seated, there were more comments from those waiting in line who had no reservations - "how come they got a table", etc. People - make a f'ing reservation!
From our small booth we could see the front dining room and bar area as well as into the back dining room. The place was packed with every table filled. Service was humming and our waiter gave us the proper amount of attention. We could see the 3 guys who were evicted from the table they illegally claimed - they were standing right next to the table and bumping the woman who was seated at the table. She eventually moved to the other side of the table. There were many other examples of poor behavior by customers that I won't bother you with.
Our waiter gave us recommendations on the wine and food - we listed to some of them and were not disappointed. The food we got was delicious. The wine was perfect. The service was good. The waiter answered all of our questions and was quite helpful.
At the end of the night I showed him my wallet - a cool one my wife found in NY years ago that has an old picture of downtown Scottsdale. Our waiter identified the buildings on it for us and pointed out that the edge of the restaurant was right at the edge of the picture. He knew the area well and grew up around there.
So in summary, it would have been a wonderful night if it weren't for the entitled people who came to Scottsdale for Spring training that think they can do what they want, eat at busy restaurants with out reservations, and be rude to others because as one guy that night put it "I spent over $1000 to come here for the weekend."
So I would highly recommend coming here - I would just avoid the middle of March - when to bozos come out to play.
I rate the 4.5 stars - rounding up to 5 to slightly counteract the "bad service" reviews by people who seem to attract bad service.
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