Our experience at Babbo has been generally positive. Good Italian (ok Americanized Italian) food at reasonable prices. This review is directed at management and owners. We came in tonight (a Thursday) for dinner at the bar. Took 10 minutes to get a bar seat; a table for two was going to take 45 minutes. It took another 10 minutes for the lone bartender to get to us and another 10 minutes to get a glass of wine and a margarita. Ten minutes later we were able to order. More than 20 minutes later we did not have our appetizer. It came at about the 30 minute mark. At the 60 minute mark we did not have our food and no assurance that it would be coming soon. Eventually we gave up, paid our bill and left.
Two things are important here. First, the staff was working incredibly hard. There was only one bartender. There should have been at least two. The lone bartender worked very hard to serve bar customers and the restaurant as a whole, but he had no support. Second, the manager on duty explained to us that they were sharing staff with a newly opened restaurant. This was a serious error. They should have opened the new restaurant with a soft opening rather than handicapping an existing good store.
We will return and give Babbo another chance, but not for awhile.