Product Of Italy Minchinbury — Restaurant in Sydney

BUYER BEWARE: Save yourselves the stress and hassle. Order catering elsewhere.

Placed a "catering" order for 2 large trays of pasta (Spaghetti Bolognese and Penne Carbonara) as Product of Italy was recommended by a family member. After the order did not arrive as scheduled at 12pm for our lunchtime event, I phoned the store at 12:15pm to ask for an update. The gentleman who answered my call was apologetic in the first instance and informed me the store didn't do deliveries. I told him that i was looking at my online order receipt which clearly says "Order type: Delivery. Estimated Delivery Time: Feb 16 2025, 12PM." He put me on hold to check with someone else.

An abrasive woman then came to the phone, guns-blazing straight out of the gate without any sense of customer service or apology. She said there was a "miscommunication" because Minchinbury doesn't offer deliveries. I told her that my order receipt clearly says that it's for delivery, she simply told me that it needed to be collected because Minchinbury "doesn't have any delivery drivers" (or something to that effect). I didn't care for her attitude, so I told her that it couldn't have been a "miscommunication" because the order was placed online so it's not a matter of human error, but a matter of their system being incorrect so I wasn't going to accept her making it sound like it was a "me-problem".

I also told her that it was highly disappointing that I had placed my order four days prior to my event and not a single person from Product of Italy contacted me within that time to advise that the delivery option was not available from Minchinbury. The woman argued that the store had in fact tried to contact me multiple times and I never picked up their calls. So I checked my call history. I asked what number Product of Italy would have called me from, she paused (clearly caught in her lie) and said they called from the store number that I had used to phone them. I told her that I was looking at my call history and they hadn't tried to call me a single time. I then asked her, IF they HAD tried to call me and couldn't get through, why had nobody left me a voicemail to advise me to contact them regarding an issue? She couldn't offer an excuse for that.

I told her that I placed a $250+ order only to be utterly disappointed by their service, and that I would arrange for one of my guests (my brother in law) to go and collect it. I advised that I could not leave the event that I was hosting, so she needs to understand that the person collecting wouldn't be able to produce a license or ID with a matching name to the order. It was only at this point that she softened and suddenly wanted to work with me, saying she would call me back after making arrangements for a staff member to deliver my order to my address. I told her firmly 'no.'

While my BIL was on his way to collect the order, I received another call from Product of Italy - this time from a woman who said she was the manager(?) and she had heard about my experience from her staff. She apologised, and tried to explain that the staff had gotten confused between an "order" and a "catering order". She offered to give me a credit to dine-in at the restaurant. I told her that I had already sent my BIL to collect my order after their company failed to do so, and that I wasn't interested in dining-in at Product of Italy after such a stressful experience. I also told her that I was already in the process of writing this review. Her "courtesy call" ended shortly after that,

My BIL arrived with my order, with some extras (2 bottles of coke and some brownies) which the rest of the guests called "hush money" for the ...

What an unfortunate experience this was. Came here 2 months back for lunch and had great food, good Aperol Sprits and a super nice bubbly girl serving. Came today for lunch to start with we came I to the door and 3 of the female staff were all gathered next to the register (which is right in front of the entrance) none of them even acknowledged the group when they heard us, they literally stayed there gossiping and showing each other their phone. I was starting at them waiting if one of them will have the kindness to serve us -the two behind the counter could clearly see we were there- Another of the girls who was busy clearing tables realised the situation and quickly came to speak to me (she was embarrassed and was very politely trying to accomodate us) After sitting down and having a look to the menu we ordered 2 aperol spritz label on the drinks menu as ‘Classic Aperol Spritz’ we were served 2 orange color drinks in rocks classes with 2 cubes of ice. Taste nothing like aperol spritz! When telling the on of the girls (the one who was on her phone all the time behind the counter) that this drink wasn’t an Aperol spritz she said: yes it is. We then explained why this wasn’t that cocktail and how even the glassware was wrong, she kept saying how this is the way they make a Product of Italy and this is the way they always make it. We told her we have been there before and it was nothing like that she just keep arguing how it was just how they made it. Now you serve the whatever drink you want, or modify the recipe of classics but please don’t call it ‘Classic Aperol Spritz’ when it’s not and when clearly you don’t even know what classic drinks are. It’s deceiving for customers to order from the menu and be served something different. It’s was pretty upsetting, on top of getting the bad service, to have the waitress arguing trying to defend a very bad drink she knows nothing about.

Looking at all the bad reviews, the problems is obvious: staff. Bad service!

A real shame because the food is really tasty, but obviously after this encounter our appetite was gone… we left...

This is becoming one of our favourite places to have some Italian meals. I was lucky I managed to secure a table by calling this afternoon for today. However, when hubby arrived he was apparently told that they were booked out and that we could only stay until 7 pm?.I’m unsure how, I explained to him I had been given confirmation of booking by the friendly staff . I had explained I had father in law from Spain coming over to visit us from far and would only be 2 children 3 adults including me. Anyways lucky we got to ti sit in.

I decided to order an eggplant parmigiana, my family ordered pizza and pasta. We had Italian drinks “ Rosetta? I’m not sure but it’s got blood orange and it’s my favourite.

Hubby was quite happy , the kids happy , father in law happy with meals. I was left a bit hungry as the serving of my parmigiana was small . I immediately regretted ordering it as usually I have a Lasagna.

The garlic bread is always nice.

The dessert menu is not to die for but ok. I had a ricotta cannoli. Kids had gelato, hubby an ok coffee.

Anyways, I have been able to find here about 3 times since December last year and it’s growing on me.

The reason for a rating of 3 is because I sat so far away from our usual spot, we felt quite removed and was hard to get attention. I hold hubby table 48 was probably for us but he did not advocate like I do. He is far too nice. I don’t think he asked.

I will try book for hubby’s birthday in 2 weeks and hope they have my booking done correctly this time to avoid the near miss...