The Twisted Pig | Italian Kitchen — Restaurant in St. Catharines

During our recent visit to your restaurant, a dining experience that has generally been pleasant, we encountered some service lapses that compelled us to share our feedback. As a group of four, we ordered three Diet Cokes, four pastas, and one pizza. However, our drinks arrived without the customary straws, a detail that had consistently been a part of our previous visits—four times, to be exact.

While the food itself was up to our expectations, our interaction with our server, Julie, began to unravel. We politely requested straws, which took an unexpected 5-7 minutes to arrive. Oddly, Julie had already been to our table once before delivering the straws, raising concerns about attentiveness.

Subsequently, when two of our friends asked for refills, Julie only brought one. This oversight, coupled with the straw delay, began to shape our overall impression of the service. When it came time to settle the bill and split it evenly among the four of us, another hiccup emerged. I covered the cost for two people, each contributing $41. As a result of the service shortcomings, I opted to leave a $2 tip for the two people I covered—a reflection of the service received.

To our surprise, Julie confronted us, asking if there was an issue with her service. The inquiry, posed in a negative tone, was followed by her observation of the 2% tip left. This led to an uncomfortable situation where she lingered, effectively guilt-tripping the remaining two friends into adjusting their tip amounts.

It's important to note that we are students, working hourly jobs at minimum wage. Our decision to dine out was driven by the desire to celebrate a festival and enjoy a good time together. While we appreciate the concept of tipping and its role in recognizing excellent service, the lack of grace in accepting tips, coupled with guilt-tripping customers, marred what should have been a positive experience.

We believe constructive feedback is essential for improvement, and we sincerely hope that Julie receives additional training in professionalism and customer interactions. A courteous and graceful approach to accepting tips would contribute significantly to a more positive atmosphere for all patrons, regardless of their background or budget constraints. We remain hopeful that our concerns will be addressed to enhance the overall dining experience at your...

Great place! The food was phenomenal, went with my wife and I and my 3 very young kids.

We usually have leftovers with the kids not eating all of theirs or ordering too much food haha, no takeaway this time. First time witnessing my oldest eat the whole kids pizza (she doesn’t even like pizza). Meatballs were great, fresh and well seasoned. Calamari was probably the best we have had in years. Perfectly cooked and seasoning with paprika was spot on.

My wife’s scampi was great and I had the penne polo and I added the shrimp, made my day! Was absolutely fantastic, giant shrimp and was a great add on and I was very pleased with the quality.

Had a Dark N’ Stormy to drink and they nailed it, perfect balance. I know it’s not a hard drink to make but it was picture perfect and attention to detail is rare these days.

Megan was a great server and host for our table, she was attentive without being intrusive. Very friendly and communicated efficiently. She hit all the right service pieces and I was very impressed.

Place was rocking for a Monday night and an hour to close. Shows they are doing something right.

We live about 40-45 minutes away and tried it on a whim. Now we will be making the trip regularly for our date nights!

The only criticism I do have is the restaurant is very loud, almost so you can’t hear any music and can barely have a conversation. Not the be all end all, just shows the restaurant is lively and people actually converse here instead of checking out watching sports haha. Just have to speak up so your guests can hear you and your server can hear you.

Was some fruit flys at the table as well, usually that’s an issue at the bar and not directly at the table. Once again not the biggest deal, I know they are a pain, just was an observation.

If you’re in the area or looking for a destination give the twisted pig a go! The price point is very fair and for a table of 2 adults 3 kids, 1 cocktail, 1 lemonade/iced tea, 2 apps, 2 mains with an add on of shrimp and 2 kids meals was $154.

Money well...

My husband and I stopped there last week for lunch. The restaurant was quite empty and even though it was a hot day we sat on the patio after one of the waitresses told us to sit anywhere we want and handled us a small piece of paper with a code to scan for the menu. Sorry but we have no experience with this process to download the menu so we sat down and waited for the waitress to come and help us. The young girl was talking to some young guys the only guests on the patio and didn't care about us. While waiting I tried to text my son asking him how to download the menu but couldn't reach him. So we patiently waited for our waitres to come and when she did I asked her if she could help us because we didn't know what to do. She was nice only for a second until she looked at my phone and said very disappointingly YOU HAVE AN ANDROID I CAN'T HELP YOU! Okay young girl! I am so sorry that I don't owe an iPhone, I have no idea how can I live without it!? I asked her what the old people do to order / I mean the older ones that us, we are in out fifties/ and she said that they try to EDUCATE them. Again! We are so sorry for being so stupid and you have to deal with people like US ! She educated us that they don't have a normal menu because they keep changing it so often ??? Because we were so not able to be educated by her and we owe just androids we said that we will leave... when she came to our table she got us a bottle with a water and when we said we going to leave she said happily no problem, grabbed the water and gone she was, didn't even care about loosing business. So we left. Later on I was thinking that I should as for manager, but I am worried that it wouldn't help anyway 😕 Oh and I forgot to mention that when she was not able to help us with the menu because not having an iPhone I just asked her to recommend us anything or if there is any specials. Her answer was sorry I don't like to choose for people...!!?? 😃😉 I really believe that she works at the...