Ristorante La Vela — Restaurant in Maiori

PLEASE BE CAREFUL OF YOUR BILL. It was our first night in Maiori, Italy, went to this restaurant as it wasn’t far from our apartment. Food was ok,nothing special and we have had a lot better in other places in Italy. Not great service, a bit on the slow side. Our daughter went to pay the bill and was told to go to the back to pay at the desk. She paid using her bank card, which was in credit !! And the old man said the payment had failed. She checked her account online which showed the bill had been paid and debited out of her account and paid directly to the restaurant. The old man started shouting at her to pay again! And he grabbed her bank card out of her hand and wouldn’t give it back. She called us (her parents) to go over and told us what happened and we could see on her account the bill money had been paid. He was shouting at us and we told him to call the police as we would not pay again. We waited for around 15 mins for the police who did not attend. He kept stating it was not his problem even though we could prove the bill had been paid in full. He kept remonstrating with us hanging on to her bank card and stating was not his problem and we need to pay again. This we refused and continued to wait for the police, it then became apparent the problem was with his card reader and NOT our daughter’s, so we had in fact paid the bill and not account that had been suggested. There was no apology, by this time the whole kitchen staff were out surrounding us but we were adamant and still waiting for the police. We then grabbed the bank card of him and told him he was a crook who tried to con two young people to pay twice. THIS IS NOT A RESTURANT TO VISIT! He tried to humiliate us in front of everyone but we stood our ground. Our strongest advice is. Don’t go there!! Plenty of other restaurants...

3 of us had dinner there Saturday night and spent €102.50. We ordered drinks, beer, water and prosecco nothing turned up, we then asked another two waiters and still nothing arrives. Finally we asked again the young waiter who is the only good staff member and brought us our drinks. We were charged €2.50 cover charge each and at the table 2 mini slices of bread arrived , no olive oil or vinegar. Food was average, i ordered mix fried fish which was just calamari and very small shrimps for €22 and my son had linguine vongole which had no salt. After we finished eating we waited 10-15 mins then asked a waitress to clear the table who then asked a colleague to do so?, we were not offered any dessert or coffee. I then asked the waitress near the door for the bill and said yea and then went to stand near the door again. Again after 10 mins i stood up and went to the till where the Owner was sitting. I told him all of this and he did not offer any apology or discount and instead charged full amount. I paid the bill and left, never to go back. If you are in town there are plenty of other restaurant you’d be...

This may have been my worst restaurant experience ever. First off, this restaurant has a painful problem. The neighbouring restaurant, Mammato, is much more popular. Even though both restaurants serve the same type of food in a similar price range, people are willing to wait half an hour to get a spot in Mammato while tables in La Vela remain free. This is clearly visible for the guests of La Vela. However, my girlfriend and I decided to ignore this major red flag since we were really hungry. The service was as bad as it gets. Even though they seemed overstaffed, they did not manage to take and deliver orders on time or to the correct table. They were completely disorganized. On top of that they were also rude to customers, and unprofessional while interacting with each other. The food seemed just bad at first, but not awful. Until I suddendly bit into a rock that was in my mushrooms... At that point we just stopped eating, and decided to...