Olimpia Bar — Restaurant in Venice

We had a terrific experience and very tasty (and typically Venetian) light meal of tramezzini and wine — all at the advice of a wonderful young waitress, Cecilia, who speaks fluent English (when we asked if she had lived in the USA for a while, she laughed and said she is self taught!). The Olimpia, which has been a staple of the train station Riva since 1936, has an simple but quite extensive menu. We asked her to recommend a quick dinner, and she was frank: their pasta dishes are frozen, but all the fabulous big sandwiches are freshly made. We had the house wines, a white and a red, which she also recommended. Our bill for two came to less than €25! She is a treasure, the location (at the foot of the footbridge over the Grand Canal and just down two minutes from the train station) is unbeatable, and we are VERY glad the c. 1936 sign over the door caught our eye. Thanks, Cecilia — and good luck to you in the future, you have MANY talents! — Alice & Catherine,...

Ripoff / Cheater / Thief / Liar: Zero stars is far too much for this THIEF. I only ordered an orange juice. I was given a relatively smallish glass of juice and was told the bar will close in 30 minutes so I went to pay and got asked whether I pay cash or card, then they quickly got me the contactless machine to pay. I stupidly touched my card without checking the amount as I had so many orange drinks in Venice for no more than €5. As the payment went through I had a notification that I paid €12 so when I enquired whether this was an error the barman said that was the correct price and refused to discuss that the price was far too high for such a small glass of orange drink. He even lied and claimed that this was a large glass!!! This place is clearly a disgusting example of a tourist trap and should not be allowed to remain in business. Those thieves are a disgrace to the Italian tourist industry and should not be allowed to continue...

As far as service and kindness goes, this is the worst! This bar was made as a support for a nearby Airbnb check-in, so to be fair I could only comment on this 'service'. Not only the bar staff hesitantly attended to me (like any other customer approaching the counter), he kept denying me the full set of keys to the Airbnb unit. He repeatedly turned me away and I had to beg for the right set of keys, so I could check-in with my elderly parents who were tired and out in the cold. In the end they found the keys after a horrible 50 mins, but the horrible experience prompted us to cancel the whole stay. Sure, they can justify they were only bar staff, and owed us nothing more (yes, blame it on the Host too for lousy arrangement with the bar - that's another problem) but at least have some basic kindness...