Ballaro' Restaurant — Restaurant in Burnley

Walked in, greeted by very friendly staff and seated at a table fairly quickly. The environment seemed way too tacky for an Italian restaurant, with music blaring in our ears throughout the night. Fairly loud happy birthday renditions twice in the night (with the staff banging lots and pans whilst singing), but that's not really an issue for long and adds to the sense of character I guess.

For starters, we had the Fritto Misto, essentially deep fried sea food - fairly decent, calamari tasted fresh and well cooked. The sauce provided was delicious.

For mains, I had lobster ravioli and my girlfriend had the Penne Arrabiatia (pasta & chorizo in tomato sauce). My lobster ravioli was fairly good, although portion sizes were small (but for the price and it being lobster, it was to be expected). As for my girlfriend's pasta, whilst it tasted very good, we unfortunately found a piece of metal in her pasta - blamed on the chef being "aggressive with the pan" (staff seemed to try to find the light side, I was fairly irritated but understand mistakes can happen). Her meal was quickly replaced with apologies from the owner who seemed like a very friendly guy (bonus side plates provided to help me finish it off, very tasty nonetheless).

For desserts, we had the "Godfather" to share. This was the worst part of the meal sadly - the Tia Maria was way too strong, and the portion size was way too small for a desert upgraded "to share". Compared with another customer who ordered it for one, the portion sizes looked identical. Very disappointing.

Overall, I probably will not return. Whilst the food was decent - the environment, the piece of metal, and the disappointment of a desert really took it down a star. Really the epitome...

Attended tonight a table of 8 (5 of which were kids). We got our drinks no issue but waited 45 minutes for our food order to be taken, despite asking twice. Witnessed an older lady fall down a step and hurt herself. Myself and other customers helped her, no staff helped her, whilst I was trying to help a staff member bathed past me to take someone their drinks, no thought for the lady. Once the lady was sat on a chair, she was very shook up and in pain, the manager (I believe) handed her her bill! There was no empathy at all. We received our starters after an hour, kids meals didn't come with starters and we had to ask twice again for the kids meals as they were starving. We noticed the pizza guy used the same cutter on all pizzas without washing it, I wouldn't be happy if I didn't eat meat or had allergies. Mains were a ridiculous wait, everyone around us seemed to be getting bits here and there. The mains weren't served together so all of us had finished as the last main came.. food wasn't great. I did complain to the manager and thankfully my main was removed from the bill. Staff were very inattentive, looked like they had no idea what they were doing, one lad kept roaming around and glaring at everyone which made us feel very uneasy. The play area outside is very dangerous! My 4 year old fell and cut her knee open, management saw me with her and offered no plaster etc or even asked...

Unfortunately we will not be returning in a rush! The staff were so unorganised and no-one seemed to know what they were doing... we brought a pram and had to go on the slates outside as there were cars parked in the way, so not recommend for anyone in a wheelchair! It took around 40minutes to take our food order despite asking twice and being told someone would be over! We did pre book for our table of 7 so they knew we were coming. There was an offer of for a 2 course meal for £16.99 and kids eat free with this (as stated on their Facebook page) the manager said it wasn't included with the adults deal... we had to show her the facebook post as proof! The starters finally came however we had to ask multiple times for the kids meals. The mains also took forever to arrive and all of them came our except mine. By the time mine arrived everyone else had finished. Also caution to the step inside! A lady fell off the step and the customers saw to her not the staff members... instead the staff member who I believe was the manager offered her the bill instead of any assistance! The poor lady was shaking paying via card! Later a member of staff fell up this too, lethal step needs yellow tape or something! Also as I was eating my pizza I had people leaning over me to...