PizzAntica — Restaurant in Albemarle

I was in town on business and decided to have dinner here. I looked online and they had great reviews for the most part, and the food looked good. Noted that they close at 10 pm. I arrived at the restaurant at roughly 9:05 pm.

There were several other booths that had customers in them and the waitress arrived fairly quickly. Very early in the interactions with the waitress, did I realize that she wasn't interested in any extemporaneous conversation... she took my order, and it arrived in about fifteen minutes or less. The food was good... and there was lots of it. I could tell as soon as it was delivered that I needed boxes.

When the waitress would come by, I really felt very unwelcome... especially when I'm dining by myself at times I will try to have a conversation with the waitress... nothing deep but just quick comments. For example comma I made a comment about needing a box and that there was a lot of food there, and I didn't realize it would be that much. I was in mid sentence and she walked off. It was like she absolutely wanted as little interaction with me as possible.

She had no other tables at that point... Just not ignoring me when I made a comment would have been nice. She brought the check sometime around 9:40pm. I got extremely irritated when she came back to the table and tried to take it from me before I was ready. I had laid the bill on the inside of the table and was getting my card in it. She came to the table and asked if i'm minded if she took the card. I said yes I do... At that point I was a little ticked off because I had felt unwelcome the entire time I had been there.

Then just about a minute later, the bus boy comes and asks me if he can take the dishes off my table, the dirty plates... I said "absolutely:... he then reaches for my glass, which I was drinking and asked if I was through with that. I looked at him and said "no, but I guess if you really need it, then take it." I have literally never had someone take a dish that I was actually using at that moment like that. I have had people ask me if I was done, and when I say no, they walk away. He didn't... he literally took my glass.

I walked up to the register to pay, and I told the girl that I felt very unwelcome... They didn't close for another ten minutes... I get they wanted to clean up... I get a whole lot of stuff... But if they hadn't wanted me to come in and be a customer, they should never have seated me almost an hour before they closed. The kicker was when I told the lady at the front, what had happened and that I felt so unwelcome in there... She expressed that she still had people that were coming to pick up orders that had not arrived yet....

The whole thing really upset me.... It was clear that I was not a welcome guest there... No idea why because I've never even been in that restaurant and this is the first week I've ever been in this town. I don't often review places... But if you have a business that serves customers... Try to remember that.You can have the most amazing product... The food was really good.... But I would never go back there because I felt very unwelcome and...

I really hate that I have to post this. I have loved this place for years, but I have noticed recently that it has changed in such a negative way. My husband and I went on a Wednesday night, we ordered bruschetta as an appetizer, I got shrimp Alfredo (which was $19.45) I asked for my shrimp to be cooked well done, and my husband ordered a hot Italian sub. Our bill for just the two of us came out a little over $50. When my food came out, my shrimp was clearly undercooked. Not only was it not cooked well done, it was almost raw. There was no way for me to tell my waitress this, because as quickly as she dropped the food off, she ran away. Many times during our meal, our waitress went MIA. At one point, she was gone for such a long amount of time we thought she left and went home. She finally came and dropped the check off and then run away from the table again, we could not find her to pay our bill so my husband went up to the front cash register and was told he could not pay there but that the waitress would take the payment at the table. When she FINALLY came back to the table before she took our bill, I showed her my shrimp and told her that they were very, very undercooked. Through our meal, I ate around the shrimp and only ate the noodles She then took my card went and ran it and came back to the table and said I talked to the manager, there's nothing we can do if you'd like to take your meal home with you. My husband told her you can keep the shrimp Alfredo, we don't need to take it home and there is no way we can cook shrimp with Alfredo sauce all over it at home, not to mention for an almost $20 dish, I shouldn't have to cook it myself. The manager did not do one thing about our bill, or my food. He just said he could remake the meal for me if he would like, but we were in a hurry to go pick our children up. Which we would have been able to do sooner if our waitress, I believe her name was Allison, would have been more attentive to us. I told the manager that we would absolutely not be back, he said he completely understood. I called the restaurant to speak to someone, all that I got was excuses, not an apology for the absolute disaster of a dinner/service we had.. I am so disappointed in this place... I can't imagine Santi would've allowed this, or allowed the manager to act in the way he did toward us about this problem, I have full confidence he would've done something about it.

Idk unfortunately we won't be back for another date night, we rarely get date night with 3 kids, we'd really prefer going somewhere that hospitality, customer service and pride is taken so that we can enjoy ourselves and our meal...

This feview is without pictures, which negates a review, in my opinion, BUT....

An above average "strip center' Pizza/Italian spot offering a good selection of pies, pasta dishes, calzones, and a few appetizers.

The server last night actually made the experience! My initial impression was not the best as the hostess wasn't confident at all in her position of seating our group. Not knowing if she was able to move tables to allow us to sit together, we said we could split began a birth and a table with no problem. After going back to what I'll assume was a manager (I didn't see who she spoke with) we were told that we couldn't split up like that. Look, I've been in the business for nearly two decades...I get it, sections, different servers, etc... lots of variables.. So, we took the tables she had offered to slide together and all was well. Maybe it was her first day. .I dunno, she just had zero confidence in what she was doing.

Luckily, the server was I top of her game and made the experience a good one! Everything arrived to the table promptly... the kids loved the pizza, while we enjoyed Strombolis.

I'd like to add that the bread rolls they present were enjoyed by everyone, but the oil and Pesto set it off! I've not seen another Pizza/Italian spot use a pesto in their oil, so while being different, I really enjoyed it. Someone who doesn't like pesto may not.

As we were leaving, a gentleman at the counter thanked us for coming and wished us a good night, and that's always a nice touch!

Bottom line. Check em out! I think...