Farina Alto Pizzeria & Wine Bar — Restaurant in Albuquerque

It started in the parking lot actually. The parking spaces are very small and so people Park open the lines. It makes it difficult to find a parking place.

That night, the parking area was so full, that people were parking outside of the parking places. Large trucks just pulled over and stopped. Should have been an indicator that the place was too full and that we should go somewhere else. But we were excited about trying this place. It was our first time here, and we've heard lots of good things.

We finally found a parking place, and went inside. We put our name on the list. They said that it should be about 20 minutes. The weird thing was, that there was no designated waiting area. You could wait at the bar, it's a bar wasn't full. Or, you could stand in front of the door and block other people coming into the restaurant. It was like, they never planned to be full and have a waiting list. They didn't build a spot for people to wait in that was out of the way.

Okay, so we waited. We moved from place to place at the entryway, trying to stay out of the way of people entering exiting the restaurant. People bumped into us, set times they kind of just push this out of the way. It was uncomfortable.

And, it didn't help that the restaurant staff wasn't working very hard to see people. We waited for more than 20 minutes oh, and there were tables open, cleaned, and ready to go but they didn't use. The couple on the list just above us sat about 5 to 7 minutes earlier than we did. But the two top they sat in, had been open for the entire time That we've been standing around waiting.

Finally, I got a little frustrated and went to check our position on the list, only to find out that they had crossed us off the list without calling her names. We've been standing in front of Podium where they call names for more than 20 minutes. They weren't very apologetic about it either. They did recognize that they made a mistake, and they satis immediately. It just would have been nice to have had them say something like, I'm sorry.

Once we got to the table, things did improve beds. Our waitress was really nice, thoughtful, attentive, and had an engaging personality, which I enjoyed. My wife and I agreed that her service was probably the top of the evening.

That said, we ordered a couple of salads and a pizza. The Sounds were visibly quite nice. And the flavor on both was pretty good. The bread on my salad, a Verde salad I believe, was not very good at all. And the croutons on the Caesar salad, had a funny oliy fishy taste that we didn't appreciate. But, the sounds were pretty good and we ate them all. We just left the parts that weren't very tasty, like the bread into croutons.

The pizza tasted okay, but not great. For some reason, it was a complete oval. So, our 14 inch pizza was 14 in in One Direction but only 12 in the other. Take a look at the photos. And see for yourself. It was really odd. It was like they didn't care what it looks like.

As I said, the pizza tasted okay. I ate a couple of pieces and brought a couple of pieces home. But, I wouldn't go back there for the pizza. It wasn't as good as several of the other pizza restaurants in town, and it cost more.

By this time, I just declined to purchase any dessert and called it a night. It wasn't that it was a bad experience, as much as it was just not pleasant. And if I'm going to go out and spend $40 on two salads and a pizza, it it better be pleasant. There are too many restaurants within a mile of this place where I would have had a pleasant evening, with better food, and spent less money.

So, there you go. A solid 3 stars. An okay time,...

This place is negligent. I specifically asked Miles D. what they could make vegan on the menu. He proceeded to say “everything” and then had to backtrack his answer as I questioned him further. He mentioned a pasta dish so I ordered it. It had meat in it. As I questioned another waitstaff about the meat, Miles came over and grabbed my plate while I was mid-sentence and took it away. He came back and asked what else I wanted to order after waiting 30 minutes to get the initial food and my party had then gotten their food as well. He said it would be more time to remake something else. The pizza I ordered instead was nasty. I put it in a to go box and don’t even want to take it with me. Miles make an inappropriate “joke” saying “it would be funny if I brought this out covered in bacon.” I told him that would not be funny. He immaturely replied, “it wouldn’t be funny but at the same time, it is funny.” I asked to speak to a manager and Miles stated the day manager left early and the night manager was late. I called the restaurant while sitting here to double check and I watched as Miles approached the person who answered the phone and as looking for a manager. He spoke to her and she stated there was no manager. Another employee came up to the table, “I’m not a manager but is there something I can help you with? I don’t know what’s going on.” He then added that the day manager left early and the night manager was late. He also added that he called the night manager but didn't know where he was. At this point, Miles has repeated his story so the entire staff will tell us the same thing and give us the runaround. The lack of awareness and customer service is daunting. I will review this restaurant as much as possible so another party does not have to experience the horror I have endured. The issue was escalated to levels it didn’t have to be with all of the busy body employees insisting on being in my face to protect Miles, and from what,...

The conversation I had today with Farina at 8PM:

Me - "Hi, I was calling to order a pickup." Hostess - "Oh, we're not doing that." Me - "Oh okay, are you really busy?" Hostess - "Kinda." Me - "Okay, would we be able to come and dine in?" Hostess - "Sure, get here before 9PM because that's when our kitchen closes." Me - "Okay thank you!"

The place closes at 9PM and since I already knew my order, I knew we could get food ordered and leave quickly, but still assumed her word was true. So we arrive at 8:20. And we wait, standing there while we see the hostess glance at us out of the corner of her eyes. She does this a few times, and whispers to other servers/bartender while glancing at us. Eventually, the bartender comes over to us and explains that they closed at 8 due to "people not coming in."

Their website indicates that they stop take-out orders at 8. That's no problem, we called at that time, so it's understandable they "were not doing that." However, I asked to make sure it'd be okay if we came in. They close at 9, and the hostess told me getting there by then would be fine. Obviously I wasn't trying to get there too close to that time, and we were prepared to order to-go, so I figured 8:20 would be giving enough time, especially when I asked, just to be sure.

Honestly, I would have been okay too if she had told us something like, "no, we don't seat anyone an hour before closing time." Or, even the courtesy to greet us at the door and explain the same. The closing time is frankly a non-issue to me, but I should expect the decency to have been given an honest answer to my question so I don't waste my or the restaurants time.

One star goes to the bartender for being able to talk to us when we arrived, the other star goes to Farina Alto's convenient location nearest the next pizza place Il Vicino, who didn't have anyone shy away from us...