Delia's — Restaurant in Alexandria

Edit Jan 2020: We have been multiple times over the past two years, and had never been disappointed. Until the past few months.

First, part of our order was missing on a relatively big order in November. Then, we tried ordering online early in January and our order was cancelled, supposedly because the restaurant was very busy. But ordering by phone was no problem at all. Only difference? It turned out that the online menu did not reflect recent price increases, and we ended up paying more when ordering by phone. Food was still good though, even though the raviolis were floating in a bath of butter. Finally, yesterday, among other things, we ordered the grilled octopus - one of my wife's favorite. To our surprise, the octopus hadn't been properly cleaned and the beak hadn't been removed. We ended throwing the rest away as we were a bit disgusted by that.

In general, especially over the last two visits, the service has been poor - and that's for takeout. I can't imagine for dining in.

In short, I used to love that place. But I won't eat there again, and I can't recommend the place anymore.

EDIT FOLLOWING OWNER'S RESPONSE BELOW: I do not appreciate being pretty much called a liar. The missing item on the incomplete order was refunded, but it wasn't great for our party. This is not the main reason I dropped 3 stars on this updated review: it's just part of a pattern of poor customer service these past few months.

The platform we used was Chownow (straight for the restaurant's website). Order was accepted and cancelled almost immediately, twice. We called to order on the phone instead, and asked the reason for that: the response was that the restaurant was busy. I asked again in person when picking up the food, in a relatively empty restaurant. I was given the same response. I stand by what I said: the only difference was that some items (like the Gyro entree) were more expensive on the phone than on the website, and we ended up paying more.

Finally, the octopus was poorly cleaned and did include the beak. If you are not familiar with it, it exists in all cephalopods (including squid and octopus), and I suppose in this case, the tentacles were cut a little too close to the head and the beak remained attached. This happened, and indicates poor prep of the food. We did not call the restaurant, and finished our...

I was hoping to have a date with my fiancé so I called at 6:45 pm to make a reservation and was told that I didn’t need a reservation because they just weren’t that busy right now- upon arriving we could barely find a parking space -and wondered how not busy could it be? I was told they weren’t busy because it was a football night- however upon entering there was a hostess who didn’t acknowledge us or smile- and didn’t even ask where would we like to sit in the so “slow” of a place that we shouldn’t need to make a reservation so I had to negotiate where to sit after being told I couldn’t reserve it earlier on. I ordered what I got before- prosciutto white pizza and arugula salad- the salad was still not seasoned enough as before; the pizza was hot and ok- I didn’t think the combination of flavors made sense and the crust was really too dry to enjoy- some sauce for the crust would be better. I did think that the pita bread was a bit dry compared to usual - we had a marvelous visit about a year ago- not sure what has happened but our service was lacking and the food wasn’t as good as before. We arrived at 7:30pm- prime dining time- our server was irritable and basically snatched the wine menu from me when I told him I still needed time to decide- our service when a manager came by was strangely distant- we had to ask for extra plates even though it was clear we didn’t have any for the main item- and getting a refill on water was amazingly hard when there were about four customers in the entire place. My fiancé was highly disappointed and I’m not happy that he felt so unwelcome. I even questioned if we should ever return to Delia’s. We used to double date here all the time; it’s so disappointing that even when there are less customers the service isn’t better. The cost to dine here isn’t justified by the rudeness of the staff- I’ve honesty had more friendly service at McDonald’s. I wish that I could say it was a four star experience but this three stars is...

We walked into Delia's right after seeing a movie on Thursday, July 30 at 8:30pm. As we were being seated, the hostess tells my daughter that they close at 9:30pm and that we only had 10 minutes to order food before the kitchen closes. It was extremely obvious that she was not happy that late diners had arrived. We placed our order and the food arrived at the table at 8:45pm. The server and the food were very good. The problem was the attitude of the hostess and how it influenced the dining experience. As soon as we received our food, the server brought our check. The hostess then came by FIVE TIMES while we were clearly still eating to try and take the check. Each time, we said we were still eating. Around 9:15pm, we could see the hostess, wearing her backpack, continually look over to see if we had placed our credit card out. It was VERY OBVIOUS she was trying to leave and couldn't because we were still eating. It got so bad that my husband finally called her over and said that every time she does that she's impacting the tip. She claimed she kept looking over to make sure the tables around us were clean, but the tables had already been prepared for the next day's seating. We left at 9:30pm and on our way out, we checked the posted hours on the door which said the restaurant is open until 10pm on Thursdays. I noticed today that the Delia's website says 9pm... the hostess told us 9:30pm, so I'm not sure which is accurate. But I'm going by, as most diners would, the hours listed on the door. We are paying customers who want to enjoy a nice meal at a convenient location to the movie theater. We arrived and left within the posted hours, and your staff should not make your customers feel rushed because they want their...