Spazo Restaurant & Bar — Restaurant in Allen

You know that thing parents tell their kids? "If you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all." I try to abide to that adage as often as possible, but sometimes you just have to say the bad stuff.

My husband, son and I went to Spazo for dinner tonight. We arrived at 5:30 and were the only ones there. It was a quaint little place and we all had very high hopes. The server was prompt, friendly, and she seemed to know her stuff, so all signs pointed to a promising meal.

We started out with the fried calamari appetizer. First of all, it was a very tiny portion for the cost. We're not the kind of people who want huge portions for little money, but we did feel the size was ridiculously small. Unfortunately, that was the best thing about it. It was gamey. Maybe gamey isn't the right word. It was fishy. I don't know if it was just fried in old fish oil or if it had been left out for too long, but it was the worst calamari we've ever ordered, flavor-wise. It was also the chewiest calamari we've ever ordered. At the risk of spinning wildly into hyperbole, it felt like chewing on rubber bands that had been soaked in a fish pond. Just not good.

My son ordered the Italian sausage calzone, which was the winner for the night. The dough was soft yet crisp and the marinara was lovely. They were a bit shy on the sausage, but that seems to be fairly common.

My husband ordered the spinach manicotti, but he was given (and they called it) cannelloni. That might be a Tomato / Tomahto type issue, but it's worth mentioning. It was also a very small serving, though we appreciated that they were generous with the spinach. It had the same marinara sauce that the calzone had, and that was nice, but all in all, it was a bland dish.

I ordered the lobster ravioli, and this was the big disappointment of the evening. I thought the portion size was fine (4 or 5 ravioli) and the color of the sauce was a very pretty pink. The pasta was over cooked and mushy, and the sauce was way too salty. I was also confused by the imitation crab meat that was mixed into the sauce. At first I thought it was tomato or maybe roasted red bell pepper, but once I realized it was imitation crab, it made me wonder if that's what was in the filling as well.

My and my husband's meals each came with a small house salad. They were nothing to write home about. Mostly iceberg lettuce. Just meh.

Our meals also came with rolls, though we wish they hadn't. They were so stale that they must have been left over from lunch. Heating them up and drenching them in olive oil didn't freshen them, it just made them oily and tough.

In the end we spent $44 for a meal that was certainly no better than the lunch plates at Olive Garden. And two hours after eating, all of our bellies are very unhappy. Thankfully, it's more of gastric distress unhappy and not a "I gotta go right NOW!" unhappy.

It's a shame, because we've been wanting to try this place out since we moved to...

I've been here 2 or 3 times, but this experience was not a very good one.

The taste of the food was fine. Good Caesar salad, tasty marsala sauce on my veal marsala. But the portion size was disappointing. 3 very small and thin 'medallions.' Couldn't have been more 2-3 ounces total. Okay I guess for a lunch portion, but not for a $15 dinner entrée.

Probably the biggest issue was the atmosphere created by the staff. I sat at the bar, and was hoping for a quiet meal and catch the end of a game. The manager (or owner maybe) sat two stools down from me, working on her laptop, doing bar inventory by leaning towards me and looking at the bottles behind the bar, or loudly asking one of the staff about a particular item. Several other servers would congregate around that end of the bar, cutting up or cracking jokes. My water glass went empty, but the young man standing a few feet away polishing glasses was unaware, and never refilled it. Someone finally did and refilled it.

Near the end of the meal, the man who had been serving me inexplicably disappeared. When I asked what happened to my server, I was told that he had to leave to go to the restaurant supply store before they closed. I finally managed to get someone's attention so that I could get my bill, but he had to go get someone else.

In my opinion, this is all simply due to an environment where they have gotten too casual, and don't realize that the customers are there to have a meal instead of being exposed to all of the busy work that needs to be done, but can be done quietly and unobtrusively. Not a huge deal, and an...

We saw the reviews and were looking forward to a nice evening here. But it’s mostly mediocre food with a healthy dollop of bad service! We went for dinner with another family. I asked if they had a table for 7 people and the kid at the host stand said they did. After we were seated in the stuffy back room, we were totally ignored for more than 10 minutes - no one came by to offer even water. The waiters walked by pretending we weren’t there and a woman sorta scowled and walked right by when we tried to flag her down. Another waitress said she would let our server know. Finally the same kid who told us the table was available shows up without even an apology, takes the drink and appetizer orders, and promptly disappears. We had gotten a glass of wine, a cocktail and a coffee. The cocktail eventually showed up, but the wine and coffee did not. My friend walked up to the bar and got the wine but while the coffee showed up on the bill, it never was brought to our table. Fortunately, they have a manager there named Martiner. After my friend complained to him, he hustled and got things right and the food showed up soon after. We had the med pasta, a med salad, the eggplant parm, some pizza with some appetizers. The food wasn’t bad - just average Italian fare at best. My friend didn’t care for the chocolate cosmo - it wasn’t blended properly and the chocolate just stood out awkwardly. Ultimately though, the place was a fail for us. When you go out for dinner, the service can make or break your evening! This one was...