3 Sons Italian Restaurant & Bar — Restaurant in Arvada

To start, 3 Sons has a quality to it that, unfortunately, is slowly dying in our spoiled, fetid society and it's called "Hard, honest work". The staff sacrifices and strives every second of every day just to keep this amazing, family-owned business open and it truly shows from the minute you sit down to dine. Being someone who has worked in the service industry all her life, unfortunately it is a sad truth that stress is a constant, looming threat that you often have to force yourself to smile through. That being said, the staff here responds whole heartedly to kindness, but does not suffer lightly the emotional and verbal abuse from certain folks they have the misfortune of servicing. This I applaud them for! Yet, there are so many repeat, regular customers that are very appreciative of the dedication that the staff puts in to making sure that their patronage remains a staple. This, to me, speaks volumes. It means so much more than the odd, unsatisfied comment spewed from the mouth of someone who will never understand what it takes to run a restraunt. To mock someone's livelihood by saying their restaurant won't survive another year? What a hideous, truly vile thing to say! Not exactly the level-headed, reasonable character of a person worth listening to. One thing I can guarantee is that this restraunt has definitely earned the 4.1 stars that it has, and the 5 that it deserves if not for the "me,me,me!" attitudes of a certain breed of customer. The kind that thrive on conflict, and will only ever be satisfied by the free meals that they manage to squeeze out of a small business owner who works 7 days a week, 12 hours a day to please these bloated, unsatisfied, arrogant souls who think its funny to deride the laborer. The portions are ANYTHING but small. I have to think of the ones who claim to not have enough food: Will you ever? I mean, we're talking upwards of two cups of pasta smothered in more than a 1/2 cup of delicious, extremely rich, homemade sauce! And a 12" pizza is SMALL?? I must say, the blood pressure of those who think these portion sizes are small must indeed be a sight to behold. And if your auntie's cousin's best friend makes better Italian food then by all means, save your money and dine in. Prices are prices are prices and they will continue to rise as long as a large portion of our society continues to take with out ever giving in return. And if that's what worries you there is a McDonalds across the way.. so,see 3-sons has you covered on all ends! Anyway, I've been babbling off and embarrassing myself enough. I just had to let the public know: Pay no mind to the poor reviews. This place is truly a diamond in the rough ( but not quite because the decor is downright fabulous, especially around the...

This was a one and done for me. My girlfriend and I typically venture out to Old Town or downtown on a Friday night but we were up to try something new. The food was good enough. The service was pleasantish. We ordered a few drinks and decided to share the shrimp scampi, as neither of were starving. It was like 21 bucks for a plate.

This is where my frustration and utter annoyance with this place comes in. First off there are little placards on the table stating that they charge a "Non-Cash Fee" of like 3.75%, it's cute that they state that this practice is legal in all 50 states - sure whatever, thanks for that disclosure, I can deal with it. BUT this, THIS is what really set me off. When we ordered our food, we simply said we're just going to split the shrimp scampi. So our food came out, and they had split on to two different plates, and I was like "how nice that they did that". We didn't ask them to do that, we are both capable of eating from the same plate or splitting it on to one of little side plates ourselves. So upon receiving our bill as I reviewed it, there was a charge of $5.50 for "split plate" fee. Uh, what? This fee was NOT indicated on the menu and it was NOT communicated to us by our waitress. It was just there. My girlfriend and I are very capable of sharing a plate, or splitting it up ourselves. $5.50 just slapped on our bill for something we didn't ask them to do. Forget this nickel and dime place. Half your bill is BS fees. I get it everyone is feeling it, I get that owners are trying to find new avenues to generate income, but it's not shocking this place wasn't exactly thriving on a Friday night, it was dead. The bar area had a few tables occupied, the main dining area and the actual bar itself was empty. So upon returning home and reading other reviews (wish I would have done this first), it seems the owner is combative and has a defense/excuse for every bad review.

It's disappointing, the restaurant has a nice ambience to it. But seriously 5 effin' dollars to split a plate, without even mentioning it? ...

To the owner, Congrats! You got us. You took a large amount of our hard earned money and in return we got slow, unfriendly service (in an empty restaurant), small portions of mediocre food that was WAY overpriced and took FOREVER to arrive! So good on you. You ripped us off! Congrats! It will never happen again! But I'm sure you don't care if you get repeat business. 25 bucks for a 4 inch square of Stouffers-like lasagna and that did not include a salad. A dinner salad, which was a small flat plate of lettuce with one tomato slice and drenched in bottled dressing, was another 6.35!!! To top it off, I was told when I paid, that these greedy owners add a 3.75% service fee to the bill total for using a credit card!!! What an effing rip-off! Too bad I can't give zero stars.

Regarding the owners reply: So what are you saying? I said a single tomato slice and it's actually a single grape tomato, therefore my entire critic of your over-priced restaurant is without merit? I don't think so. Also, there isn't one restaurant that I've eaten at in the past twenty five years that adds a service fee to the total for using a credit card. Not one! I challenge all who read this to think about it and name one restaurant they've eaten at that does that. Only 3 Son's. It's just greedy. And for twenty five dollars, I should have gotten a large serving of lasagna, (your serving was very small no matter what you say and wasn't much better that frozen lasagna from the grocery store) plus a dinner salad or soup. The woman who served us was not at all nice. Rude and slow. If you can't find good help maybe it's because you're a lousy boss. A cheap one too I'll bet. I served several enlistments in the service of this country. In the Navy we had a saying, "Excuses are like As%ho#@s,...