DePalma's Italian Cafe - Westside — Restaurant in Athens-Clarke County Unified Government

I never leave reviews for restaurants, because I manage a high volume full service one myself and I know things happen. Mistakes are sometimes made and that’s the nature of this business. But, my experience tonight was so utterly disappointing on so many levels, that I’m hoping this will be seen by management and won’t happen in the future to any other customers. I picked up a takeout order tonight for myself and my elderly parents, 3 entrees and 2 orders of focaccia bread, for a total of $70. I was running late getting dinner to them, so I made the mistake of not checking my order before leaving and driving to Oconee County. I placed my order via phone at 6:30 and when I arrived to pick it up at 7:15 I still waited another 10-15 minutes. I get home and realize my 74 year old Mother’s entree had been left out. I also thought bread came with our meal, which we didn’t get. So I call and speak with a manager, who told me they were having a rough night, apologized for the mistake, offered me a $50 voucher, and told me he would refund my meal. I told him I was on my way back and he said he’d see me soon. I drove back to the restaurant, which took about 10 minutes, and waited yet another 10 minutes to finally get my forgotten entree. The manager I spoke with on the phone never came out to speak with me, left me a $50 donation voucher with the bartender, but did not refund my meal like I had been told he was going to. At this point, my dinner is ruined because the rest of our food was cold by the time I got back with my Mother’s dinner, my time was wasted, and we didn’t sit down to eat until almost 9pm. Apparently, your manager didn’t feel like any of that was worth more than a $50 paper voucher. A refund for our meal and an actual in person apology from the manager himself would have been great, and I wouldn’t have felt like I needed to spend even more time out of my night writing this review. It’s how I would’ve handled the situation at my restaurant, and I paid cash for my check so it wouldn’t of been complicated to give me refund. Now I have a cold dinner, a hangry 74 year old Mother, a grumpy attitude, $70 less in my wallet, I still haven’t eaten, and a $50 voucher that I’ll probably never use because of how this was handled. **UPDATE: After over an hour of sitting on the kitchen table and then being reheated, my Father and I couldn’t eat our food. The pasta and focaccia were hard, and I’m in no way a picky eater. My Mother was at least able to eat hers, so that’s something at the very least. I can’t say enough how disappointed we are at our weekly family dinner turning out this way and how little care or respect your management...

I very rarely write negative reviews about anything because I try to be kind and understanding about things. However, I got so upset trying to eat here that I finally had to just walk out.

My dining partner and I waited for an hour and 15 minutes for our entrees and still nothing had come. At this point, I quietly just walked out and waited in the car. After an hour and a half wait, they finally brought the entrees. I never complained because I get very nervous and did not want to be called out for being a “Karen”, even though I would have been rational and polite and even though I feel like I had a right to complain in this particular case.

The whole time our server said nothing to us about the wait. She also never brought any bread; 45 minutes into our wait, we asked if they were still serving bread, and she said they were out. We would have loved to have known this when we first sat down, in addition to the fact that it would take so long for the food to arrive.

When my partner came out to the car, I asked if they had ever acknowledged the ridiculous wait time. He said that he had only been given a $10 discount from the manager, although the manager never came out to speak to him or apologize.

The biggest issue here is the extremely poor, even nonexistent communication from both our server and the management of this restaurant. I understand that they were probably short-staffed in the kitchen, but an hour and a half wait is pretty much unheard of for any restaurant. If they had told us it would be that long when we sat down, I would have really respected that they gave us the choice of whether or not to accept that wait. Instead, the management and server pretended like nothing was wrong with regard to what I imagine were severe staffing problems in the kitchen.

To top things off, when I got home, I discovered that the salmon I had ordered (my partner got it to-go after I walked out) was completely black on the bottom and was not even edible.

Please stay away from this restaurant if you don’t want to wait an hour and a half for food that you can’t even eat, and then pay $75 for the...

My husband got a to go meal at this restaurant earlier in the summer and had a really great experience. When we visited Athens again, he really wanted me to eat there. We went to the restaurant and received some of the worst Service we have ever had at a restaurant.

The waitress ignored us for the first 30 minutes, never apologized, then came to the table without water. She took our drink and dinner order at the same time, which seemed to irritate her. She only wanted to take drink orders, but we sat there so long we were ready to order everything. When she did serve us drinks she put her hand across the top of the glass touching the area you drink from.

In addition, her attire was so inappropriate for food service. She was scantily dressed in clothes several sizes too small. Her attire made us uncomfortable. However, the food was pretty good that evening. The 4 of us have discussed this outing several times since, it was such a bad experience.

But because the food was pretty good, we decided to do takeout again later that week. This time we ordered different dishes. My husband ordered the chicken scallopini, and there were no capers in his order at all. I only ate half of my pork medallions. Our cousin’s salad was delicious and had tons of capers in it. Go figure. When my husband arrived to pick up the order, he was directed to the bar. The only person at the bar was sitting looking at his phone and eating a meal. He waited. After a few minutes, past another employee came into the bar and told the person eating the meal that he had a customer waiting. The person eating and in their phone was the person that was supposed to get our order. He totally ignored my husband.

Overall my experience at the Depalmas was bad. I would not go back. It’s not an inexpensive restaurant, regardless of price I expect better from a service...