Bucceto's Pizza Pasta — Restaurant in Bloomington

EDIT

I gave this place a Second Chance hoping the food would be better. It was actually worse. I ordered the chicken marsala, which was served over a bed of shaved deep-fried cold potatoes. The portion was incredibly small, and I counted the mushrooms because I couldn't believe there were only two, also slathered in the taste of old deep fryer grease. I had to chase the waiter down for the check, I had to chase the waiter down for coffee, and it just wasn't worth it. The floors were still filthy. I recommend you find another Italian restaurant because this one is too inconsistent and lazy to be worth more than one star.

** I stepped away 2 minutes after placing the order. I informed waiter that I needed to walk to next door and then I would be right back, which I was. He should have stopped the order when I told him I was leaving the building. He didn't. And even so, it doesn't take 20 minutes to heat up sauce. That's how long I waited for my dinner after I returned. So they actually made it from scratch. And if they didn't, then 20 minutes to warm up some sauce and slop it over already cooked food should not have taken 20 minutes. I was THE ONLY TABLE. Third, don't tell a professional cook that they cannot tell the difference between separated cream, and fryer Grease.

Lastly, it doesn't matter how many times you got it right in the past, it only matters how you get it right with the customer in front of you.

Social distancing is definitely adhered to here. So we're off to a customer-conscious start. I watched, waiting my turn to sit at a table, as the waitress cleaned tables, handled used plates, and served fresh food without stopping to sanitize her hands. She seemed really focused on doing her job well so I'm sure it was an oversight. The floor was trashed and unattended to, which I blame on a lack of teamwork. The server had 8 full tables, and there were 3-4 additional people in the kitchen. Someone could have come out to run the vacuum for her for 30 seconds. So often in restaurants the kitchen staff fails to understand how important supporting waitstaff really is.

I was going to order Chicken Marsala, but the sever suggested I try the Rosemary Chicken instead. It came with a salad (generous portion of rust-free lettuces, carrot shavings, more than the obligatory 2 Roma tomato slices, and sliced black olives. I asked for low-calorie Italian dressing which turned out to be red wine vinegar with insufficient spices in it to alter the flavor. Still...the salad was flavorful, crisp, fresh and cold. The server waited till the last bite of my salad was left to deliver the dinner. (Good job!) The pasta was slightly overcooked (hello, Indiana). The sauce was indeed rosemary-flavored. Large pieces of wilted rosemary were present throughout the dish which meant every now and again I got an overwhelming mouthful of cheesy rosemary... And it was actually good! But I don't think I would like that every time. The sauce tasted like a vodka sauce, and I think I would have preferred no liquor at all given that the cheese and rosemary flavors were so strong. The mushrooms were fresh, not canned, and wilted in the sauce. The chicken was scarce, dry, flavorless. Dinner was served with 3 fresh baguette slices cut thick and toasted with (tasted like granulated) garlic butter on one side.

Coffee was really good, not the bitter, sour stuff so many places have resorted to. Thankfully. It had slightly...buttery tones and went perfectly with the Tiramisu. Dessert was above average, although I would take issue with the whipped cream in it. I think this kitchen is talented enough to make it on-site, and make it better than the frozen import.

I will be back, and I hope you will try this place, too.

Full disclosure...I've been in front and back of house restaurant work since...

Unfortunately I, nor my family will ever be returning here. Years ago we came to this same location on the west side of Bloomington weekly, sometimes twice a week. We were regulars, practically knew everyone that worked here. My how far they have fallen.

We always used to order cheesy breadsticks with a side of cheese. They were delicious. After waiting for at least 15 minutes for a drink. We order the bread sticks. Our server says they no longer put cheese on breadsticks. You can get a side of nacho cheese but not cheese on the sticks. But you can get cheesy bread. Reason is he said is because they can’t ring it up that way anymore.

How the hell hard is it to sprinkle some shredded cheese on 6 breadsticks? You can put them on bread but not bread sticks? Like what the hell. We get our cheesy bread and it’s literally the exact same thing that we used to get on the bread sticks. Here’s an idea, breadsticks 4.75, add cheese 1.00. This might seem petty but I think it’s stupid that you used to provide something and now you can’t because “you can’t ring it up right”. Also we weren’t given plates with our bread, had to go get them ourselves because it was getting cold.

After that, we get our pizza. We get ours after 2 other tables that were sat after us mind you. And it’s cold. Like one of those half baked pizzas that your meant to finish cooking at home. So we just sit there disappointed. Waiting, waiting, and waiting for the server to notice we weren’t eating anymore to bring us the bill. Which we paid. Thank goodness he didn’t ask how everything was.

Another thing, in between us getting salads, then breadsticks, then the pizza. The server didn’t take away any plates for us. Just sets the next course right next to a dirty plate/bowl and walks away. When he came with the pizza, he would have just set it on top of something had we not made room first. I had to literally say hey can you take these plates

Honestly they were understaffed, he had at one point 12 tables of between 2-8 people. It was a lot for one person. But there were moments where there was time to take dirty dishes off people’s tables. There were at least 4 tables besides ours that I saw this same thing. There was no urgency with anything. Like dude this is your job, customer service, you have to hustle when you get backed up. Nope, just whatever, they’ll just have to eat around the dirty stuff.

Overall, very disappointed. We had actually planned on going to Mother Bears but they were down for maintenance so we decided on this place that we used to love. Maybe they should go down for maintenance once in a while too because the quality went way down and the price went up. Not...

I am extremely sad to say that today's service was absolutely horrible. We arrived, waited for a few minutes and then ordered. We watched a table of 8 walk in & get seated, order and have out their salads and breadsticks before I even received my salad. We observed several tables around us receive their meals while waiting for my salad~ which took approximately 40 minutes. When the breadsticks arrived they were fresh and tasty. When the meals arrived, 2 were incorrect. After waiting an hour to receive our lunch we just sucked it up and dug in~ we were not about to wait another hour to receive the correct food. About 1/2 way through our lunch we watched the 2 gentlemen beside us get what was to be our meal and look throughly confused. I believe the 1 was hunting for his chicken in the penne pasta he received~ well it was in my son's spaghetti that he didn't order. The other gentleman seemed utterly confused as he was disecting his calzone which contained black olives, sausage and gouda (yep, what my husband ordered)...and I'm sure he was wondering WTH his pepperoni, mushroom and cheese calzone was which by this time was already 1/2 way eaten by my husband. He picked through and left most of it on his plate they did not send back their incorrect meals either~ I'm taking a wild guess they didn't have time to wait for another order to be made. I could've semi-forgiven the waiting time thinking possibly the cooking staff were shorthanded. However the fact our server didn't even look at our ticket to make sure the meals were correct reflects on the server,...