Antonio's Cucina Italiana — Restaurant in Canton Township

UPDATE AFTER OWNER'S RESPONSE: The owner claims that he values and appreciates his customers, but his actions continue to say otherwise. Though he has identified that the issue is the disrespect I experienced, he has yet to apologize for that behavior in any way. We can agree to disagree about what the compensation for the mistake should have been, but the disrespect was and continues to be inexcusable. It is also worth noting that the manager, Samantha, was polite and simply doing her job (though a delivery was not offered). It was the owner alone who was rude and disrespectful. It's a shame, as there were many occasions on which his mother, Rita, stopped by our table and made us feel more than welcome. Apparently he believes in running the business with a different approach.

ORIGINAL REVIEW: After being a customer at Antonio's various locations for over 25 years, I will not go back after my recent experience at the Canton location.

When I brought my carry out home, I realized that the side of spaghetti for the order of Veal Parmesan was missing. I called the restaurant and a manager told me that she could offer us a $2.95 credit. I explained that this was a bit disappointing, as it was not the $2.95 that was my concern, but rather the impact of someone missing a component of his meal. When side items have been forgotten at other restaurants in the area, they have credited the entire meal. Given the great service my family has always experienced at Antonio’s, I was surprised that they could not match this or make some other small offer (a credit for an appetizer or dessert, x% off the next visit, etc). The manager then transferred me to speak with the owner.

The owner immediately began shouting, loudly enough that those around me at the table could hear him – he was not on speaker. I asked him to stop shouting and he denied doing so and proceeded to continue shouting for the remainder of the conversation. He told me that I was being “ridiculous” and that his “good customers” would understand and forgive a mistake. mistake. If 25 years of loyal patronage does not make for a good customer in his eyes, I am truly unsure what does. Unfortunately, as I began trying to explain this to him, he hung up on me mid-sentence.

I have since reached out to the Canton location as well as the Dearborn Heights and Farmington Hills locations via letter, and have not heard back from anyone. I completely understand that mistakes like forgetting an item happen, and would have been happy to forgive this. However, the way I was treated was the most disrespectful customer service experience I have ever had. I will not forget this and am disappointed that my many years of visiting Antonio's have...

We have typically loved this place & it was our go to place for anytime we wanted a special night out. Tonight was absolutely horrible, & I highly doubt my family & I will return after our treatment. We came to celebrate my daughter’s last day of her senior year, not something that can be redone or made up, there were only 3 of us. The restaurant was busy, after finally getting the hostess to notice us waiting, & asking to be put on the list multiple times, we finally got added to the list & told it was 15-20 min wait & we would get a text. It was crowded so we went outside to wait after about 35 mins we came in to check how much longer only to find out that instead of texting they just looked for a random party of 3 & sat them in our spots. So, we finally get seated, wait for a while for our server, which no rush we are enjoying the evening & you guys are busy. We are ready to order & order as soon as we get our server, food takes a bit to cook but like I said you guys are busy & I have worked in an Italian food restaurant & know how long baked dishes take. Pretty much as soon as we get our food our server is back & asking how it is & if we are ready for boxes yet. We say it’s good & no as we are all actively still eating. A minute later the server comes back to collect the salt & pepper to fill ( I’ve been a server I get it) but then again is like so are we ready for those boxes yet. Mind you we are actively eating, not talking not wasting time. I again say no & ask if my daughter can have the only refill she ever got on her water. A minute later he is back with the salt & pepper asking about boxes, I say fine I guess even though we are eating, then order the dessert we had wanted. He brings the check, the boxes & the extremely frozen tiramisu to the table. By this point the whole staff is vacuuming & the server has been rude the whole time we have been seated, I request boxes for the frozen dessert, pay & leave. It was 9:35 PM on a night that you are open until 10:00 pm. We probably didn’t even get seated until 8:30 & we’re not helped immediately at all. I do not feel as if we were being slow or rude but your server & the rest of your staff definitely was. I have never been treated so badly in a restaurant in my life & all the years I worked for restaurants I would never treat anyone that way or allowed my staff to. So thank you for ruining our night & treating us like we were burden & that our business was not wanted, believe me you will not be...

After 24 years of my life, going to Antonio’s all the time with my family, this was by far the WORST experience ever! We travelled in from Texas and were so excited to have a meal at Antonio’s again as it’s been a while since we were up here visiting. Little did we know we would have a true nightmare after Christmas!! We ordered our food and they brought out the soup/salads.. the soup tasted very sour but we decided to just let that go and wait for our food. After an hour of waiting for our food, the manager came out to let us know that our ticket did not print out when we originally placed our order over an hour ago. She let us know they were making it on the fly and it would be out shortly.. we sat and waited another 25 minutes and then she came out to notify us that one of the meals we chose was not able to be made, we asked why this wasn’t told to us when we ordered it and she had no response to that. We ended up just choosing a new meal quickly to replace it. The manager then asked if we would like for our kids food to come out first instead of waiting any longer (at this point its been almost 2 hours.. still no food!!!). We said yes, please bring the kids their food. After another 20 minutes they started bringing out our plates, but no kids meals. We asked them to check on the kids meals because we were told they would be out early… it seems as they left it in the fryer the entire time we were waiting. When the kids got their chicken tenders and fries they were hard as a rock.. couldn’t be cut, couldn’t be chewed. At this point we were fed up and requested to speak with the manager as our food did not taste good at all. The owner came in and as we were telling him about our experience he was cutting us off, telling us the food is fine and if we don’t like it that’s just our preference. When we told him it was more than the food he just walked away. My cousin asked him to simply take accountability and at that moment Tony was completely unprofessional and disrespectful. He raised his voice at us and began to argue back and forth that his food was fine, not caring at all about our experience and the fact that we have been sitting in his restaurant waiting to eat for over 3 HOURS. To speak to customers the way he spoke to us is uncalled for, but to speak to a woman that way is even worse! I can confidently say after 24 years, we will NEVER be visiting...