The Old North End Restaurant & Deli — Restaurant in Castle Rock

As much as I want a local neighborhood restaurant to succeed, I simply can't bite my tongue on Old North End. While we've had wonderful experiences here in the past, it seems ownership doesn't actually take complaints seriously.

Rather than going to established restaurants in Castle Rock, I decided to give our local Italian restaurant the business for Valentine's Day. Little did I know they'd ruin the evening for countless couples and families. After two hours of having patience with the staff and restaurant, we ultimately left without ever getting our entree. The same was true for countless other tables in the restaurant.

While the wait staff were as friendly as could be, given their complete lack of support from management, they were as clueless as the kitchen. Utensils? Had to ask two different servers and wait over 15 minutes. Wine? Would have been faster to drive to Bubbles, buy a bottle, drive back, and pour my own glass. Status of our food order? Server had to come back three times to ask us what we had even ordered, after sitting there for over an hour.

I'm a patient patron that expected longer than normal service times on Valentine's Day, but this sub-par service seems to be an ongoing trend with Old North End that has yet to be addressed. As much as I don't want this retail space to turn into another medical office like countless other spaces have, that's ultimately going to be the fate if ownership/management doesn't take a long hard look at the business they are...

Probably the worst Italian restaurant I have eaten at. I never judge a restaurant by only visiting once, I give them the benefit of the doubt. On my first visit, I order the veal parm. The breading slid off very easily and was not served with the red sauce I requested. 2nd visit was tonight and was worse. We ordered Caesar salads, they never showed up. I ordered from the alacart menu, stuffed shells, red sauce with peppers and onions and sausage. I got basic bland stuffed shells, no peppers and onions in the red sauce and no sausage. I informed the waitress of the mistakes, she offered no apologies and I told her I wanted these items removed from our check. Another person in our party ordered a pizza, this pizza was attractive and tasted good, but instead of cherry tomatoes that were sliced, the pizza had whole cherry tomatoes that basically rolled off on to the floor, there were like 3 tomatoes that were sliced and stayed put. Between the poor service and lack of passion put into the food they prepare, I can say I will never set foot in this restaurant again. People of Castle Rock like to support local establishments and they tend to overly praise places like this out of pity. It is horrible and the fact the owner or manager never responded says a lot! If you want great Italian, and don't mind a bit of a drive, go to Paravicini's Italian Bistro in the Springs, you won't get better Italian...

Having the opportunity to travel to Boston on many occasions, I visited the Old North End. This part of Boston has dozens of small intimate Italian restaurants that offer large portions of some of the best Italian for this side of Italy. Pre covid you would wait hours for the opportunity to sit in a 8 table tiny restaurant and be amazed. So goes the The Old North End in Castle Rock. The very nice owners have created a little slice of Boston with large portions of fantastic food. We have tried the spaghetti with sausage and meatballs. The sausage is home made in the restaurant and is really really good. The red sauce is light and flavorful and the spaghetti noodles are just right with a great flavor, not like the bland noodle you get everywhere else. We also ordered a calzone. Long and a bit on the narrow size, the calzone is literally 14 to 15 inches long. This unique size actual adds to the flavor, with the ratio of dough vs sauce and ingredients. The dough is perfect and the mix of ricotta and others cheeses and ingredients make this calzone one of the best I have had. We enjoyed the live music last weekend during dinner and watch some enthusiastic dancing later in the evening. Lastly don't let the reviews of slow service give you pause, covid has limited the available restaurant workforce and should get better (hopefully). Thanks Old North End, we...