Vespa Pizzeria — Restaurant in Charleston

I can't say I was overly impressed with the food. I walked into a great open atmosphere, very friendly (and smiling) staff... went to the bar to place a togo order which was taken quickly. It wasn't super busy. About 25 minutes later I get my food (I ordered the meatballs ricotta with bread and a BBQ chicken pizza...)

The level of disappointment when I opened the meatballs and found only 3 tiny meatballs (like the ones you get from the frozen section at Walmart or dollar general) covered in a watery tasteless marinara sauce for $11, was do astoundingly disappointing, that I almost drove the 35 minutes back there so I could figure out who made these and show them how to do it right. I decided I'd try them anyway. The meatballs were clearly unmistakably handmade, but I assume they make a huge batch of them once every 2 weeks and freeze them then microwave them back to life. You could taste the lack of inspiration, lack of caring, and lack of flavor. For $11, and only 3 meatballs... do better.

Then the BBQ chicken pizza. The crust was spot on. Wasn't burnt, wasn't heavy, wasn't saturated in flour or cornmeal. The chicken was chicken tenders that had been cut into 4-5 pieces after cooking, dipped in dollar tree discount BBQ sauce, and placed carefully to ensure you got 3 meh sized pieces per slice of pizza. That was the only BBQ flavoring on the pizza. The cheese was okay but not write home to mama about, and the sauce on the pizza must have been the same as on the meatballs because i couldn't taste it.

Regardless to say, if management were to pay me to go back and eat there, I'd turn it down until they made an offer you'd be stupid to refuse (couple thousand maybe) however, if you want a no frills expensive, over rated fire cooked pizza place - you found it. For me? I'll stick to homemade or Little Ceasars (honestly, better than Vespa)

Great friendly bar tender and hostess, nice seating, open...

I work on Daniel Island, and about once every 6 months we give this place another try, foolishly hoping for a big improvement in the service. Unfortunately, they never deliver. If I'm going to overpay for food that is so-so, I'd rather go somewhere where the service is halfway decent. This is not the place, which makes me wonder what exactly people are paying for. Without exaggeration, every single time I've been here, the servers have either acted annoyed by the presence of customers or blatantly rude. Today, we had to hunt someone down to give us menus, weren't told any of the specials (after we had ordered we overheard another server going over them at a different table), and had an issue with the drink order. After our server went over the draft beers with us, I ordered a Holy City Pluff Mud Porter, because, let's be honest - it's the bomb. The server came back, put a very amber looking beer in front of me and ran off. After everyone at our table tasted it and confirmed that I wasn't going crazy and that it definitely wasn't the HC Porter, I asked her about it. Her response was that that's 'what came out of the HC tap'. Since it was her screw up and not mine, and since everyone had already tried the beer, I figured my friend could drink it (for free) since I didn't like it. Afterall, it wasn't what I ordered. After I ordered a water, she said 'if someone is going to drink that, I'm going to have to charge you for it'. Really? So we sent it back with her, I assume to just be thrown out unless some poor unsuspecting customer got to drink it along with our backwash.

The space and the patio are great, just wish a restaurant with a better customer focus could occupy it instead of this place. Save yourself the trouble and go eat somewhere...

HORRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE THAT RIPS OFF THEIR CUSTOMERS.

Can't rate the food because I never go to! I ordered to-go food: Seafood pasta. The container was a sandwich container - clam shell design where only the bottom half held the food. In this case the bottom was sauce. During my drive, the sauce leaked out the side and then the lid popped off and spilled everywhere. So now I am without food and a trashed car that smells of pasta sauce.

Now, I call Vespa and asked for a manager. I explained that I was out a $20 dish and no lunch. I had spent a total of $40 on takeout for lunch and her/managers only response was that she "would tell the kitchen."

Result: no food, out $40, have to clean my car all because Vespa does not recognize that their to-go packaging for liquid dishes is inefficient AND they had no inkling of offering a credit. HORRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE THAT RIPS OFF...