Volo Ristorante

WOW. What an absolute disaster of a visit. After being pushed to make plans for Father’s Day, I finally chose Volo to celebrate with my wife, son, and mother. Big mistake. We have been here before, so we were well aware of the questionable service (always understaffed), but the food is good so we gave it a third or fourth try. This was officially the last try. We arrived on time for our reservation, and ordered an appetizer. A few minutes later, some pasta for our son. The buttered noodles, which we asked for cheese that we never got (server even told my son she would bring extra on the side) were the only thing we received in a timely fashion. No cocktails, just bottled water, and it took about ten minutes just to get some lemon slices which were riddled with seeds. Come on guys, even servers at chilis know to remove seeds when cutting lemons…

While waiting for our appetizer I did order an espresso, which somehow took about ten minutes and two asks to receive.

Anyhow, our calamari (which takes literally one minute to cook) came out about 20 minutes later, to which I said “wow I forgot we even ordered that…” not very well seasoned, and not crispy at all, the breading was almost soggy.

We had to wait about 20 minutes to order our entrees (veal marsala, linguine al Nero, and the sole fish entree) because we weren’t ready to order right after ordering our calamari, and literally didn’t get a visit from our server for over 30 minutes. In the time between ordering our entrees and our eventual departure, our server came back and asked us if we’d like dessert menus, to which I replied “We haven’t even gotten our dinner!” Then I watched her scurry over to the expo window and ask one of the cooks about our ticket, with a shrugged shoulder reply. They hadn’t even started our food. But this whole time, they’ve been making to go orders for bar guests and random dishes for the other few tables. I immediately notified the server that we would like to cancel our order and leave immediately. I was getting frustrated and angry and just wanted to leave immediately. Server offered a free dessert or to wait and receive the food to go. I said no I’m not even in the mood to eat now, I’d just like to leave.

While all of this was happening, the guy who appeared to be expediting all the food and acting like the ‘chef’ never communicated with his cooks, and I saw him lecturing servers about stupid things. He was sitting at the bar chatting with someone waiting on their to go order when I walked out. I’m not sure if he was unaware or just didn’t care, but judging by his demeanor I’d say it was the latter.

I have NEVER received such poor service in my life. This is disgraceful, and I really hope you can learn from this mistake.

Why has restaurant service dropped so far below any acceptable standard in this city? This is OUTRAGEOUS. I’m more than willing to pay a premium for delicious food and decent service, but can’t seem to find a place that can seem to satisfy. Maybe I should just cook at home every night and never take a night off. Happy Father’s Day….