De Angelo's Ristorante — Restaurant in City of Schenectady

Ok so normally I’m not that type to be critical on a review. I like to give a place a fair crack at a good review, so here we go. So for my birthday Oct, I usually hit up a place farther away but friends said to try here. Figured why not, someplace new. Walked in, wasn’t greeted by anyone for a bit. Waitress came up and we told her we had a reservation. Little while later we get seated, get our drinks and then we order our food. Sounds good so far right? Well the waitresses (only 2 on) seemed short fused like no other. Seemed like we were a hassle to her. We got some bread or so I thought dropped off at the table… this stuff was so hard on the bottom I could tap it off a wine glass and people would think I was doing a cheers… Part of our order was side salads, that we never received…. Food order came out and I asked the waitress if our salads were forgotten or? She responded real snotty with “ well do you want your salads or not?”. I was kinda blown away by the tone to the point where I almost got up and walked out. I told her yes I would have liked them before our meal but sure, please bring them out. Should have said forget it because the salad was not good at all. So we got our meals and we got our salad and the only thing decent about the food that night was the mozzarella sticks my wife ordered as an appetizer. I ordered a side of meatballs and I’ve seen better size meatballs at a Golden Corral. By this time birthday dinner was a bust, we paid our bill and left. So this now brings us up to tonight…. We decide to give it another shot, love to support local spots and figured maybe the prior experience was a fluke thing. So me, my wife and my mother stop in,. Place seems busy, noticed a girl at the front who asked us if we had a Res or walk-in. We got seated in a timely manner. Things seem to be going good, feeling pretty good about the place this time…. Well that was short lived. Bread came out and again, hard as a rock. Like how can you mess up garlic bread?? I ordered rigatoni with meatballs and noodles were ice cold, sauce was hot.. meatballs were again tiny as can be. I literally had to move sauce around to see if she forgot them. Sent the meal back and after a short time new meal came out, meatballs were still very small but I was already ready to call it a night. I never once saw anyone checking in on guests like owners or anyone. Waitresses were buzzing around chaotic and I think they could use a hand. The best part of our evening was our waitress Anna H. She apologized so many times and was such a nice person. I really would love this place to be good because it’s so close to us and we wouldn’t have to go to Albany for some good Italian food. Maybe the owners can take notice and fix a few things, bread that can’t crack open a safe, bigger meatballs for an entree and get the waitstaff some help so they don’t have to bus tables, take orders, and try to play the roll of a host all at once. Would make things go smoother and...

Service is presented professionally ... A sincere smile with a genuine kindness is offered ... Our server, NIKKI, was EXCEPTIONAL ! ... A radiant aura with her wholehearted presentation, accompanied a PERFECT dining experience ... I state the necessity to post this review ... NIKKI was so genuinely professional ... Despite groups of 9, 8, 6 & 4 walking in within 10 min, the staff seated ALL in a timely manner... Nikki's service despite EXTREME demands due this number of guests was an example of TRUE SERVICE ! ... I don't post ... This is an exception ... It had to be shared ... ANY employer could only dream of an associate of such stellar qualities as NIKKI ... The remaining staff were expressive with genuine appreciation for our visit... In conclusion, there was a nature in NIKKI'S work ethic that had to shared with you ... D'ANGELO'S is a MUST for the finest in dining experience... With many years of dining, I highly recommend D'ANGELO'S as your NEXT dining experience ... You really need to at least stop to see ... A beautifully decorated dining & bar area brings to life the experience EVERY family, couple or interested customer could ever imagine ... Have you ever thought, I wonder what's so special about an experience missed ? ... Please give yourself the gift of an EXCEPTIONAL OPPORTUNITY you'll be motivated to post like myself .... D'ANGELO'S / CHRISLER AVE, SCHDY, NY This post was initiated by an OUTSTANDING PROFESSIONAL ... Her...

Severe decline in quality from previous visit.

Service: Restaurant is clearly understaffed as there was only 2 servers and no hostess or bussers. We were surrounded by tables covered in dirty dishes and old food for our entire meal and no plates were cleared from our table for the entirety of our meal. I resorted to putting our empty appetizer dishes on the other tables just so we could fit our meals.

Food: Ordered Garlic bread, fried mushrooms and calamari as appetizers. Garlic bread and mushrooms were burnt, mushrooms and calamari were frozen low quality items from a bag. Our dinner choices were limited as at least 50% of the menu was crossed off including all the steaks. Ordered seafood Alfredo and a dinner salad and ravioli and meatball for my kid. My pasta dish came with the wrong pasta and the ravioli were cold.

Overall bad experience. Fault is not at all on the front of house staff as they were all very clearly working as hard and as fast as they could with what they were given. All issues tonight were completely the fault of management/ownership making decisions that sacrifice guest experience to save money....