Vincenzo's Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Colonial Heights

The food quality leaves a lot to be desired. Pasta is overcooked and mushy, marinara sauce tastes like it's from a jar, and seasoning doesn't appear to be a priority.

The Chicken Cesar wrap was dry and tasteless (grilled chicken). The Marco wrap (fried chicken) was... odd. The flavor combinations didn't really seem to work well in the Marco wrap, and my wife was surprised to find jalapeno in it despite it not being called out on the menu. But at least the fried chicken wasn't dry. The Penne alla Vincenzo's, while advertised as having "lots of cheese", really lacked any depth of flavor or creativity. It was just overcooked penne, bland marinara sauce, about a cup of ricotta, and a large portion of mozzarella put under the broiler. I visited several years prior too. Wasn't impressed then, still wasn't impressed by this most recent visit.

Service was decent. Nothing really stood out about the service. The dining room wasn't busy during our visit. Maybe only 2-3 other tables were seated. But the kitchen seemed to be slower than expected in getting orders out. Not quite long enough that I'd complain to the staff, but longer than I would have expected for how busy the restaurant was and what we ordered.

The atmosphere is definitely dark and dated. The Italian chef caricature statue at the front door holding a sign stating "No outside food or drink" seemed both tacky and telling -- if people are wanting to bring in outside food, the food served on-site probably isn't well liked. The old buffet area at the front now appears to be an open storage area. Not the kind of thing you want to see when you first walk into a restaurant. There were hand written notes on the window to not open it because it's broken. Restroom was not stocked and didn't appear to have been cleaned recently. Overall, this place looks like it needs a full redo from top to bottom -- building updates, parking lot repair, decor, seating,...

I’ve had the food from the restaurant many times over the years, the past three weeks probably collectively 6-8 times. The food is a solid hit or miss. I guess it all depends who is cooking. It’s not consistently good, but it’s not consistently bad either. This is my dine-in experience and my to-go experience. However, the service is what really tilts me towards an unfavorable feeling. If you advertise that you close at 9:30pm you should probably close at that time (I can even understand 15 min before that time as well). Not an hour before that. If anything, at least be a little bit more honest/transparent and advertise that you stop taking orders an hour before closing. The servers when I dine-in have always seemed a bit standoff-ish, not exactly the feeling that I’m inconveniencing them by eating there, but you can clearly tell something’s off. (Aside from one or two servers) I don’t believe the issue resides with me, I always show the upmost respect and never tip below 20%, to-go orders I even tip 15%. There are some other small things that rub me the wrong way about my experience at Vincenzo’s, but they are mine alone. Find out for yourself, but this is my rating based on...

Stay tuned for why this review is not the 5* that it should be... For some reason I have yet to do a Vincenzos review and I do not know why (slacking). Vincenzos has always been a great restaurant to eat in or get delivery/pickup from. We have been multiple times due to their consistency, flavor and prep of food, cleanliness of the restaurant and staff on hand. Vincenzos has been around a long time and because of the consistencies of previous visits I have given them a higher rating today. A higher rating than I probably should have given after my latest purchase from them the other night.

We ordered an Italian sub (for me), Chicken Philly for the lady and an order of fries to share. The meal was tasty and everything was going well until we went back to look at our food photos to post on our blog. We both had clear pictures and noticed that I ingested someone's hair that had prepped our food.

It's a little late for me but this is very off-putting and needs to be addressed so it doesn't happen to anyone else. The first sub picture has a clear shot...