Joe Boccardi's — Restaurant in Columbia

We’ve lived in Columbia 20+ years & used to love this restaurant but stopped going several years ago as it was declining. We were celebrating last night & decided to give it one more try and I really wish we hadn’t.

Mindful of Post COVID tolerance for wait staff, it was still 35 mins after being seated before our steaks arrived & the quality reminded me of the Ponderosa restaurants we called, “Ponder-GROSS-a” as children. (I hadn’t thought of that restaurant in 20 years, until our steaks last night).

The crowd had thinned out by then and I still had to flag down our waitress to request extra napkins & she asked, “didn’t you get one w/ the silverware?” …

There’s no polite way to discuss unhappiness w/out being labeled a Karen but to be fair, I wanted to give it a try vs just leaving a low review.

The male staff member who approached was angry, confrontational & told me the prices of “everything” were rising & didn’t I know that ribeyes were fatty meat. (Yes, I do know these things but also have a basic expectation the quality of food, service & atmosphere should somewhat = the price tag). I was hoping for a kind encounter & a possible substitution offer of pasta or appetizer (really anything would have been ok as I was starving & the steak was not good).

The price was reduced by $10.

It was embarrassing to be confronted & scolded so loudly at the table and although the price was reduced there isn’t a discount low enough to recover a completely ruined evening and celebration dinner.

The junior staff did a great job, however & stopped by often with drink refills & to clear the table.

The highlight of the evening was treating my dog to the steaks we brought home for her since we were unable...

Gathered at Boccardi's for dinner with relatives who were in town for a Memorial for my Mother, so a peaceful, calm surrounding would have been nice. Our tables were filled with 40 plus only adults, 10 in all. We arrived at 6:15....ordered a drink and then our food. We waited.......and waited.........and waited for our food! We asked about it twice! Then finally started getting served at 8:20 p.m. the last dish being served was an appetizer size order of ravioli. The waitress couldnt have been nicer! It was the manager I take offense to. This is his job to maintain a smooth running job....yet when my sister approached him as we were leaving, he took GREAT OFFENSE to her comment of the extreme slow service we received. He took personal offense! "He" couldnt do anything, "He" was short handed, "He" was doing the best he could with what he had! "He" cant control the waitresses...even though my sister had already said our waitress couldn't have been nicer. Management needs an overhaul or at least some training in dealing with his personnel and dealing with his customers because we were not satisfied with the untimely service and were bringing it to his attention. By no means was he being "attacked"..in fact, I would say, he turned and loudly defended himself, not his employees or...

I was excited to try this place after hearing about it. I’ve heard good things. Unfortunately my experience did not reflect that. The positives were the house salad and they had good bread. The negatives were anything that was hot. We tried to order the toasted spinach artichoke cannelloni, it has been changed to those frozen toasted raviolis and they had no flavor. The menu seemed to be outdated in several areas as they also do not have the cabernet vinaigrette. When food came out, I had gotten the tortellini bianco. The white sauce was broken and has no flavor. The tortellini were dry. The shrimp on another dish was the fishiest shrimp I have ever had. It was gross. The meatballs were super dense and lacked flavor. The side of white pasta was the most bland pasta I have ever had. We sent back the tortellini, which is something that I never do but it was basically inedible. When the check came we had to ask the waitress to take the tortellini off. They are understaffed and I felt bad for the staff. Our waitress was nice enough, but she was running around like crazy. She was waiting on the busy patio and was also bartending. Overall, it just wasn’t a great experience and I would not...