Movida Pizza Pub — Restaurant in Concord

The new Movida Pizza Pub, formerly Garofola's, seems to have an identity crisis. It bills itself as an Italian-American restaurant and also a "pizza pub", bar and grill, and a night club. Which is it?

Movida has the dark decor/ambiance of a nightclub and during the day, on a Sunday before noon, it was disconcerting to listen to the horrible pounding cacophony of today's so-called dance club music when most of us diners there were trying to relax and enjoy the excellent authentic Italian cuisine. Not conducive to fine dining or digestion, especially so early in the day (if ever!).

In short, the management needs to consider some adjustments for lunch and early evening dinner times before it turns into a "night club" later on. During the non-nightclub hours, we suggest playing some other music (easy listening jazz or Italian songs as other Italian restaurants in the area do). Save the "modern vibe" for later in the evening - and a younger crowd.

On a positive note, the food is excellent (e.g., shrimp scampi with linguini and cavatelli with Italian sausage and broccoli rabe and some of the best tiramisu ever tasted).

We also suspect the waitress was new, but it would have been nice to have bread plates along with the delicious bread, the availability of Pellegrino or other mineral water (traditionally Italian), and have her not ask what we wanted for dessert before entree finished (and bringing the bill before said dessert even came). We felt rushed!

We realize the tweaks need to be ironed out as it's still "early days", and hope management considers these "suggested areas of improvement" in ambiance and service, given in the best of intentions. For these reasons, we took away one star and gave it four tops, and though the food is excellent, we are not sure we'll be back because of the loud music, which marred the whole dining experience. Or maybe we'll have to...

Remodel is mostly completed. Grand opening will be next week, but we just could not wait to get here. The food was absolutely fantastic and the service was very good too. The place looks beautiful. They’re gonna have a dance floor with a disco ball and live music and the ceilings are lit up. Everything in here is brand new and absolutely beautiful. The owners were here. they were very friendly and helpful and explained a lot of things on the menu. The menu has been updated and it is true authentic Italian cuisine. I had the Chilean Seabass. It was exquisite cooked to perfection. The flavor was amazing. The presentation was beautiful . My husband had a Stromboli, which is his favorite. It was ginormous and amazing as well. They brought out an Italian sourdough and dipping sauce. That was fantastic. We also had some chipotle for dessert. Highly recommend coming out to eat here. It’s definitely worth it. The owners are great and the...

Decided to give a new place a try. Interior is a bit drab. Was a “non-club” night and inside is just very plain. It seemed the same person was hostess, bartender, waitress and food runner as service was very slow. My husband ordered fried ravioli and they came back to say that wasn’t available so he ordered a pizza instead. Took a long time for his pizza to come out, my son and I were basically done by the time my husband got his food. My pizza - classic pepperoni- was ok. Not the best I’ve ever had, but certainly not worst. My husband had the arugula and prosciutto. The menu says “no sauce” which was fine as the description said it had extra virgin olive oil. His pizza was literally a dry pizza crust with arugula, prosciutto and feta on top. We would not return bc there are tons of better pizza joints around with more appealing interior and...