Bella Luna Downtown — Restaurant in Corpus Christi

(This rant is a bit long but I wanted to include everything, sorry ahead of time!)

Our experience was okay, but we are more upset about the way we were charged. The food was really delicious, but we tried to use the five-course Groupon for 2 which was $57. The fine print on Groupon did not mention that we would have to pay pre-discount taxes, but did mention we would have to pay a 20% pre-discount service fee to our server. Before we even ordered our food the server told us that we would have to pay $33.19 in addition to the $57 upon finishing to cover pre-discount taxes and her 20% service fee. We ordered our food and were told that the breadsticks would be no additional cost to us. When my boyfriend paid the bill, we were charged $12 for the breadsticks we had, and our total bill was $99 (pre-discount). The tax on that total should have been $8.17, but we were charged $9.16. The pre-discount service fee for that should have been 20% of $99 ($19.80), but we were charged $24.03.

Even worse than that is realistically we were only supposed to pay additional fees based on a pre-discounted total $87, not $99 (if you take off the breadsticks, which they said would be free), plus 20% service of $17.40, plus pre-discount tax of $7.18. So even though we paid $33.19 after already paying $57 on Groupon, we should have paid only $24.57 (and that’s if we don’t include the argument that the fine print of the Groupon should have mentioned paying the taxes on the meal too) Even though it’s only a little over $8, it’s still wrong to fudge numbers and charge customers more than what they should be charged. We won’t be returning here because we feel that this business isn’t...

A friend of mine and I were looking for a place for supper. We looked at places close to the Omni, and we ran across Bella Luna Downtown.

From the time we walked through the door, we knew we were at the right place. We were greeted with a smile, and shown to a table. We were just seated at the table when Jennifer stopped by to talk to us and ask about our drink order. The drinks were delivered, and we were able to ask her about the food. I asked about the carbonara. She highly recommended it, but, she said, be prepared - it comes with a lot of bacon. We have different definitions of "a lot." I would think 2 or 3 slices worth of bacon would be a lot. Apparently, 2 or 3 slices in only a tease at Bella Luna Downtown. It had A LOT of bacon! WAY more than I thought it would have!

Even though there was a large party, Jennifer still took time to talk to us - not just be our waitress, but she gave us some background on the restaurant, the owner, and the area in general. She was absolutely amazing!

Back to the food - The servings are big! The toasted ravioli as an appetizer was spot on! And the spaghetti carbonara? Well, it was so good, I think I scraped the design off the bowl! It was so incredible!

The only downside is - their spaghetti carbonara is better than mine.

Having said that, I'm looking forward to going back and enjoying Bella Luna again, along with the atmosphere, the music, and the staff!

Give it a try! You WON'T be...

Oh man. We went here a couple weeks ago, and wow. We looked it up online first and the menu looked great, though pricy. I’m down for paying for good food though, so I was unfazed and ready for a nice night out. However the vibe of the place is like a downtown bar. Were there beer neons?? I can’t remember. The women’s bathroom, which was a little scary had it been clean and normal, was full of standing water. The food was ok, but for sure not worth the price. The breadsticks were… like somehow not even as good as Olive Garden? The pasta was ok, I got the mushroom ravioli and it was pretty good, my husband got mushroom pasta and it was awful. The onions were raw in it. We asked for Parmesan for the pasta and I figured it would be freshly grated, at the prices we were paying, but no! It was like the shakey kind you get a pizza joints! And the shaker was dirty! My mind was blown. The reality of the place matched up with the menu and the prices was just wild. To be fair, we also had the truffle fries and they were super tasty. And our service was fine, though when we were all finished and waiting for the check we eventually had to ask another server for it. Our server was outside across the street sitting down, we could see him from the window. We still laugh about the whole thing, we were expecting a nice night out and we’re just kind of bewildered...