Filomena's Italian Kitchen & Market — Restaurant in Costa Mesa

I have not had the opportunity to eat here and only learned of this place from Restaurant Impossible. However, the volume of positive reviews prior to the show speak for themselves and I would certainly love to give this place a try if I had the opportunity and didn’t live on the east coast.

As for the show, it is “reality” TV which I find ironic because we all know how scripted and dramatized it tends to be, often resulting in a convoluted perspective that tends to be rather far from actual reality itself. For people to come here and post negative reviews based on what is portrayed on a show alone is a bit unfair. That being said, I’m somewhat guilty of that myself as I’m here leaving a review, which is exactly why I took the time to read at least a hundred reviews and conclude that those alone are enough for me to feel comfortable giving it five stars and wanting to try it myself.

Another thing I noticed is that people complained about her responses after they posted negative and ignorant stuff to her based on what they saw on the show alone. But if you actually look at the review history prior to the show, Linda seems very concerned with how her customers feel and her responses clearly indicate that. I have worked online and with websites going on nearly 25 years now. I have plenty of clients and I know how integral online reputations and reviews are for any business, regardless of industry and I always encourage owners to be proactive with their responses to customer reviews, both good and bad, respond to everyone whenever possible. I can also say that along with my amazing and wonderful clients, out of the majority of businesses I’ve seen online, Linda stands out as one of the most caring, and attentive to such reviews and reputations online. That is no easy task.

Congratulations to you, Linda. You won me over already and I haven’t even gotten to sample your food yet. Robert did next to nothing to the menu it seems, which is a huge compliment because that’s the first RI I’ve watched out of 100’s where I noticed that. And I think it’s great the market has been adapted to allow those who have loved your food for so many years to now take it home with them. I’m looking forward to when a way is found to have that new market “to-go” style made available for online ordering, shipped to my door, so I can sample it without going 3000 miles to get it. Till then, I wish you the best... and since it’s Sunday, and you’re a mom, Happy...

From our most recent visit last night. We are locals and get take out every 1.5-2 weeks, as the food is amazing. Last night my wife order a large meat pizza and cheesy garlic bread to go, and the phone operator said 30 mins. 20 mins go by and we decide to leave our house and head on over. We arrive 5 mins before our pick-up time and they stated we are early. We said fine, no worries. The older lady running the counter said they are just finishing up and it will be ready in 5 mins and I stated no problem again we are early. 10 mins go by and now she says it will be 15 min more minutes and apologizes. She said we should go run an errand or come back later. We decided to walk to Circle K for a coke and some bottled water. 15 minutes go by, no food... then another 15 minutes go by, so now 30 minutes later than we were promised our food shows up. Pizza is slightly burnt, probably a min past done. And our cheesy garlic bread is just garlic bread. I stated that isnt what we ordered after a about 30 seconds of arguing my wife produced the receipt clearly showing we ordered cheese bread and we wanted that great Sunday sauce. The old lady tells us to just go as they are busy... I state no, we paid for the cheese bread and I at least want the sauce we paid for. She finally takes our food back and a couple minutes later we get our bread with about a 3rd of normal amount of cheese on it and later find out burnt on the bottom. And barely any sauce in the cup. I asked for a cookie or mini cheese cake for the inconvenience and having to wait an additional 30 mins for our food. She says no, the owner is in the back cooking, it will upset her. I said I'm upset as I had to wait an extra 30 mins and fight to get the right food we had already paid for. We decided to just walk away. But horrible customer service and food was definitely not up to the normal par for here. Hesitant to come back, they are definitely in a time out with me.

Edit to owner response... ticket had 30 minutes wrote on it by an employee in blue ink, it was on top of the receipt. I can only speak to what we were told on the phone and what I clearly saw written on the...

The worst service that you could possibly receive. I would give it a zero, but the food is good.

Our waitress/bartender gave us a bottle of water for the table, but no glasses. Nor did she give my son his drink. Waited 15 mins...asked for glasses, she said she forgot and that it was coming...another 15 mins., no glasses...got up and asked someone else for glasses and my son's drink, so he brought it right away.

Ordered appetizers with our wine, and then later our main order. Waitress comes back after a few minutes and said she forgot what our order was. So we repeated the order. Then after waiting 50 mins of waiting for our appetizers we asked about it. She never put the order in and forgot that as well. Finally we got our dinner and one of the two appetizers came afterward.

The waitress kept saying I'm sorry I forgot, it's my fault. Well...of course it was her fault...who else's fault would it be????

Another person came and said sorry for the bad service we were receiving and he hoped that we would be back.

We then recieved the bill...the waitress charged us for 2 additional items that we never ordered...so then had to have that corrected.

The restaurant did absolultey nothing for us as an apology. The most ridiculous thing...