no. 246 — Restaurant in Decatur

Last night we visited 246 with my 60yo parents who were visiting from out of town and staying in Decatur. Since it was their last night in town and my mom's birthday, we decided to celebrate with a nice big Italian meal (her favorite) at 246 because we have always heard good things.

Sadly, we were really disappointed in our service. We let our server know at the beginning of the evening that we were celebrating my mom's birthday, and made a note of it in our reservation as well. My parents were a little unfamiliar with the Italian names of the dishes, and were fumbling as they ordered with our waitress. My father was also confused about 246's no substitution policy. My husband and I agreed that our waitress was not very helpful when my parents struggled and asked questions. She became extremely short, unhelpful and generally had a bad attitude about my parents' unfamiliarity of the menu. I do not think it is reasonable to expect your guests to know Italian before they come into your restaurant. For example, my mom asked about the agnolotti, and said to the waitress "oh that's like ravioli, right?" and the waitress replied "No, it's not." and then didn't offer an additional explanation, leaving me to jump in and help my mom out. Again, I felt like this was unfair to my mom, and would have expected a friendlier approach and clarification from the server herself. I could tell my mom was embarrassed (on her birthday!) and I was surprised to encounter such subpar service from a Ford Fry restaurant. There were several other interactions throughout the evening with my parents and the waitress that ultimately drove me to want to write this review and share our experience.

The atmosphere was extremely noisy as well, which contributed to the difficulty my parents were having. They were struggling to hear our server and all night long we all were shouting to be able to hear each other during conversations.

The food, thankfully was excellent--every single dish we had was very very good. My dad is Italian-American and he was impressed with their marinara sauce, which says a lot about an Italian restaurant. We had the spaghetti & meatballs, tagliatelle bolognese, agnolotti, caesar salad, cacio e pepe and bomboloni for dessert and everything was delicious.

Overall though, we were really disappointed with our experience due to the service. For a $250+ meal for 4 people, we expected much better service. We tipped well because we're decent people, but we probably won't be back. Italian cuisine is just as much about the ingredients as it is about the love expressed through the food and service, and there are much better examples of this fact at other Italian...

The parking around here is always tricky. Unfamiliar to the area, we had to circle the block and try to look for parking. We found a mobile/online paid parking space in front of the Decatur Library and walk to the restaurant from there. The minimum hour to park there is 2 hours.

The place has very nice decor and good ambience. Our server is friendly and attentive. It was a birthday dinner for my friend and we made reservation ahead on Open Table. Some of the dishes flavor is not what we expect, but not in a bad way. For example, we didn't expect garlic bread has spicy chili in it.

One thing to keep in mind that aside from their sparkling menu, they won't mix drink out of the menu. When dining out like this, I normally ask for a fruity mocktail and often, the bartender will mix up something. They suggest the hibicus drink from the cocktail list since it has no alcohol (just ginger beer). I don't really like the taste of it.

For food, we had:

Garlic bread: again, it has a tingling spicy flavor of chili in it. Prosciutto di Parma No.246 meat ball: it has one meat ball per order Chicken Scallopini Parmesan Whole roasted Brazino: the server told me it was whole fish with head and bone in but I'm glad when it was served, it was already deboned. The fish is really good. Shrimp scampi Black Spaghetti: it goes with tomato sauce. My friend's mom didn't like it and we was able to exchange it for shrimp scampi. Bianca pizza for to-go

During the course of the dinner, we discover 2 ants and 1 fruit fly around our table area. I don't mind as much as I saw worse before but my friend's mother was pretty upset. The first time we saw the ant, we talked with the server and she apologized for it. But the second time when another ant crawled up on my friends, we brought it up to the manager. He apologized and by the end of the meal, some items are free of charge in our check. We were glad it got resolved in the end.

Overall, hit and miss here and there in service but their food is good and their manager response properly on site which is something...

Literally the worst service experience I have ever had. Waitress Faith completely ignored me and my date. She forgot my wine order and after reminding her she brought it back about ten mins later. I ordered shrimp scampi and side of asparagus, a staff member brought out scampi and side of pasta. In a normal restaurant experience, the waiter would usually come by and ask is everything OK? Do you guys need anything? But not Faith! I had to wave her over and let her know that I received the wrong side item. She didn’t even bother to apologize for the mixup. The longer my date and I sat there we realized that we were literally being ignored. There where three other parties in our section, two of which were just about finished eating. She would walk out to the patio area walk right past us as if we were not even there and address the other tables. Faith didn’t even bother to even so much as to refill our waters. I was over it, I spoke to manager Lindsay Spence. Spence apologized and said that Faith is “one of their best” HA! Well I hate to experience the worst. She did comp my food and wine. After Spence left, I again had to wave Faith over for a to go box for my dates food. After Faith returned with the to go box she then tried to apologize AFTER we had spoken to management,stating “she was soo busy” 🙄! I really had hoped she would just drop the to go bag and leave. But she insisted on staying and I questioned her, why not just continue to ignore us like you’ve done during our dinner? It’s crazy how she was so busy but was able to attend to the other tables in our section. Funny how that works! Sadly I will not be returning to No. 246, which is unfortunate bc my first experience there was amazing which is why I wanted to return. But the non-service my date and I received from Faith really turned me off. As we gathered our items to leave another patron overheard our conversation and let us know that he had had a...