Venezia Italian Restaurant and Bar — Restaurant in Eaton

AVOID!!!

I have not posted a review for a restaurant in ten years or more, even when I have had a negative experience. But this was a whole other level. I honestly feel it’s my duty to warn other patrons of this disaster.

First, hard to find where to enter. There’s evidently an ice cream/gelato place connected with the same name. Would be helpful if they could make that more clear.

I get inside at last. Fairly chintzy, Chuck E Cheese vibes. But I let it go. I knew it was an expensive spot from the menu I read online, so I thought maybe this was a rustic hidden gem.

One problem: No one is there. At all. And I mean staff too. I ask if anyone is there. I could’ve taken some bottles from the bar and left but I don’t do that kind of thing and I’m hungry and just drove 20 minutes to try something new.

Finally some guy comes out who doesn’t exactly exude an expensive Italian restaurant vibe. Baseball hat etc. All right; again, maybe part of the charm.

What I hadn’t noticed was a girl passed out on a table in the back. He nudges her. Nothing. He looks to me like, “What can ya do?” I tell him, “I mean, I don’t work here …”

He finally has me sit. I ask if there are any lunch specials. He barks out they’re done with lunch. Ok … Do they have any dinner specials? Check the menu. Fair enough …

He nudges the girl again and again. She finally awakens, wobbly. Goofily shuffles over to the bar to get some water mumbling about how she’s been “up all day cooking for my husband.” I crack that I’ve been “up all day too.”

She asks what I want to drink. I ask for a club soda with no ice and a very dirty vodka martini. This latter request seems to baffle her. She grabs a silly little cocktail menu from another table that looks straight out of a sports bar. She explains she can only make the cocktails on there.

I look to the full bar. She recognizes what I’m thinking and explains, “I mean, I COULD TRY to make you one, but I don’t know what I’m doing.” No thanks. Just the club soda.

Of course it comes to me with ice. Which negates the point of club soda (the ice melts, making it watery; hence why I asked for no ice). She comes back with the right order. It’s flat and warm. Incidentally the place itself is boiling. It’s 100 degrees outside: you’d think they could boost the A/C.

By now I’m thinking of leaving but again I want to give it a shot. You never know and sometimes the best spots are a bit “charming” in nuance at first like this.

Since the entrees are about TWICE what they would be elsewhere (and this is Eaton, CO, remember; so most places are pretty cheap), I ask if there’s sides or salad. Nope. I order a side salad for $6. Then my chicken parm for $22. Again, no sides and no complementary salad. No bread even.

The salad comes and is fine. Not bad but clearly grocery bought ingredients or Sisco. Not end of world but makes me suspicious about the entree … which comes so quickly after, that I worry they just microwaved it.

And maybe they did. It’s horrendous. The spaghetti sauce is like ketchup slathered with some bright white plastic cheese. It is tougher than wood to cut into and flavorless.

The pasta it comes with is yellowish cream-colored and clearly straight out of the box. It’s not AS tough as the chicken parm but also flavorless and definitely tougher than fresh pasta could ever be.

The gal suddenly feels the need to be an attentive server and keeps asking me over and over again if it’s good. What am I supposed to say? “OF COURSE NOT! YOU KNOW THIS IS PRE-COOKED SLOP!”

Not my style. Again, just as not my style to leave a nasty review. But this was just too much.

Fast food Italian is one thing but when it’s this expensive, I feel I need to ward off other potential customers. Go to Olive Garden instead. It’s garbage but at least you know what you’re getting and it’s cheap. OR go to a REAL Italian place nearby in Greeley or Fort Collins and enjoy yourself for real.

Anything but here. I don’t understand how a place like this...

1 star because that’s the lowest number offered! Possibly the worst restaurant experience I’ve ever had over all. % of us arrived about 6:50 pm, We were seated in the front dining room at a 6 top. We noticed as we were being seated how hot it was inside and asked the server if the a?c was broken? He said its working but not very effectively.. We asked if we might just prop front door open because it was 10 degrees cooler outside and our server said no. Okay, we order drinks and one from our party goes to the restroom. He says to things when he comes back. First, don’t go in the bathroom because it was bad and second that it was 5-10 degrees cooler toward the back of the dining room. We asked the server if we could move back to the other 6 top. He replied “ I guess that’s fine”. So we moved ourselves. We ordered 2 appetizers which was the giant meatball and the lemon calamari. They brought us complimentary garlic knots with marinar. They were hot but hard on 1 side like they’d been overcooked warming them up in the microwave. We started getting a bit reluctant on our restaurant choice but decided to chance it. The appetizers came out and we placed our orders for entrees. My wife tried to cut the meatball and raised her brow, so I took the knife and could push thru the top but the bottom was rock hard. When the server came by we showed him the meatball cut up and literally tapped the plate with it, showed him how bad the freezer burn was(black) and asked he show it to the chef. He apologized said he’d get us another. They brought out our entrees and then asked if he could just remove the meatball from the ticket because there were no more. So my Alfredo came with Chicken and I ordered shrimp. My wife’s tortellini was the wrong one as well. We called our server back over and told him. He apologized and said he’d check on it. He came back and told us he looked and turned them in correctly but he can’t communicate with the cook so he didnt know what to tell us….. So shortly he returns from the kitchen and tells us it’s too close to closing time to remake the 2 entrees but they would just take 1/2 off them if we were good with that? We said it dont seem we have much choice while we see them still seating people! The server never asked how anything was, never offered a refill, or if we wanted another cocktail. Terrible experience but being with company, not worth...

My family has eaten here five times since they opened, and the food has been really hit-or-miss. A few issues we had with last night's $100 meal:

1.) The mahi-mahi was advertised to come topped with spinach... there was no spinach.

2.) The Branzino did not come with crab even though it is advertised to be crab-stuffed sea bass.

3.) The appetizers are really small. For $15 each, the stuffed mushrooms included 4 tiny mushrooms, and the pepperjack shrimp included 4 small shrimp. We frequent another similar Italian restaurant we frequent in Fort Collins and the $15 stuffed-mushroom appetizer comes with 6 huge mushrooms in stark contrast to Venezia.

We have had good luck ordering basic noodle dishes and pizzas, but it seems like there is always something disappointing about their specialty dishes: In addition to the missing ingredients in last-night's order, a few months ago, we ordered their eggplant lasagna, and the eggplant was rancid - there was an overwhelming rotten taste that just made the dish inedible. The eggplant lasagna is the first dish I've ever thrown away in my 32 years on this planet.

With many of our orders missing an ingredient and being served rotten eggplant, I just can't justify going back another time.

Atmosphere and service is...