Postino East — Restaurant in Gilbert

On July 4th, 2025, I reserved a table at Postino East to celebrate my daughter’s 14th birthday. Our party included myself, my daughter, and three of her friends. We arrived five minutes before our reservation time and were seated immediately. The food arrived quickly, was delicious, and the pricing was reasonable—$200 for a birthday meal for five people felt fair.

However, the service left much to be desired.

Hostess: The hostess who greeted us did not smile or offer a warm welcome, despite us arriving in good spirits for our first visit. She asked my name, removed the “reserved” sign from the table directly behind the hostess stand, and walked away without a word or a smile.

Table setting: Although I reserved a table for five and noted that it was for my daughter’s 14th birthday, the table was set for only four. This lack of attention to detail was disappointing.

Service: Our server, Ethan, introduced himself and took our drink orders: three prickly pear lemonades, one Sprite, and one iced tea, along with five waters. While the drinks and food arrived promptly, no one noticed that we were missing a set of utensils, so I had to ask another server for the fifth set. Ethan did not check on us at all during the meal. Our drinks were empty halfway through our meal and remained that way until the end of the meal. When Ethan finally returned to ask if we wanted dessert, I requested refills for the kids, and the check. Other than taking our order and payment, there was no interaction or follow-up from Ethan. He did walk by a few times to other tables. Was Ethan rude? He was not. He was simply indifferent to us being there.

Despite the lackluster service, I still left a 20% tip, out of respect for servers who often rely on tips—though in this case, it was not earned through attentive service from anyone - least of all Ethan and the hostess.

As we left, the hostess remained as silent as she had been when we arrived. I said “thank you” and wished her a good day, because good manners cost nothing. Kindess and a smile are free. Unfortunately, I gave far more courtesy than we received from the staff at Postino East.

It’s disappointing that what should have been a special first visit to celebrate my daughter’s birthday was marred by inattentive and indifferent service. We received better treatment at Topo across the street when we stopped there for ice cream—just a smile and a greeting made a difference.

Postino East can and should do better. I don’t know what assumptions were made about us when we walked in, but I assure you this was my first—and last—visit to your establishment.

Highly...

My family and I were visiting AZ from the Bay Area. We had went to another restaurant for brunch and noticed that the other restaurant was on a long wait. So my wife said try another place that looked a little bit calmer which she was talking about Postino. We walked in and were greeted with a smile and sat immediately. First impression was that it was modernized with a slight old country italian feel, well put together, and impeccably clean. We sat down and ordered for the children and for the myself and my wife. The server was very pleasant and patient with us. Appetizers and meals came out in a very efficient time. Great special was offered by the server and we had 2 orders. It was a corn and some type of Miché Rye toast I think. Also the portions were perfect for the children and the sides that we order were perfect portions, and at the end we had some very delicious warm donut holes freshly made with decadent slightly sweet chocolate sauce, house made caramel, and house made frosting on the side . I was able to talk to Heather the Manager on duty and she was extremely pleasant. With all this said. I am a Operations Director for a restaurant in Northern California and have been in the restaurant industry for nearly 30 years. With all the competition and food culture that involves the caliber and pedigree of food that entails in the bay area food scene and wine country my bar for expectation is always (unfairly) higher than the usual guest, due to my taste and experiencing the best of the best, I was highly impressed and a bit disappointed that Postino wasn't busier than it was that day. Advice to anyone considering to eat in Gilbert- Postino is the place to be. Natural sunlight, very nice comfortable temperature inside, great appropriate proportion meals, and fair pricing. If I ever lived in Gilbert I would be a regular. Matter Fact anywhere in the east valley I would make my way there at least once a week. Thank you to the Postino Restaurant Family for making my experience with my family a...

Abnormally bad service that was not only responsible for several delays during our experience, but culminated in our server stating that he did not have a knife to give us to cut a cake. Unless this is a state of the art kitchen that cuts everything with lasers, this is one of if not the most preposterous statements I have ever heard from a full service restaurant/bar. Just ask your self a series of questions to understand the absurd totality of “Not having a knife.” :

How do they cut the sandwiches? How do they cut the bread to make the sandwiches? How do they trim or prepare any of the animal based products in their kitchen? How do they open products? Spoons and Forks? How do they cut the bruschetta that they serve? With their hands? (or as previously mentioned, a commercial only product that slices ready to serve food with such precision and temperature control that you wouldn’t even realize the laser cut it. It even mimics the pressure of the bread as you would normally incur when pressing down on the loaf before cutting it. It’s that good.)

Really?

To make matters worse the service staff was essentially non-existent during the entirety of our stay. This only magnified the growing realization that the service here was for the restaurants sake, not the customers. You can argue that this is a bar, and for posterity sake let’s say it is a bar. I’ve still had better service at a traditional bar, because they have an incentive to refill your drink (Hint: money). Clearly Postinos does not have these same incentives In mind. What they do have in mind however, clearly isn’t reaching the customers in a productive or positive manner.

In case you wanted to know what we cut the cake with, we took his suggestion, a used butter knife on the table. Probably some ingenious cost cutting measurement the management implemented. The economy is crashing after all. Except this time, it’s not the GDP that’s shrinking in our country, it’s the respect and diligence offered by local restaurants...