Villari's Lakeside Restaurant — Restaurant in Gloucester Township

If you like poor service gaslighting and verbal abuse, then this is the place for you.

I have had mixed experiences at Villari's Lakeside over the years, but a recent visit takes the cake in terms of poor service and management.

I won't belabor the details of the poor service, but I will give a high level. Long wait to be acknowledged by bar staff. Another customer took pity and offered to share their food with us while we waited.

So, long wait to receive drinks, one was a bottle and one a mixed drink. Partner requested a cherry garnish for her drink. Bartender huffs and grabs a bare handful of cherries before plopping them and his fingers into her drink.

At one point, a second bartender stepped in to take our food order. Second bartender requests method of payment, and I provide my card to open a tab.

It was NOT a busy night. It was 9pm on a Friday, and there were vacant seats at the bar with 2 bartenders on one bar.

Nothing exceptional up to this point, just not so great service.

I get up to go smoke a cigarette. My partner requests the bill.

My partner calls to confirm I have cash for a tip. She signs the credit card slip and leaves a line throught the tip field.

Bartender #1 comes over to retrieve the credit card slip and exclaims, "Nothing? Really!? You know we don't do this for free."

My partner joins me in the smoking area and fills me in on what happened.

I return to the bar, cash in hand, still planning on leaving a tip for the other front of house staff working that night, in particular the second bartender who was very helpful.

I ask to speak with the manager. She is there. Bartender #1 is there. Bartender begins by doubling down on his right to confront a customer regarding tip. Then, he quickly flips the story to, "Well, she isn't authorized to sign for you card."

The manager backs up the bartender. Dollar I staff yell at me. "Bottom Line" that my partner is not authorized to sign for my card, while I shout back that is NOT the point. The point is that it was inappropriate for the bartender to confront my partner over the tip before I had a chance to provide the tip.

I revisited the restaurant this week to speak with the general manager to try to sort this out. I have worked in various service roles, and I have never been encouraged to confront customers over a tip. I also felt bad about the rest of thr FOH staff potentially getting shorter on tips for the night because Bartender #1 is a unprofessional and inappropriate.

Surprise. The general manager happens to be the same manager I spoke with on the night in question.

GM doubled down on her stance that I was in the wrong for allowing my partner to sign for my card. She asked me if I would want a complete stranger leaving a $50 tip on my card. . . . 🤦🏽‍♂️ I don't know what this imaginary scenario has to do with any of this.

1. Villari's staff response wasn't, "Excuse me, are authorized to sign for this card?"
2. Villari's staff response was, "Nothing? Really!? You know we don't do this for free."
3. Villari's staff is not privy to who is/is not authorized to sign my card. Therefore not in a position to assert anyone is/is not authorized to sign for MY CARD

Villari staff did not consider authorization until after staff already confronted my partner over the tip on the credit card receipt.

Villari staff did not consider authorization until I returned to talk to the manager about her staff confronting my partner over the tip on the credit card receipt.

I asked the manager when the owner would be in the restaurant. She responded repeatedly that he was on vacation and refused to tell me when he would be back.

Ultimately, I asked the general manager to confirm this statement, which she enthusiastically did:

"It is the policy of Villari's Lakeside management to encourage its staff to confront customers over a tip they are not happy with?"

So, if you like poor service and being confronted over your tip before you even have a chance to calculate a tip, well, then. . .this...

I went to this restaurant with my family last summer (August of 2020) and had the absolute worse experience that I have ever had in all my restaurant experiences. I've had the opportunity to travel various places and experienced different restaurant cuisines, but the one thing that stayed consistent was basic customer respect. I have never been dissatisfied with any portion of a meal, at a restaurant, and was not only told by the MANAGER that I could not replace it or have it redone, but have the restaurant manager argue me down about the validity of my dissatisfaction in such a rude manor.

Last summer, I ordered a Pina Colada with my dinner. The first thing I noticed was that it was garnished with an ORANGE SLICE, which struck me as odd, but I went on and tasted it. It was horrible. Extremely watered down and didn't taste anything at all like a Pina Colada. It completely lacked the taste of pineapple and the orange slice made matters even worse.

I tried to drink it, and took a couple more sips, but I just could not drink the cocktail. It was not to my liking whatsoever and considering the $16 price of the drink, I decided to address the waitress with the issue. The waitress informed me that she could replace it with something else, but I would still have to pay for the drink I didn't want. I just simply asked for the manager for clarification. The manager comes over extremely defensive and says there's no way she can replace my drink nor remove it from my bill because it is their policy and also because she knew for a fact that the drink was made correctly, therefore I had no grounds to send it back because I could not provide any proof or reason to indicate that there was anything wrong the drink.

I could not believe what I was hearing. I explained to her that I should have the right as a customer not to have to pay for something that doesn't meet my standard of satisfaction and that I have never had an experience like this. I also explained that I did not believe the drink WAS in fact made correctly. The manager literally went back and forth with me in disagreement. I then pointed out the obvious shortcomings of the cocktail. The main factor being the absence of PINEAPPLE. The manager of this restaurant's rebuttal was, "You don't know what you're talking about because THERE IS NO PINEAPPLE IN PINA COLADAS". Completely flabbergasted, I replied that "there most certainly is pineapple in the Pina Colada"... "It's called PINA Colada!" I explained that I make homemade Pina Coladas from scratch at home and since she was so adamant the drink was made correctly, I asked how it was made. Again, the MANAGER of this restaurant's answer was "ice, PINA COLADA MIX and VODKA. I was then disgusted and borderline irate. I explained to her all the ingredients that are used to make a Pina Colada and asked was she even aware of the ingredients that are in the Pina Colada mix that was used to make my drink. She of course had no idea and was yet still unrelenting on her position.

Feeling confident that inevitably one day she'd have to be educated on the matter and would then have to endure the embarrassment of her utter ignorance as well as the shame of her bold arrogance, I finally gave up on the ridiculous argument that I allowed myself to engage in with her. I canceled my meal, my husband paid for the bill, drink included, and we left with no intentions of ever returning.

The purpose of this review isn't soley to expose the manager of Villari's Lakeside/The Tiki Bar and her behavior. The purpose is also to bring awareness to the owner(s) of my experience and to show the importance of proper training of all managers to be a professional representatives of the restaurant whom value and respect all patrons of the restaurant. I made a vow that I would write a thorough review depicting my experience. It took a while, but I finally got it done. The actions of that manager and experience my family underwent last August of 2020, just cannot go unexposed...

My husband and I went here for dinner tonight 4/19/15 around 3pm. Our experience was horrible. The host had us seat ourselves, which was indeed was no issue. The waiter arrived at our table about 5 minutes after we sat down, he handed us 2 menus. He was polite. I ordered a mudslide, he said that will take a few minutes because the blender is now outside for the Tiki Bar. I thought to myself REALLY? This place can not afford a $10.00 blender at Walmart. However, I just went along with it. I also ordered an iced tea and requested Splenda and sugar with it. He brought out a plastic holder with equal and some cheap version of sweet & low along with 2 packets of sugar. I said I need more sugar than this, so after a few minutes a female server brings me 3 packets. I could not believe how to difficult it was to get sugar for my iced tea. My waiter returned to the table I explained that I wanted more sugar and finally the female server brought me a nice amount of packets. My mudslide did not have any flavor to it, it was a water downed nothing. We order the shrimp/bacon wrapped appetizer which was dried out and not freshly prepared at the time of our order. We sat there awaiting silver ware, napkins and plates to eat our appetizer. I had the shrimp/scallop skewer dinner meal with risotto rice. Now here is where it gets interested. The shrimp and scallops were chewy, cold, tasted old, the risotto rice was nasty. I could not eat my meal. My husband ordered lasagna with a side order of sausage. The waiter brings our platters over, no sausage, my husband had to wait for 5 minutes for the sausage. I happened to look outside where other patrons were eating and see the wait bring them dinner bread, however, we did not receive this luxury. At the end I asked our server to knock something off this bill, he could clearly see I did not eat my meal. I explained my plight, he said you are not the first customer to say this. So I was glad to bring this to the attention of this establishment. He said I can have the mudslide taken off your bill. At first I said okay, however, after thinking about it I was not satisfied with just that. I said to him, please get the manager to do something else for me. He said the manager is busy trying to find the owner of a black BMW. I said oh no problem, I will wait to speak with him. The server leaves my table, comes back and said the manager will knock of the side of sausage from my husband's order. I said this is not enough for me. Please let me speak to the manager. He said the manager is busy. But I can offer you a free dessert. Now funny thing, no where on their menu is there a dessert section. I happened to notice a large bridal shower party was leaving. I am willing to wager that the free dessert was some leftover piece of cake from that party. I of course declined and held my ground about more money being deducted from this bill. To no avail could I speak to the manager. So we took the 2 offers, paid and left. WE WILL NEVER RETURN TO VILLARI'S LAKESIDE EVER AGAIN!!!

This is not the way to operate a business, when a paying customer requests to speak with the manager this should take place. The ineptness of the manager not finding the time to speak with me is just abysmal. Everyone save your money and time and do not patron this...