Salvatore's Italian Restaurant & Pizza — Restaurant in Grand Rapids

I hate giving a bad review but I definitely think it needs to be addressed. And it sounds like a whole lot of complaining but its literally an entire list of things that happened. It's crazy to me coming from years of experience in this industry. And maybe if it were just 1 or 2 minor things I wouldn't leave a review. First time here, finally made it, not a great time :( We stood at the entrance waiting to be seated and nobody was around for a good 4 minutes. The one waitress that came out walked past us 3 times and never said anything. Nobody acknowledged that we were there. When we finally were seated we again waited for someone just to take a drink order. We ordered calamari and it came out with hair wedged in between the pieces. They made a new one for us. The croutons on the salads were extremely hard. Our entrees were delicious. However, I specifically asked how many shrimp would come with mine. She went back to ask the kitchen, she said 6 for a half order or 12 for a full. I ordered a full and it came out with 10. The host coughed into her hands and then proceeded to touch the napkins, the napkins that we eneded up with when having to actually ask for them since we had none. We sat with an empty glass of water for quite a while. The server I am assuming is inexperienced but she was kind. I couldn't bare to even ask to talk to a manager because nothing good was going to come from what I had to say and I didn't want to seem rude. Nor did I want them to think I just wanted a discount. So instead I decided to leave this detailed review. Every other place we tried to go had an hour wait, I see now why this place was not even busy. The service is terrible. Thank goodness the food was good cause that's really the only good thing that came from this (currently swatting away fruit flies) and now as we are about to leave, they turn the music on. I really hope they step up their game here. Its a great location, cute spot, good food, but I can only imagine how much business they lose on a day to day basis because of...

On arrival it was a tad frustrating finding parking as the parking lot has only enough spots for 15-20 cars max but additional parking is available across the street. Entering Salvatore’s Restaurant reminded me of an Olive Garden- wanna be. Directly to your right is a section where a ton of outside plants sit on tables near a window. We waited to be seated, and put in a booth right by the main entry/exit door on this very cold/snowy. All staff appear to be about 15, which is fine but we had a new employee whom did not multitask very well. (But she was trying her very best) I ordered wine & my husband ordered a beer. Upon delivery of my wine we are informed they are out of the beer my husband ordered. We ordered the Steak Nicolette $16.99ea Comes with soup (chicken noodle) or side salad. Caesar salad available for added cost. The side salad was a nice portion & had 2pc’s of pepperoni on it. Nice little touch. Our dinners were served shortly we finished our salads. A concern I had since there was a party of 8-12 people next to us that were there before we arrived. Our meals came out first & I was thankful for that as I was not feeling my best. The meal came with very large pieces of garlic bread, 1/3 the plates of fresh cooked green beans (which had a lovely crunch to them.) I asked for steak sauce (they don’t have steak sauce) but meal came with a small side cup of dried tomato (very tasty) and linguine was on the other 1/3 of the plate. It looked a tad bland but was very flavorful. The star was the steak. Cooked Med Rare & was actually cooked to perfection. The steak literally melted in my mouth & despite being full I had to finish it, it was just too darn delish! The deserts looked yummy and we contemplated bringing a few home but decided against it. (Had the waitress asked… we probably would have)

All in all…. It was worth what we paid and would go again but 37min drive from our home would limit...

I came in for a pizza Wednesday December 30th. I ordered by phone and since the website wasn’t clear on the speciality prices, I called and asked how much a meat lovers pizza would be. I was given the price and then ordered it. Upon that night around 8PM I came into pickup my pizza having trust it was the correct pizza I ordered. I made it home to open the box to find out it wasn’t the pizza I ordered. I called in and a gentleman told me that he thought I said “deluxe” which was not the case. I had ordered a meat lovers. They then offered to replace the pizza if I brought the pizza back, as I did and the pizza was untouched.. but to have a customer bring back a pizza in the middle of a pandemic (COVID-19) is just odd and left a bad taste in my mouth. Mistakes happen, and I get that. But I am truly disappointed you guys are making customers bring back food items in the midst of a pandemic. I don’t think that’s very sanitary and I hope you did the right thing and disposed of the product that a customer brought back too you.

Edit: Since I cannot reply to your comment. You did NOT REPEAT my order twice and I record my conversations so I can prove that as I just listened to the call. no one repeated any order as I said I'll take a meat lovers and you gave me the price and that was basically the end of the conversation.. When I came to pickup my order you did not introduce yourself, just said "Make sure to check it's correct this time." And I left. That was it. The lack of customer service is...