Tabella Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Hattiesburg

I had the opportunity to dine at Tabella’s Italian Restaurant tonight, Thursday, 11/01/2018 and I must say, I was NOT impressed at all. The food is decent, but nowhere near as good as I thought it would be. The service is very slow, and this establishment is full of waiters & waitresses that have no clue as to what being a good server entail. I am on business from out of town and this restaurant was highly recommended to me by the locals of Hattiesburg. So of course, I wanted to give it a try. Here’s how my dining experience went tonight…

It took my server 12 minutes to even realize he had someone sitting in his section. Then when I proceeded to order a bar drink, he did not even know what it was. I ordered a cosmopolitan and every bartender and/or server should know what that is as it’s a bar classic. He had to write down the ingredients that I gave him on how to make it. It was another 10 minutes before I even got my drink. The bartender did an ok job with making it, but certainly not as good as I am used to. So, I ordered an appetizer to start, then a salad, and then my main entrée. My appetizer came out 15 minutes later and it was very good. After I finished my cosmopolitan and my appetizer, my server came over to remove my cosmopolitan glass and my appetizer out of the way. However, he did not ask me “How was your appetizer?” or if I wanted another drink (which I actually did). Any good server would ask, “Would you like another Cosmopolitan?” So, I continued to sit and wait for my salad to arrive, which I thought would be shortly afterwards. Wrong! Approximately 20 minutes had passed. My server had not even come over once to ask was I doing alright? Did I want any more water? Did I want another drink? Instead he just walked around. While waiting for my salad to come out, or so I thought, I observed the other servers doing the same thing and even observed the manager sitting at the bar chatting with the bartender. Now, as a manager of my own business, if I had an establishment to run such as this and I noticed service was slow, I would certainly jump right in to help. Finally, another 10 minutes later and then my server arrives with my main entrée, along with my salad (which should have come out long before my main entrée). Nobody wants to eat their salad along with their main entrée at a restaurant unless they specifically order it that way. Your salad should always come out first, and then your entrée. At that point, I was so hungry, I just wanted to eat. So, I ate my salad and my main entrée. For a $25.00 entrée, it was certainly lackluster. It was also not hot, which told me it had probably been sitting out for a while and my server was just too slow and preoccupied to check on it and bring it out on time. Also, the same with my salad, which should have come out first!

So, I ate my salad and only a few bites of my entrée as by the time I finished my small dinner salad, the entrée was cold. So, I got my entrée to go as I was highly disappointed at that time and just wanted to return to my hotel room. The server did not once ask “was everything ok?” Instead, he just brought me my to-go box along with my bill, said, “Have a good night” and then immediately left. I purposely waited around a few minutes before signing the bill as I wanted to have a word with the manager and tell him how disappointed I was with the service & food of this restaurant. But, of course he was nowhere to be found. Go figure!

So, I signed the check and left. Needless to say, I was highly disappointed in the service and food of this restaurant as it, in my opinion, did not live up to the good expectations I thought it would have. I should have stuck to my guns and just went to Olive Garden instead because at least you know what you get there. Therefore, unless this restaurant can have a staff that has more pep in their step and actually know how to properly wait tables, I would NOT recommend this place at all. It’s overly priced for the service you get and you’re better off going to...

We had a group of 12 that came in from out of town looking for a good local Italian place to try. After being told that we would have to wait 30 min to an hour for a table, it ended up being almost 2 hours before we were sat. I acknowledge, however, that this is not entirely the restaurant's fault as we were told ahead of time that there is only one table in the restaurant that would be able to accommodate our entire party, but we were also told that they would be getting up "soon-ish" about an hour before we were sat.

Upon getting seated, we ordered right away at the same time as our drinks, with which our party ordered 3 cocktails. The drinks, most of which were water besides the cocktails, took longer than it should have to come out, including the cocktails. I know that it takes a while to put in orders, but I know that it does not take that long. Also, after getting seated, we were served bread that was cold (but were instantly devoured due to our long wait time) and did not get replenished until at least 15 -20 minutes after the first batch (this did include the time it took to take our orders and serve our drinks). The olive oil that was served with the bread was also not served until the second helping of bread was brought out. This was all after we had mentioned (not complained) to the server about our wait time (we knew it wasn't his fault). There were also not that many parties left in the restaurant that had to have their orders taken like us due to the time that we had gotten sat later in the evening

Our entrees were served in a timely manner, which was great for the amount of people we had, but they were lackluster. The taste of the food was good, not great, at best, and many of the plates were sub par. We are also convinced that a member of our party got food poisoning from his dish.

I am giving Tabella a 2-star rating mostly because of the fact that I know that many factors of our experience were not entirely their fault. The service and food, however, are not things that can be as easily forgiven (like wait time), which knocked out a lot of their stars. I will acknowledge the nice environment that the restaurant has but would not recommend Tabella if you want quality...

[Personal rating system at end of comments]

Summary: If you are in the Hattiesburg area, give this place a try.

We ate here for the first time today and I was impressed and it's been a while since an Italian restaurant has impressed me. The service was quick and friendly and the food was excellent. The atmosphere was relaxed. Also, since several of us were eating there, we all got different things and so we had a good sampling of the menu:

The bread was amazing. At first it was a little weird how the crust was cut off, but I suspect the crust got made into croutons. The Caesar salad was just about perfectly executed. Every ingredient shone. The pepperoni pizza had a nice thin crust with an excellent sauce. It was a touch on the greasy side but the flavor was really good. The baked ziti had good sauce and really good sausage. The spaghetti and meatballs was the lowest note and it was still respectable. The cheesecake may be the best cheesecake I've had in years. The tiramisu was pretty good too.

But the best thing at the table was the chicken cacciatore. It was perfectly cooked in a rich sauce with mushrooms, tomatoes, peppers, and onions and served over polenta.

My rating system: 5 stars: a destination - this place is worth going out of your way for 4 stars: good place - if you're around, give it a try 3 stars: okay - not bad but not good either (maybe it's overpriced) 2 stars: ugh - I don't feel like it was worth the money I paid, but if someone else is paying I'll still eat here 1 star: bad - steer clear; even if free I don't think I would...