Cafe Michelina — Restaurant in Hoboken

My family of 5 and I dined here again this week. We generally come here 1-2 times per month. I’ve got to say, after this week’s visit, we will not be returning. The food as always was fine. And as per usual, we felt extremely rushed. We were the ONLY party in the entire restaurant; not one other person. We placed our order and once again our entrees hit the table before we finished the appetizer. We had not one but two servers constantly hovering around our table taking plates the moment we finished the last bite. I’m talking the second you finish your bread, they’re pulling the bread plate away. It is so ridiculous and uncomfortable. They were asking if we wanted to wrap food to go before we even finished eating! Literally. We could hardly have a conversation because someone was at the table every minute… that is until the check came. Once the check was dropped, both servers hovered in the back of the restaurant. We added 20% gratuity, signed the receipt, only to then realize something wasn’t adding up. BE MINDFUL OF THIS: They staple TWO receipts to your order. On the BACK of the order form, the waitress calculated her own twenty percent tip and added that to the top receipt’s total. The second receipt has the total before gratuity. NOWHERE on any receipt will you see the word ‘tip’ or ‘gratuity.’ One server came by, not our main one, and we asked her if the tip was included. She explained that the tip was calculated and included and we could find that on the BACK of the order form and that tip was included for parties of five or more (I’ve never seen this for less than 6 people). VERY SNEAKY. From here on out, our main waitress stayed in the kitchen until we left. The moment we left, literally as we crossed the street, we saw her walk to our table. Luckily we caught this before we handed back the check with an extra 20% tacked on top of her already included gratuity. Not to mention, prices on the receipt do not list which food item it’s for and these prices do not match the menu. There are about a dozen awesome Italian restaurant in Hoboken I can think of off the top of my head. Visit literally any one of those before coming here. Very sneaky way of doing business and I can’t imagine how many people must trip an extra 20% not realizing it’s...

Made a reservation for 4 people at 6 pm on Mother's Day. We were running a little late, but they were still able to save our table, which was great because it was also the last table available.

Everything started out fine - we brought our own wine, and they brought out the glasses, opened the bottle pretty quickly. Even brought us some complimentary bruschetta. We placed our order - apps and entrees all at once. The calamari did not come out until 40 minutes later. 40 MINUTES! I'm not sure if it was because it was Mother's Day that the service was extremely slow, but judging from some of these other reviews, it seems like that's just the norm here. It wasn't even worth the wait because it was so bland, and it tasted like it was premade or previously frozen.

For my entree, I had the penne vodka with chicken ($17.95). I liked it, but I'm not sure if it was worth the price tag. The quality is comparable to pizzeria pasta. BF's dad had some seafood pasta. He wanted to change the sauce to pesto but apparently they don't make that. What kind of Italian restaurant cannot make some pesto?? BF and his mom got two different specials of the night: stuffed rigatoni (?) with chicken (it was unclear if it was stuffed WITH chicken or not, but it actually is just stuffed with cheese and served with chicken), and some chicken dish with mozzarella and spinach, served with penne. We didn't ask how much the specials would be but we probably should have because each of them came out to $24.95. There was definitely a robbery taking place here that night. We still ended up getting dessert since his parents love tiramisu. It was good, but it's nothing I can't buy premade.

Bottom line: the price is not worth the quality, and definitely not the...

While the food was fabulous, we were a party of 7 with an 8th person who joined us just for company, not for food, and there was only one other table of 3 seated the entire time we were there.

Everything was great until it came to the end. They did not offer an itemized receipt, just one that had prices on it. It was extremely unclear if they added gratuity or not, and we couldn't tell what item the prices belonged to.

However, the real issue I had was when the server came to collect water glasses at the end of the night before dropping the check. Mine was empty, and I asked for more water. Instead of getting me more, the server hesitated and then said "oh, we are closing" and put a finger in my empty glass to clear it away. Mind you, several of the group still had full glasses of wine.

The server flat out refused to bring me more water. This was at 9:20pm, we had been there since 630/7pm. We had just finished eating dessert and were about to pay the check. We hadn't even paid yet!

One of my companions graciously offered me her glass of water instead. Refusing to bring water to the table did not cause us to leave any earlier than if the server had said "of course" and brought it.

I would have left only 1 star, but for the food being awesome.

We were out the door in the rain by 9:40. This is not an unreasonable time on a Monday night to leave a restaurant, and the server I'm sure, was out the...