Buca di Beppo Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Indianapolis

This is a unique must eat restaurant in downtown Indy. Located right in the heart of the city, near entertainment, close to the convention center, Lucas oil stadium and bakers life arena.

Let’s start with the atmosphere. You will find Buca di Beppo with a antique sign showing you it’s age and classic look. As you enter the front door you will make your way through a labyrinth (it almost feels as if you walking in the back door and getting special access to the inner workings) eventually you will find yourself in the kitchen and at the at the edge of seating area. Employees will excitedly and joyfully being passing by with dishes and drinks. You really get to see how it works in the back and all the work that goes into the experience. The whole time your eyes will be continuously drawn to the unique and eclectic old photos from around the world. Many will make you laugh. You could literally go a 100 times and still see something for the first time. Another cool feature is the many rooms. The restaurant is very large but each room feels small and like your at home.

The food was great. Family style dining is a lost beauty in our culture and they do it wonderfully. You will feel like your eating with the family over a shared holiday meal. This will be a memory you will cherish forever. Because of this your meal will come in large generous portions so remember that when you order. We ordered one dish for our party of 5 and still had left overs. The meatballs here are the size of a softball (no joke) and full of great flavor which complemented well. The marinara sauce complemented the spaghetti well, was noticeably very fresh, and boasting of the wonderful flavors of Italy. And make sure you get some cheesy bread (I mean what is spaghetti without good bread, am I right?)

It is definitely worth mentioning all of the waitstaff which were courteous, professional, but most importantly likable. Our waitresses name was Bella! She was fantastic with a bright personality, engaged everyone personally, was extremely efficient, and had everything perfect for our dinner (and it was during rush hour). She explained the menu with detail to many of us who were first timers, and she kindly offered suggestions and shared her favorites upon request. I must mention she is an extraordinary writer. Throughout our conversation we found out she wrote poetry. When we asked her to share with us, she didn’t hesitate and we were blown away at the talent and depth of her writing. This was a memorable and fun part of our experience. I would suggest going just for the poetry.

All in all! Go, stop reading this and make a reservation. And take the whole family! You won’t be disappointed and if your from out of town like myself, you will return again. If your a local this is place to create memories as you bring your family...

I would like to say everyone on your team is very kind, and John was kind enough to allow us to come 30 minutes early. I brought about 30 clients for a reservation of a group dinner. Our server initially told my clients they couldn’t order certain drinks or that they would have to pay out of pocket so they ordered what he said was “allowable”. The drink restrictions didn’t seem right to me so he double checked, then came back and said he was wrong and took new drink orders. However, with 30 people, this was quite time consuming. I would recommend the team is knowledgeable on the clients contract as well as printing a small sheet of paper that shows a menu of beverages included in the beverage package. Generically pointing to a menu and stating well a cocktail is included but only wells then coming back and saying never mind, cocktails are included, then charging me $99 for 2 types of cocktails we thought were included but apparently were not nor was a high end liquor requested in them. The team wasn’t aware of my grilled chicken ceasar dinner salad so when I mentioned it, they said they would place an order and brought out a massive bowl of salad so I felt bad about the waste. If those were our only issues, it wouldn’t be a big deal.

However, I’ve personally never eaten Buca Di Beppo, I was very surprised and disappointed with the quality of the food we were served. The food seemed to have been prepared far in advance and had been sitting for quite sometime before it was re-heated and served to us. The chicken was so dry and rubbery I couldn't eat it. I received negative feedback from my clients about each dish, general consensus was the food was very overdone, the meat was “hardened” and that combined with a lack of flavor made for a poor experience. We send overall event surveys to our clients, every single response was negative about Buca di Beppo. This was a huge embarrassment for me and a complete waste of our money. My event planning reputation took a hit from how bad this experience was. I truly cannot believe how bad the food was.

I apologized to my clients and told them I’ve never been and I saw positive online reviews and expected a better experience for them. Two of my clients said they’ve been to Buca Di Beppo in their own towns and they weren’t in groups but their in their regular customer dining experience the food was a much different quality. I honestly don't know what the quality should be since I have never been, but based on the price we paid I would absolutely expect an acceptable meal and we didn’t feel the food even met a mediocre standard. I was thoroughly embarrassed to host my clients at your facility.

I had already reserved 2 additional client groups and fortunately Buca di Beppo did refund my deposit and cancel...

We placed an order here at 9:30 pm on Wednesday. On DoorDash, it states the restaurant takes orders until 9:40 pm. Buca di Beppo’s website also states that the restaurant is open until 10 pm on a Wednesday when you order directly through them, and it says that curbside is available through 10 pm as well. We called the restaurant after ordering as we have food allergies and they did not offer a comments section to communicate these. I talked to an employee who cheerfully told me that they were “sending this order back because they closed at 9:30 pm.” She did not offer any apology and it seemed like she thought it was funny.

First of all, even if they did close at 9:30 pm, we technically did order within business hours as I received the email confirmation that we ordered at 9:30 pm, so the order should have been fulfilled. While it may not have been ideal for the restaurant, the kitchen was still technically open, especially since email confirmations usually take a minute to come meaning we probably actually placed the order at 9:29 pm. I did not realize that the kitchen still should have been open when we ordered until I checked the time on the order confirmation.

Second, and even worse, I did not receive an email that Buca di Beppo canceled the order on DoorDash until 10:02 pm, even though I spoke to their employee at 9:31 pm. A dasher was assigned to the order in the meantime and even messaged us and told us he was waiting for it around 9:40 or 9:45 pm. The projected arrival time of the order just kept getting later and later until Buca di Beppo canceled the order. Thus, if I had not called them, we would not have known that they were not fulfilling the order until 10:02 pm. That 30 minutes matters when it is later in the evening because if we did not know, we may not have been able to order food from another restaurant, as restaurants in Indianapolis are generally not open very late. I also don’t understand why they would even wait so long to cancel the order - clearly they were in a hurry to close and that must have been a task that they had to do prior to close.

Obviously the customer service is very poor here and I would not eat here or order again from here due to that. The last time we dined at this location the food and service were not great anyway, but we had enjoyed Buca di Beppo in the past at other locations and hoped the food would be better when we ordered on Wednesday. We did not get...