Antonia's Restaurant — Restaurant in Katy

My husband and I made reservations for 7:30pm for Valentine's Day. We arrived on time and waited for about 10 minutes in the outside area while the hostess came in and out of the restaurant several times with her head down and never looked up to greet us to let us know it would be a minute.

Finally my husband was able to catch her and let her know that we were there. She wrote our name down on a paper and took off back into the restaurant again without a word to us. So we stood back and waited. Over the next 30 or so minutes, quite a large group of people amassed outside who all had reservations also. There was absolutely no communication going on whatsoever between the hostess and the guests who were forced to wait outside in the 50 degree weather. This entire time, several of us kept checking on our reservations and the hostess would get defensive and say "she's doing the best she can" and then she preceded to blame the wait on overbooking and the fact that the earlier guests were not leaving as quickly as they had originally planned.

By 8:45, we were all getting extremely frustrated. Several of the waiting guests peeked into the restaurant and saw that there were about 4 empty tables. We brought this up to the hostess and she said that those tables couldn't be used because they were not "set". It was Valentine's Day, probably the busiest day of the year for their business and the fact that they were not utilizing every table available is absolutely ridiculous. On top of all of this incompetence, several of us started noticing that people who had arrived well after us were getting in sooner. So one of the guests starts looking at the reservation sheet and sure enough, she had skipped a whole group of us and was calling people in that had 8:15pm reservations instead of us who had 7:30 and 8pm reservations!

At this point we are all livid. So the guest that had checked the reservation sheet confronts the hostess about why she was seating guests that had later reservations before guests that had earlier reservations. She starts arguing that she's doing her best and then brings up the fact again of the patrons that had been there for well over 2 hours. Finally the manager is called out and clears a table for the guest that was actively yelling at him about the hostess, and leaves the rest of us hanging outside. After the confrontation, the hostess actually started talking crap about the man with us customers that were still waiting outside! I could not believe the nerve of the woman! I work in the service industry and it is NEVER acceptable to ridicule a customer to other customers!

Again, the hostess starts calling people out of order and instead of seating them, she has them wait inside... At this point several couples just give up and leave. My husband makes one more attempt to find out when we will be seated and she had completely lost track of where we were in line and then said there were still 5 couples in front of us. WE HAD BEEN WAITING THERE FOR ALMOST 2 HOURS!! That was the last straw and we gave up and left. Seeing as it was Valentine's and without any other reservations, there were no other restaurant options left without having to wait further. Thank you Antonia's Restaurant for ruining our Valentine's dinner with your complete and utter lack of competence.

It is obvious that this place is poorly managed and has no clue how to deal with more than a couple of customers at a time. I will never give this business a dime of my money and I will make sure that every person I know is made aware of the horrid service that...

I have had two amazing experiences here. Most notably, my first. My husband and I went here for my birthday. We went on a little vacation within our own city. We stayed at the hotel across the street and decided to try Antonia's because we could just walk over. We were so impressed with the dishes. Everything was so amazing. Way better than you'd expect from an unassuming corner lot next to Katy Mills. Anyway, we spent with reckless abandon (it was my birthday after all.) We accumulated a nearly $100 bill. Long story short, the hotel across the street took all our money prematurely and our dinner money just vanished. Our situation was set up that my check would deposit at midnight but it was 9pm and we had like $20 for this 90 something dollar bill. I'd never been in this situation before. My husband started to panic and I calmly explained the situation to the head waiter. I felt so guilty I even held out my phone to show him my bank account.

He kindly told us we could just come the next morning. Maybe this isn't a big deal to other people but this was a realized childhood fear-- having no money to pay-- and our waitress and the man put us at ease. They didn't judge, they were accommodating and calm.

We went a few months later for our anniversary hoping they wouldn't recognize us but they totally did and I felt impressed to blurt out, "WE HAVE MONEY THIS TIME!"

Anyway, very delicious food, I promise. Everything impressed us. The price is comparable to maybe in between Olive Garden and Carrabba's. So if you want Italian that isn't some kitschy chain, small and cozy, with a great wait...

UPDATE: What a difference a year makes! We had been regular customers the past year. Hadn't been back since November due to the holidays and the flu. We were surprised to find an almost completely new staff. Our regular server Carlos was always excellent and the food perfect. Yesterday's experience will be our last. There were three issues we found disturbing: 1.) They used to offer lunch specials 7 days a week. Now they are only offered Mon. - Fri. I liked the smaller portion and the price, my better half liked to order the full meal and take half of hers home for another meal. I ordered the Chicken Parm. and the portion was identical to the "lunch" portion, but double the price. I asked our server if it was the lunch portion and she said "I think so". (I don't mind paying more for a full meal, but double for the same thing seems wrong). 2.) We watched our meals sit out for the server to bring to our table for over ten minutes. Food was barely warm, not HOT like our prior meals (Carlos was always quick to get them from the kitchen to our table). 3.) Service was poor. We were shocked as it had always been perfect previously. We are not demanding people and we did not want to make a scene. But we won't be back and can no longer recommend this establishment. Not sure why the changes have been made, but they are definitely NOT for the better. Sad that we now have to find another place for good Italian food. The chains just don't cut it and GOOD Italian food is hard to find...