Venecia Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Kettering

When we walked in, there was a sign to seat yourself. No one employees visible. There were a few tables with people at them but not very busy at all. We sat and waited for about 25 minutes for someone to even speak to us. Every time a waitress walked by, they looked at us without so much as a nod or smile. We had driven quite a ways and really wanted Italian, and we tend to be patient, but this was ridiculous. We were about to leave when a waitress finally came over to speak to us. We told her we thought that no one saw us since no one acknowledged our presence. Her reply was, "I saw you!" She expected us to give her our order when we had not even been given menus yet. We ordered water to drink because they only have Sweet Tea, no unsweetened tea. Odd. We are not big soda drinkers. I told her we would need a couple of minutes to look at menus and asked for menus. She gave us an odd look, grabbed menus, and handed them to us. Apparently, we were supposed to know to help ourselves to menus. Who knew. She brought back water before we could even look over the menu and stood there waiting for us to order. So we looked it over while she hovered over us, waiting. We ordered a Pasta Trio and Perogies. Salad was brought out. I think they picked out every piece of white core of iceberg lettuce and put them on our salads. No Romaine or any other blend. I would have liked a Caeser salad but didn't have the option. The garlic bread knots had what looked and tasted like raw minced canned garlic. They were hard and gross, dripping in grease. The food came out fairly quick. Pasta Trio was not bad, and Perogies were chewy but edible. There was nothing homestyle or special about the food. We could have had the same at Tony's or anywhere else near home. Waitress never checked back once food was served. The facility itself is austere basic old diner looking furniture, not even a tablecloth or cloth napkin. The bathrooms were gross, reeked of urine, pee dried on the floor, and ladies' room had no t.p. The waitress had an accent, so maybe she is an immigrant from some other land where ignoring customers and being as stoic and unfriendly as possible is the standard. She disappeared for a while. We were waiting for the check, so I stared at the other waitress standing behind the bar eye to eye for like two minutes. So she finally comes over and walks past me and busses the table behind me. At this point, our visit had surpassed unpleasant into the realm of comical. It was like a bad comedy sketch. Having grown up in an Italian family and neighborhood, I was always under the impression that food was like a love language to Italians. This place is more like former guards that all came from a Russian Gulag are running it undercover trying to pass for Italians warming up food from Gordon's. We normally tip 30%. We did leave her a couple of bucks because we never stiff a waitress, but we will never ever go...

The staff was very friendly and the food was amazing. The atmosphere is a bit odd (flashing multicolored lights in one section, bright white lights in another, etc.), but I understand it's a newish place and they will probably work through all that in time. Nobody ordered pizza from our group, but we saw a ton of people come in, grab pizzas, and go. This will probably be my focus next time to see what all the hype is about, but it didn't seem like you could go wrong with anything on the menu. This place has it where it matters and can easily fix its shortcomings. If you haven't tried it yet, take the risk. You will not regret it.

Owner: One thing that probably needs to change sooner than later- you gotta get a payment system. The old fashioned ticket that a server does math on can really only be used in small diners. With means ranging from 15-30 dollars, bills will get complicated and a computer will be more efficient and accurate. It also allows customers to check (or...

Sunday October 27th sometime around noon my husband and I were doing laundry across the street waiting on our dryers to finish we came and got some food to go. We didn’t have enough time to sit and enjoy this beautiful place, also in our laundry day clothes 😅 walked out to the truck without our fried zucchini and the nicest gentleman who took our order ran out after us and said he would be right back out with it he also brought us plastic ware because we were trying to dig in already 😅 the kind lady there made us feel welcomed too. We are coming back next time and this time with more time to sit and with more than the 5$ I slipped in the kitchen tip jar! I wish I had more on me!! I leave nowhere without giving credit where it’s due!! Both of us were sharing our food and in awe. My husband said this was better than the food/service at his favorite Italian restaurant which is now second on his list! 10...