New York Pasta Garden — Restaurant in Key West

I am not one to write bad reviews about restaurants because I understand how hard working the staff are. Unfortunately I have to for this one.

We showed up at 9pm on a Saturday night. Waited at the entrance for 10 minutes until I had to go and find someone to seat us. At which point we waited another 10 minutes before drinks (just water) was brought out. We noticed a trend and ordered our food on the spot. Food took another 20 minutes to come out, which is not a big deal because we understand given the current food industry climate and understaffing. There were also only 4 parties in the restaurant, 2 were +6 groups so I further understand the food prep slowness.

We were never checked on after the food was delivered. We also watched another party of 1 who ordered only wine, wait 20 minutes after receiving the wine and handing the waiter her card only to never see the waiter again. She actually got up and just left (she may have been drunk and just didn’t care about her card due to the wait).

After about 30-40 minutes of us waiting for our check or to see our waiter at all I got up and walked back toward the kitchen I see a single employee so I went back and sat down for another couple of minutes. I got back up and finally saw a waiter (blonde older gentleman with a headband that reminded me of the guy from cobra kai). Asked for our waiter and/or check and he was sort of rude to the other wait staff and called him a f*ing idiot. There were also people who looked like staff (maybe not on shift) walking in and out of the kitchen that were drunk. We finally got our bill and admittedly left a $1 tip for a $100 bill (which I’ve never done before). We actually do YouTube food reviews for local eateries and were really dissatisfied with the experience and we even understand short staffing but this was something different.

The food:

In my opinion it was okay, I ordered the shrimp and dolphin (tuna) Caesar salad and toast edges. Both were good. I ended up not preferring the “dolphin” on the Cesar itself but that’s a texture thing for me. I ate it separately and it was blackened well. The salad was mostly iceberg lettuce, ehhh could have used more tomato. The toast edges were good but it is hard to mess it up. The shrimp and scallop dish was good, noodles were al dente. The others in my party enjoyed their food as well but I cannot remember what they ate.

I’d love to not be disappointed in this restaurant but I think it would be hard to accomplish at this point. No, this isn’t an attempt to get free food because of a bad review just to clarify because I know to many people who would do that. This is an honest assessment of my...

If just rating the food this place would be at least 4 stars. However, we left with a feeling the sever was trying to put one over on some witless tourists. Thankfully my wife saw the bill as I was paying and remarked it looked a little high. I had only looked at the food and did not notice an additional $60 "Service Charge" under the tax section. Donna, our server, made no mention of this when she brought it to me. When she came back I asked her if she had automatically included gratuity. The only way I can describe her reaction was "odd". She mumbbled something like, "Oh, ya service charge" I know some restaurants, especially those with a lot of foreign customers, automatically include the tip. However, I did not see this posted anywhere and Donna certainly did not bring this to our attention. Nowhere else we dined in the Keys had this practice. I was ready to tip on top of this and would have done so if my wife hadn't noticed! Afterwards I also noticed Donna had entered number of guests as 6 (top of the receipt). There were only five of us. Maybe 6 triggers automatic 20% tip? At the end of the day we would have left 20% or more as we commonly do. This whole thing just left me with a bad taste in my mouth after what was a very...

We've been coming here during our Key West visits for the past 10 years. I wanted to write a review to bring attention to what we witnessed during our dinner here. We had a large bald male server. Throughout the night he would get into long conversations with other tables and coworkers as we waited to make our order and get refills on drinks. There was a lovely hostess who was checking people in that saw where waiting. She jumped right in and went back to the kitchen to refill our drinks. As she did that, our server stopped his conversation, saw a group approaching the check in area, and snapped for the hostess to return, WHILE SHE WAS DOING HIS JOB. Later into dinner, we were waiting for the check. The hostess brought it to us and brought it up front to process our payment. We thanked her very much for her kind service. We paid in cash and included the tip so we could get going. The male server then had the audacity to come back with the receipt asking if we wanted to leave anything else. We politely shook our heads and got ready to head out. I have never been so appalled at how sexist and selfish a server could act at a restaurant. With how much our meal was and this treatment, we will not...