La Botte Italian Restaurant & Catering — Restaurant in Lompoc

The family that owns La Botte is so nice that I really hate to be honest in my opinion of this restaurant.

Our first impression coming here was the parking lot in the back, which was dirty, littered, and not maintained. The building was also in poor repair. That was a forewarning, if they don't keep up the maintenance of the outside, it's likely the food and service are also suffering. That, sadly, proved to be true.

The inside was decent but not very warm or comfortable, and it was also not very well maintained. The string lights had many burnt-out bulbs. One of the things that bothered us most is that they had regular commercial radio playing. We sat there and listened to commercials for Carl's Jr. and the local car lots as we had a nice family dinner. It did not improve the ambiance. The glassware and dishes were mismatched.

Our server, Trish, was not friendly, helpful, or attentive. When we asked questions or asked for napkins, etc., she looked annoyed, and at one point when I asked for a fresh glass because mine, new from the kitchen, had pieces of someone else's food inside it and stuck to the outside, she huffed and rolled her eyes at me before taking it. The manager often came by people's tables to bring things the server forgot and to smooth things over.

The salad was drowned in a giant puddle of dressing. The pesto was good, but had large pieces of olive pits and stems of something hard and inedible. The pasta was overcooked. The pizza was not great.

I am so very sad to be honest in this review. I love Italian food and I really wanted to like this restaurant.

The sad thing is that all these issues are not difficult or expensive to fix. Just cleaning the parking lot so guests get a good first impression, changing light bulbs, playing some classical music or opera to set the mood, and treating customers with friendliness and welcome would have gone a long way to make our dining experience enjoyable even if the food was a little disappointing.

The whole atmosphere felt to me like a restaurant that was once successful but the owners and staff have given up on it and are going through the motions. It made me so sad. I hope they get it...

The restaurant itself had a good atmosphere, décor, etc. but when we first entered, there was a terrible sewage-like smell. When the hostess was done talking on the phone for over 3 minutes, we were seated. After ordering our drinks, the beer ordered that was supposedly "draft" was bottled. The lemonade also tasted watered down. When done placing our orders, we were given "salad" with just lettuce and thin slivers of carrot along with store bought croutons and a store bought vinaigrette. When our dishes arrived, they looked decent but after tasting them, we were disappointed. The veal marsala was terrible, the marsala sauce was overly sweet and in no way tasted savory. The mushrooms were also cooked whole and were not cut. The veal itself was 3 very thin cutlets that were most likely previously frozen. The pasta that came with the dish was very obviously store-bought and not fresh. The other dish we got, the chicken parmesan, was previously frozen and somehow burned at the same time. The dish did not have parmesan and instead had mozzarella. I was extremely disappointed as each dish was around 40$+ for store bought ingredients and poorly cooked meat.

We will not come back here, and I suggest you don't...

Keep trying to give this place a shot since it is one of the only restaurants in Lompoc. Extremely disappointing! Came on a Saturday night so expected it to be busy, which is fine. I assume the owner, a lady with brown hair, greeted us and said she would be right with us. A group of 4 came behind us, a gentlemen came over and greeted them, he was about to seat them and I spoke up and said we were ahead of them. The guy who sat them was running food, making drinks, answering the phone, seating people, he was doing absolutely everything. No organization at this place, the phone was ringing off the hook, the owner lady was constantly on the phone and then trying to seat people. They need to have a actual host/hostess. Service was VERY slow, I had to ask multiple times for a water fill up. They did not have a bartender, it was a free for all back there for servers pouring beer and wine which took longer fir the drinks to come out. No one was smiling in the whole place. I really want to like this place but it’s like they are not keeping up with the times, they need serious restaurant help. I will say the food is good, but I won’t be back considering this is the third time in a row with the...