Caprese Trattoria — Restaurant in Longmont

I would like to start off the review with, the food was good and decently priced. Portions were large and filling. I have no problems with the food.

However, I will say service could have been better.

Now, I had made reservations and I did arrive 30 minutes, not a big deal. I wouldn't have minded waiting, but we were sat at a table right away! Cool, but it goes down hill very slowly.

The host, stated our server would be with us shortly. Except, shortly meant 27 minutes and only after we flagged someone down. By this point, we've had no water or complimentary bread, nothing. We didn't even know who our server was. The person we flagged down was nice and did get us some water at least.

Another 4-5 minutes goes by and server does show up. Now we have seen this server walk by our table multiple times. We were not given a name, but they were female and had a shaved head, if you would like to avoid this server if you visit.

She apologizes, and normally a server would be super attentive after something like that, but not this one!

She gives us bread and asks if we are ready to order. At this point we are annoyed, but it is busy. So, we say yes and place order then, mostly so we don't get forgotten again, which spoiler, does happen.

Now, we did also get our food quick and it was hot! Kudos for the Kitchen crew.

Now normally when eating, you get the awkward question "how's the food?" While your mouth is full, but it never comes!

And we can see her, working other tables, being friendly and doing what a server does. And we wait as she walks by a couple of times but never stops at out table again.

Since receiving our food and finally grabbing a different waiter to just get our check to leave, it's been another 40 minutes! 40 MINUTES!!!

Here is what I did say to the waiter I grabbed, "my table has been ignored for the last 40 minutes, we would just like our check so we can leave." He being the helpful guy he was told me that he would find our server and get them over to us. Which, honestly, was faster than waiting for her to show up. Which probably would have been never.

So, while we wait for her, a different customer comes up to our table... with our receipt! While we're getting our payment out, our server shows up!

"I was told that you're dissatisfied with the service."

My companion just states, "yes. We would like to pay. How can we do that?"

She answers as if we're slow or stupid, "well, you would give me your form of payment and I will take care of it at the register and then bring it back."

My companion being fed up and sarcastic, "Well, can you make sure to be back in a couple of minutes, we would like to leave."

She does miraculously make it back within a couple of minutes, and sign our receipt and tip a totally $5, which honestly, should go to the chefs.

We leave frustrated and dissatisfied

Now, I will say the waiter that I flagged down both times was friendly and I wish we could have been his table, but it doesn't work like that. And it did also look like everyone else was having good service, we just unfortunately sat the invisible table in the middle of the room.

So, good food, good service for everyone else. Worth a try for...

In short: This restaurant has so much potential to be a fantastic Italian eatery (something truly lacking in Longmont), but is held back by problems all over the place.

We decided to stop by for a Friday night dinner, and to try out this new restaurant. There were several other tables, but certainly not a packed house. We were seated promptly and began looking over the menu.

It took about 5 minutes to get an initial visit from a server who was obviously still learning the ropes of the restaurant business. After walking us through the menu, he nearly walked away multiple times before we were able to order drinks. My wife was informed that rather than the Pellegrino she had ordered, they would most likely bring just soda water. After clarifying that we did indeed want a 750ml bottle of Pellegrino, we ordered the calamari and off went the waiter.

Nearly 10 minutes later, the waiter delivers our calamari, and notices that we are still without drinks. Finally after several more minutes at the bar, he returns with a beer and no Pellegrino, stating that they still have not received any from their beverage distributor. Plain water it is.

The calamari, in addition to being lukewarm by the time it reached us seemed to have very little in the way of seasoning. Some pieces seemed to have a distinct fishy flavor, and as I write this I wonder if I may regret that part of the order too.

The next to arrive was the caprese salad. I will say, this is one part where the potential of this restaurant was really visible. The house made mozzarella is truly fantastic! Unfortunately it was paired with a still crunchy and mostly pink Roma tomato.

The spaghetti carbonara was fairly tasty, although the pasta was somewhat on the chewy side of al dente, and the prosciutto seemed more like under flavored jerky. The wild mushroom ravioli tasted fantastic wit the truffle sauce, but even after 2 attempts, we still decided it seemed more like chewing ON your food than eating it. Unfortunately it took nearly 10 minutes to get anyone's attention to get the ravioli dealt with, and by the time the 2nd batch came out, we were ready to leave.

Overall, I believe there is much potential there, but to bring it out is going to require significant changes in staff, ingredients and quality control of the finished product. If Caprese Trattoria is still around in 3-5 months, I'd give them another chance, but if what we experienced is normal, it will be long...

We went last night for New Year's Eve. We've been here twice prior to last night and had good experiences. But last night we were seated at a table next to the wait stand and my chair was run into countless times, which was less than comfortable. The busser ran into a gentleman seated at a table next to us and almost knocked him out of his chair. Terrible set-up. My husband ordered veal parmigiana and it was adequate but nothing "world reknowned" about it. I ordered a chicken dish that I'm still appalled by, however. It was so bad that it was shocking. Chicken with zero seasoning beneath a "sauce" that was thick as conjeeled gravy, with a mound of unseasoned spinach that looked and tasted boiled to death. I took 1 bite and it took all of my mental strength to swallow it instead of spit it into my napkin. I tried seasoning it all myself with the salt, pepper and parmigian on the table but there was no saving it. The plate was as amateur as it gets. I'm still nauseous every time I think about it this morning. The waitress took it off our bill but only after I questioned why I was getting charged for something that was inedible. She seemed overwhelmed by the holiday crowd and although very nice, she was painfully awkward and inattentive. We had a lot of choices last night and we made the wrong one when we picked this place. We thought they'd pull out all the stops for New Year's Eve but instead of rising to the occasion, it was like they just gave up. We thought we had found our go-to Italian place but we're not sure we'll ever go back now. Everybody has a bad night once in awhile but this was so far off that if we ever try it again, it'll be quite awhile. Dining out in Colorado has become such a gamble that we're better off cooking at home, I told my husband.

UPDATE: After reading the other reviews here, it seems like this place is too much of a gamble. Life is too short for mediocre, overpriced food delivered with bad service! This owner/chef is really full of himself but I cook better meals at home. Maybe he thinks he doesn't have to try as hard because it's Longmont and the choices are slim. Or maybe he's lying about his credentials. Whatever the case, we're not impressed. Goodbye,...