Giotti's — Restaurant in Lower Paxton Township

It doesn't get any better than this! We thought we were coming to a "pizza joint" but seeing the classy decor and comprehensive menu we quickly realized this would not be just a quick meal, but a culinary adventure. Being a bread lover I was pleasantly surprised when the free appetizer plate of homemade hot bread quickly arrived. My wife and kids thought the dipping oil a bit too spicy but I'm sure is can be customized if we say something next time. But hey... it's FREE, so who's complaining :). Earlier that day, we'd Googled "Brick Oven Pizza" and Giotti's was at the top of the list. Pleasantly stunned with the expansive menu and seeing the quality and beauty of the dishes coming out of the kitchen, the first thing we said to our SUPERB waitress was, "This is definitely a place we'll need to return to a few times ... as it turned out, "they've got regulars in us" already.

Loving leftovers, we ordered 2 large pizzas: WHITE (fresh broccoli, tomatoes, ricotta) and the GIOTTI'S SPECIAL (pepperoni, fresh mushrooms, caramelized onions, sausage, bacon and olives). Absolutely the best pizza we ever had! At home we wrapped each piece in plastic wrap, and the next morning for the first time ever our mouths watered with the aromatic pizza smell opening the fridge. Well, breakfast it was; a few drops of olive oil in a frying pan on medium and 5 minutes later (we flip it) we had crunchy pizza that (like good soup) "seemed" better the next day. It's now the evening of the 2nd day and I want another slice but am going to use discretion and extend the pleasure (ha... my wife told me she did not use discretion and had a slice just now...haha). Earlier today we went online and saw their full menu and just can't wait to go back for the numerous salads, entrees, and many Italian dishes from the oven. And we'll print the 10% off coupon off there too.

HONESTLY... it just doesn't get any better than this.... well, on second thought, upon leaving, we saw a gentleman who gave us an extended look; it turned out to be the manager. I love it when they periodically walk the aisles asking how things are. "WE'LL BE BACK".

PS. More about the service. My wife and I are both fans of the new reality TV show "Restaurant Stakeout"... this place does NOT need their service. The servers were not only efficient and happy, they got along so well with each other... it's like they all were friends... or better yet, part of the family we now feel we are. ...

It pains me to write this but it was pretty bad. We were out for my brother’s birthday and we were a party of 4 (not that big of a deal in my opinion). My family and I hadn’t gone here in a while but when we did it was a bright cheery authentic Italian atmosphere. Not anymore. When we got there we waited for about 5 minutes and when a waitress saw us my dad tried to say hello but she walked away and completely ignored him. Another few minutes pass and a woman came and asked if we had a reservation which we did and she said “I’ll just put you over here” and walked away. We awkwardly followed her to the table she put us. She passed out the menus and left in a huff. Another waiter came to collect our drink orders (without a note pad) and asked several times if what we ordered was what we ordered. I can kind of forgive that because it could have been his first day. The menus had changed since we were there and they did not have their pizza menu that made them so popular. It was instead a ton of pasta dishes and your run of the mill Olive Garden type. We ordered calamari and then we started hearing shouting from the kitchen (which is partially exposed to the restaurant). It was the woman who brought us to our table yelling about how she did everything and complaining about some guy leaving her with only three servers or something like that, very unprofessional and it felt like an episode of Kitchen nightmares. The nightmare continued with the calamari which was chewy and not at all crunchy. My mom and I split the “Broiled Seafood Platter” and it might as well have been called the “Boiled” seafood platter because that’s basically what we got. The seafood was shrimp, a “no filler” crab cake (I tasted the breadcrumbs) and the most sad of all, scallops. The scallops had no sear on them and tasted like I drank from one of those terrible ocean landfills, fishy and plastic. The shrimp were okay I suppose but the only seasoning on ANYTHING was old bay. The “risotto” had no flavor and no cheese from what my family could tell and the grilled vegetables tasted steamed and were unseasoned unless you consider a teaspoon of olive oil seasoning. High prices for low quality food. Gordon Ramsay is you ever...

We know the quality and greatness of the food and service of this restaurant, but sadly after a second poor experience we feel the service is greatly suffering and sliding. First disappointing experience was two Saturdays ago. We walked into which was clearly a suffering staffing level or competency issues. After requesting a specific waitress upon arriving inside while being seated we were told the specifics of her employment status and ending by the young girl seating us, which we felt was highly inappropriate and unnecessary to disclose to customers. While seated and waiting for service we watched a very disheveled staff running around frantically, and several upset customers waiting for tables and food which brought us to great concern. After 25 minutes of waiting for service at our table we grabbed our wine we brought and left to another restaurant. Second time was this evening with very poor quality of service. It was absolutely not busy and no more than 8 people were eating in. In fact our waitress mentioned we were the first table in 30/45 minutes. We had to ask for wine glasses several times before finally getting up and getting them from another staff member. Our appetizer was dropped off and came out cold and had we been attended to appropriately and timely we could have resolved it vs having to eat a cold appetizer cause the waitress was nowhere to be found. We requested the 4 mini spice jars which were given to us empty. Bread was given to us completely burnt, which we couldn’t even understand the sensibility of our waitress to even consider delivering this to our table. Over all we are extremely upset and dissatisfied with the level of service and quality of our recent experiences. We understand the hardships of staffing but this was severe and warranted enough to review after two very poor experiences. We strongly urge and suggest your management to train and educate your newer staff appropriately and stress the importance of appropriate interactions and disclosures, and educate on the delivery of expectations on food quality, professionalism, and service standards, and the over all customer expectations when spending money at...