Abo's Grill — Restaurant in Lyndhurst

Recently had lunch at Abo's Grill on the south side of Mayfield Road in Lyndhurst, Ohio. There is plenty of free off-street parking in front, on the west side and in back of the restaurant. There is a covered patio off the back of the building. In the front of the duilding, there are two entry doors adjacent to each other. The west door is the entrance to Abo's Grill Restaurant. The east door is to the to-go part of Abo's Grill. The two dedicated entrances tells the tale of just how busy and popular Abo's Grill is.

This is my first visit to Abo's Grill. Abo's is not your typical Italian restaurant. It is a great neighborhood establishment. My first impression as I walked in the door is misleading. Expecting your typical Italian restaurant, my very first visual impression was is this a bar? An imposing wood bar occupies a little less than half the space of the dining room with three large screen TVs mounted over the bar. To get to other tables you must walk past some of the bar stools. The rest of the space has tables. The west wall opposite the bar is lined with booths. One booth has a large uniquely shaped solid wood table top - see attached picture. The remaining tables that are not booths, some are fixed and some can be moved together to accommodate larger groups. This is a family Italian restaurant and pizza place, there is no separation (walls or knee walls) of the bar area from the dining space. A little awkward for families with younger children, in my opinion, during busy, high occupancy times.

The food and service is very good. A college student is the bar tender and only server on a weekday afternoon a little before 2 p.m. There is one gentleman at the bar watching ESPN. There is one group of eight folks finishing up their lunch when I entered Abo's at one of the tables. Myself and another solo diner are in two seperate booths. The bar tender/server is very personable. He is attentive and engages well with all the patrons without neglecting anyone's needs. Very impressive!

I started with the Italian Wedding Soup. The soup is chock full of vegetables and meat. I had an unsweetened ice tea to drink with my meal. Next, I had the Veal Parmeson entree. It is served on a bed of Cappellini Pasta with the house-made marinara sauce. The Veal is hand breaded. The house-made marinara sauce has a subtle spicy heat. It compliments the entree and does not over power your taste buds. Very delicate and well thought out. Bravo!

The food is a solid four star rating. It is a cut above the usual casual Italian restaurant fare. Again, this is great neighborhood restaurant. Popular for dining in or take-away. My first impression when I first walked in the door was soon amended by the great service and a good, flavorful, hearty meal.

The restaurant and the men's room are clean. Over the urinal there is a wooden shelf to place your beer/cocktail or cell phone on while taking care of...

Good pizza but NOT a family friendly environment. This review is based on two visits, once after their intial opening and Saturday 6th around 6pm for dinner and were seated inside. The following detail review is from this Saturday the 6th. The restaurant was not busy maybe 10 people total were seated inside. We ordered a pizza, burger, calzone, salad and soup. The waitress was not very attentive and rude during our visit it took her 15 minutes to get our drinks even though it was not busy. My 4 year old was given an adult sized cup and when we asked for a kids cup she seemed put off by the request. After 30 minutes from taking our order the waitress said food would be out soon. 15 minutes later she brought out our salads and soups. Another 15 minutes afterwards she said the food should be right out. We asked for bread at that point since our 4 year old was very hungry and it seemed there was an issue with the staff service. After getting bread the waitress said the food would be out soon. 10 minutes later everything came out except my burger which the waitress said would be coming out soon. 15 minutes later and no burger in sight and my family almost done eating their meals I decided to ask for the burger to be canceled since we had a long drive to the west side of town. I noticed another patron had also complained to the staff about the slow service. The manager/owner came out with my burger packaged in a box and with the check that included this burger that took over an hour to make. I instructed him to remove it and that we had to leave for a drive to the west side of town. He seemed put off at my request and offered to make a pizza on the house( which God knows how long that would have taken) i politely said no and that we were leaving. He continued to offer other things and did not seem to get the point that their rude service was the reason for us wanting to leave. Bottomline, they have good pizza but offer nothing appealing in service or dining environment. Staff is lack luster and the owner seems more concerned about other things outside of how customers are treated. If you have a few hours to waste and don't care about good service ABO's is your place otherwise I highly recommend avoiding this...

By far the worst restaurant I've ever been to. The service wasn't that great and the food is TERRIBLE. The server was nice, but clueless. I ordered pasta with a cream sauce, it was clearly burnt. The sauce was dark and tasted like it had been scraped out of a pan where the bottom burned. It also had puddles of grease on it, which is really weird for a cream sauce. It had shrimp, which was super fried and tough. I ate about 1/3 of it and had the server take it away because it was upsetting my stomach and stunk. Other people I was with got pizza, it looked good but looks were deceiving. The pizza crust was hard like a breadstick and covered in semi burnt garlic powder. There was an additional pasta dish, which was also sent back for being too salty and that's from someone I yell at for using too much salt. The server came back and made a comment about no one finishing their meal, we explained it just wasn't good at all and she responded "oh, ok. Can I get anyone dessert?" Obviously not. The next day all 7 of us didn't feel well. On a positive note, the place seemed very clean. I've talked to quite a few people and not one has anything all that great to say about it. Its unfortunate, I pass there daily coming from work and it would be great to have a...