Vitale's Restaurant & Pizzeria — Restaurant in Macomb

HORRIBLE!!! If a ZERO rating was available, that would have been my choice.

This is one of those places I would have turned around and walked back out if there were other options that day. It was a holiday and we were extremely limited on restaurants. We went on Memorial Day 2015. There were only two places in town that stayed open besides the fast food joints. We got there around 7pm, and no customers. All four of their wait staff were sitting in the back booth by the door. We stood there for a few minutes before being acknowledged to let us know to sit anywhere we would like. There was a sea of dirty tables, no customers, but they were sitting down and gabbing. The table we picked was dirty as well, but the least one next to the front window. The windows were absolutely filthy and needed washed. The window sill had so much dust and dead bugs it was disgusting. It also had what looked to be a bullet hole in it. By the looks of it, they had not been clean for I don't know how long. The floor was dirty. Yet, they were all sitting on their backsides not doing anything. Our waiter came to the table and almost everything we asked about, they were out of! We started with some appetizers. Well, we only received partial orders of our breaded cauliflower and breaded mushrooms, because they were out. They did have a full order of mozzarella sticks, which were very good...it was the ONLY thing that was good. They substituted our other items with the breaded ravioli, which was completely bland.

Their "salad bar" is an absolute joke. They should be ashamed for calling it that. There is barely anything on it, it's a small little cart type thing, and you can basically get a house salad from this. The fact that they charge for this, is asinine!

Now, we are at an "Italian" restaurant, but they don't have an ricotta cheese...there goes our first choice, lasagna. Also, many other choices because many Italian dishes have ricotta! I can't remember now how many things we inquired about, but they didn't have it. We decided on Calzones. We should have went with the pizza because that probably would have been decent. The Calzones start a $9 without ANY toppings included in the price. I think they charged a $1.50 per topping. So, a $9 calzone without any toppings that come with it, quickly becomes almost a $20 item!!! We asked our waiter if there was a decent amount of cheese in it. He told us it's a "regular" amount. I am a fan of cheese, especially good cheese. Well, my husband and I made the terrible mistake of asking for extra, not double. Our son just had the amount that comes with it. When the calzones arrive, they are absolutely SWIMMING in olive oil! That right there, was enough to make my stomach turn, but I decided to try it. I am not exaggerating when I say this, it took me FIVE MINUTES to get the first bite down. There was so much cheese that it almost choked me and it got stuck in my throat. I couldn't separate it in my mouth. I have never ever had this problem in my life and I love cheese. I ordered four toppings in mine, and you could barely see them. All you could see was cheese and a standing pool of olive oil. My son, who didn't order an extra cheese, had a ridiculous amount of it.

I think our waiter was afraid to say anything to the cook (could have possibly been the owner), because we informed him how awful it was and he said: "Is there anything else I can get you." He didn't offer to have it remade, didn't offer a discount, or to go speak with the cook.

We barely ate anything and normally we take home doggie bags. This order was over $70 for 3 calzones and 3 appetizers - two of which was half an order because they didn't have any. I was livid at the price of this bill! If it would have been good food, I'd have no problem paying this price. I felt as if I was robbed when I left this place. This was my first and last time I will ever step foot in that place. I have no clue as to how this place has a 4.0. The amount of dirt in the dining room, I'd hate to see...

Personally I had the bow tie pasta with a gorgonzola cream sauce which was absolutely delicious and now that I think about it it was a huge portion which is always nice however the server was sweet but a bit of a airhead we got 8 oz glasses of soda and water. There was a hair in the minestrone soup it took 17 minutes to bring half of the order out and they were four of us at the table. She never brought us any more beverage she never checked on us and when I asked the lady at the cash register to please remove the bowl of soup from our bill she was extremely rude come to find out she was the owner obviously she doesn't care because she's one ofthe only Italian restaurant around here I told her I was probably not going to come back here and she said "good"... Then when my guest asked for her bow tie carbonara to go which she ordered when we placed our orders at the table. It wasn't ready they gave her spaghetti instead of bowtie pasta and they said "well that's how it comes"... Now I have only worked in one American restaurant in my 30-year career. All the rest of them were Italian restaurants I happen to know that the pasta usually is already pre-cooked and all you have to do is put the portion in some boiling hot water what's the difference if it's bowtie or spaghetti give the guests the kind of pasta that they want. And then my guest who happens to be in a wheelchair and is a amputee, was asked to wait outside because her wheelchair was taking up too much room 92° by the way that's one of the problems with not having competition in this town people will settle for adequate accommodations service etc. Don't get me wrong, I've been to vitales a few times in my 3 years in Macomb and I was not disappointed except for the decor which is very blase and dated. Get rid of those dried plastic flowers all over the place. Talk about tacky but what...

I need to preface this by saying that the food was really good. We had to wait almost three hours to get it, though. We are a larger than average family (5) and came in a little after six on a Saturday. There were a lot of people, but the restaurant was not packed. We could see empty tables, but they still kept us waiting. Finally we go seated and they took our drink orders while we looked over the menu. They only gave us four copies of the menu, so we played musical menus while we waited. It took almost 20 minutes to bring our five glasses of water. Very small glasses. The stayed empty most of the night, because we only saw our waitress when she brought our salads, our food, and our check. When we did see her, she was very friendly. She just wasn't there much. When we ordered our food, we found out they were out of lasagna. The lasagna that they made a big deal of on the menu and the white board as you walk in. So, my son ordered something else. When she brough our salads, we were informed they were out of tomatoes. So our "salads" were a bowl of lettuce with a few chopped cucumbers. Then came the very long wait for our food. With empty glasses. When we finally got our food, the waitress told one of our sons that since the tomatoes were missing from his pizza, he'd get a 10% discount. We did get that. but still our ticket (with a small tip because I can't in good conscience leave no tip even with bad service) it was almost $100.00. If the service had been better, I would think that was worth it. But as-is it was not Date of visit:...