Francesco's Ristorante & Pizzeria — Restaurant in Maitland

This was my first time here and I was so excited to try it! We were also celebrating a special occasion! The antipasto tasted way too hot and spicy. We could not eat it, our mouths were on fire. The waiter was nice but when he finally came to the table, we told him we did not enjoy it. Instead of saying , let me get something else or take it back, he said I am sorry and admitted that this dish was NOT supposed to be hot or spicy and that was strange and he walked away. I thought that was odd. We were starving and it took 45 min for the food, my kids were getting restless. So we only ate the cheese and maybe 3 pieces of prosciutto, 2 pieces of mozzarella. It was the only part bearable to eat because our mouths were on fire. He came back to the table, our food was still not there. I said listen, we cannot eat this, he admitted it was strange that it was hot and spicy. He finally took it away and said he would bring us a house salad then he offered to not charge us for the antipasto. I thought okay, even though he did no offer to take it away at first, lets forget about it and give them a chance. I was in a great mood and then everything from that point on changed for the worse! I noticed from across the room the manager with blonde hair talking to him about the antipasto and looking at the dish for several minutes. She then walks back to the table ten minutes later after we received our salads and says very rudely, “I see you had an issue but Chef says since you ate a few expensive items that he will have to charge you for the antipasto” (reneging what the waiter said and offered already not charging us) WHO DOES THAT?! If you already said something to a customer, you honor it! I did not even ask, he offered! (Which any restaurant with good customer service would do!) At this point I am ready to walk up and leave. She comes back to the table and says , Chef says if you want to leave we will not charge you THIS TIME! She then said the Chef is Francesco and this is Francescos! Last I checked when you dine at a restaurant , it is about the guest’s experience not the chef’s/owners experience or feelings. I am flabbergasted, If it was not for my Kids celebration and us starving because the food took so long I would have left! I also wondered if it was miscommunication… to give the owner the benefit of the doubt but I cannot imagine any good establishment treating people this way. He even came up to EVERY table at the restaurant to greet them and ask them how their food was but ours! How incredibly rude and unwelcoming! It ruined our dinner and celebration to make us feel so unwanted. What a way to treat a family who was just trying to celebrate the first time at your restaurant!The waiter was really nice after that but I felt like I was in an episode of the sitcom Seinfeld “The soup nazi” or in the movie “The menu”. I have never felt so unwelcomed and humiliated in the way we were treated. I only gave it 2 stars because the pizza was delicious, the ambiance was nice and the waiter did seem to feel bad, he was really nice…I felt my dish the rigatoni with the eggplant was bland and salty.

Update** I just happened to see the response from the restaurant. Do you see the response below? Just shows even after writing about MY experience..The restaurant still refused to acknowledge OUR experience and replies with “The two dishes you mentioned are other customers favorites” ..This review is about MY experience not someone else's or another customer. Therefore there is no empathy or ownership! Even your waiter said it should not have been that spicy and even after I wrote in detail what happened and how I was treated! The only response should have been. “I am so sorry about your experience, this is not the way we want our guests to feel, let us make it up to you!” The way a restaurant makes it up to a guest shows they care and that they have excellent customer service. You had a chance to do that when I was dining there and even again here on my review and...

This was our first, and last, time dining at this restaurant. We had an early reservation, arrived on time and were promptly seated. Our server attended to us promptly as well. So, points for initially expedient service. Probably because the evening was just getting started and there were still a few empty tables. They only have beer and wine, which is fine, and actually have decent prices on their wine selection, although it is very limited. Our server knew essentially nothing about wine, but we chose a bottle we were familiar with so, again, no big deal. Now, the good. The food is not terrible, it just isn't that good either. I will openly confess here, we are picky, and particularly about Italian food. There are a lot of choices nearby so a restaurant has to be on their game to stand out. This one tries to stand out by giving you huge quantities of food. I would much rather have quality over quantity, obviously within reason. The mussels appetizer was easly enough for a party of 4-6 people. As an appetizer for two it was a terrible waste of food, as it's not something we would try to take home to revive the next day. Also, the mussels, while large, we're a little strong and gritty. The white wine they were steamed with was good, if a little skimpy, and the accompanying bread was decent for dipping. Now, the entrees. My wife got the lasagna, which, again, was huge. A generous serving for at least two people. It wasn't terrible, but overall just okay. The sauce was not bad, but pretty thin and acidic. The cheese was okay as well, but nothing special. My spaghetti carbonara was an enormous amount of standard spaghetti noodles with a decent creamy sauce. But instead if the promised it was loaded with lightly sautéed pieces of bacon. The difference between bacon and pancetta is not subtle, and this had way too much smoke flavor to be in this dish with the cream sauce. Also, the scallops I got added were tasteless, rubbery and undercooked. Now, the bad. Our server clearly saw that we could only eat a portion of our appetizer, and small amounts of our entrees, and had no interest in the leftovers, but never bothered to send over the chef or manager, and never bothered to offer any consolation for our dissatisfaction. The greeter, came over as we got up and were preparing to leave. He took our comments and phone number down and assured us someone would follow up. Well, fortunately I didn't hold my breath! LOL You can see the whole kitchen and the chef/owner was clearly back there. So, I don't know if they don't know about any dissatisfied patrons, or just don't care. I don't know how they get the positive reviews they get, but we won't be back for sure. Two stars for promptly seating and not making us sick I guess. I won't even go into the outbuilding and outdoor...

My husband and I have been to Francesco’s twice before and had nice experiences. On our 3rd visit last night…not so much! It was a last minute decision at 7:40 pm and we didn’t have a reservation, so we were hoping to grab 2 seats at their bar. Upon arrival there were 4 open bar seats but we were told they had been reserved. The host said if we were ok with sitting outside, the wait would be appropriately 15 mins. They were correct, and we were seated on the patio at 8 pm. 10 minutes later our server apologized for the wait and gave us glasses of water. He returned 10 minutes later, delivered some bread, and took our order. We ordered a regular sized Caesar Salad to split, a pepperoni and mushroom pizza, and a tomato & spinach flatbread. Our waiter told us he would enter the salad order 1st and delay the entree orders a few minutes to avoid overlap. 10 minutes later, at 8:30 pm, our salads arrived. I should also point out that after we received our salads, we asked another staff person for some fresh ground pepper, which never arrived. Later on, that person was refilling our water glasses when she realized she never brought the pepper. Her reasoning was simply “I couldn’t find any shakers!” Then we waited, and waited, and waited more. At 9 pm our waiter appeared for the 1st time since taking our order, and quickly looked at his IPad to check on our order. He told us it was almost ready, but we could tell by his face that he had forgotten to send it. At 9:20 pm we stopped the manager who was walking by and made her aware of the delayed order. She apologized and went to check on the situation. 10 minutes later at 9:30 pm our entrees finally arrived. As disappointing as the service and speed of our order was, the taste of our entrees was worse. The flatbread was absolutely terrible. It looked and tasted like blobs of burnt cream spinach were quickly thrown onto the bread, topped with tomato slices, and tossed into the the oven with some cheese. The flavors and ingredients just didn’t seem meld together. The pizza was a little better, but had a very soggy crust that you had to eat with a fork and knife. We finally escaped the restaurant at 9:50 pm. The only positive comment I can make is that we avoided having to be serenaded by the overly-loud opera style quartet!! Oh…one latest point. The reserved bar seats were...