Pacci's Trattoria — Restaurant in Maryland

I've been to Pacci's twice before with an amazing experience until last night (my 3rd time here). I ordered the Carbanara, which I've ordered previously and it was amazing, but this time it came out with big chuncks of cooked egg. I cook from scratch and know that this is not how Carbanara is made. At first didn't want to exchange but the waiter was kind and insisted it was OK so I did but the second time it was made the exact same way. By then my family had basically finished eating and I didn't want to exchange for a second time and politely agreed it was ok to take my meal off the receipt. They gave me a dessert "on the house" but it was a small, slanted end piece of cake (which normally I wouldn't care but due to being hungry because I hadn't eaten a meal first I asked for full cake piece). The water guy spilled twice, the table area we sat was extremely cramped, my mother ordered the pasta with class (the class were small and the pasta had been left out and stuck together, with barely any sauce), and my youngest son ordered the shrimp in wine, butter sauce which came with 2 pieces of bread that were soggy. When leaving I asked to speak to the manager and spoke to "Tisheeka" who was extremely rude. I have worked customer service for years and know people are quick to complain but I am one to take time to compliment so I thought it was important to speak up about our experience. "Tisheeka" or "Tisheeke" seemed annoyed, and irritated, she wouldn't let me finish a full sentence with out talking over me. She said I "should have said something when it happened" which I did but she wouldn't have known that because she refused to let me talk. She handled the entire situation horribly and upset me more over the fact she wouldn't allow me to explain my experience. A man "Paulo" came standing over me staring at me while I tried to interact with the "manager" and finally asked me "what the problem was". He too seemed annoyed I "asked for a different piece of cake" for he was the one who brought me the fist small corner piece (in which he seemed mad/annoyed I had the nerve to ask for a something that was supposed to be a dessert but ended up as my meal). I will never step foot in there again, the service was terrible and the food was bad. This could have been easily taken care of by a simple but genuine apology but I got lip, attitude, and an unprofessional response. Good luck if you go there but don't expect good service or food for the price...

Just ate here. Food was okay. Had better, had worse. Honestly, a can of Rao’s from the grocery store and frozen meatballs would be better than their spaghetti and meatballs they charge $25 for. Diavola pizza was okay, meat was decent and the right spice level but just hammered with watery sauce and little mozzarella dollops that weren’t even fully melted and obviously came from a store. I guess if you’ve never eaten actual Italian food, this place would pass.

But my main issue is about 10 minutes into our meal, a table of 12-14 was seated next to our table of 2 with about 8 screaming children. I get it. We all were kids. Most of us have some in our lives. I’m not one of those types of people who freak being near kids. But for 30 minutes it was screaming, banging on tables, running around like it was a playground. A couple servers came up to us and asked if they could move us, we said sure, then they came back to say they couldn’t move us because the restaurant was too booked.

We were cool about it. At the end of the meal, I asked if they could comp us a dessert, which I felt was very reasonable, considering the circumstances, but they acted like I was asking for a kidney. Some manager came and made the whole situation worse with her utter incompetence, referring to “the whole dessert thing” like I was being crazy in my demands, despite the fact we’re basically in Chuck E Cheese but being charged like it’s an actual Italian bistro.

We asked for the check and then had to wait 15 minutes and eventually had to just walk to the front and get a cashier to check us out. Funny thing is there were like 6 open tables on that walk that I guess we just couldn’t be moved to. They then had the nerve to ask for a tip, which I did not give (first time I’ve ever done that in my life)… apologies, but it was that bad. Do better.

Will never eat here again and recommend the same to anyone else unless you’ve never had decent Italian food before or are used to horrible service and awful...

Pacci's Trattoria is in our better-places-to-dine-in list. We especially like going to its Brunch Buffet on Sundays. We haven't been to PT as much as we'd like to because there are also other places to try. But, yes, we've gone here on several occasions before. The brunch buffet is a bit pricey @ $26+ per person for a small somewhat outoftheway place (it's tight inside...it's a converted old house), and the mimosa is even an additional $5. Coffee, soda, and lemonade come with the buffet price. But they're not stingy with the servings like the omelettes we had (they were cooked in front of us and they did have a good amount of the ingredients we requested). PT also serves a lot of seafood: squid, different shrimp dishes, scallops, smoked salmon, and fresh oysters. Since it's brunch, they do have waffles, fruits, eggs (Benedict and omelette), sausages, bacon, potatoes, and rice...plus, different pasta dishes and pizzas, chicken wings, and tender pork roast on the chopping board! There's salad too. For dessert, they do have a nice spread of "mini" cupcakes, cookies, blondies, brownies, biscottis, donuts, and croissants. We love PT simply because it's not a part of a big chain, and there's a nice, cozy quaintness to this location. The serving crew is generally polite and accommodating. It's been a while since the last time and everything is still lovely EXCEPT that the desserts have shrunk considerably and they look like they came from a warehouse shop like Costco...so the quality is just so-so. We would still go back to PT for brunch, sure...but it may not happen soon enough knowing that there's been a big change in the dessert offering. Yes, that...