Sam & Luca Italian Bistro — Restaurant in Mesa

First, I was kinda surprised that a restaurant is serving water with no ice in Arizona that wasn’t even cold either but even if it would have been cold just never seen that here in Az anyways. That was a turn off right off the bat for me especially when most of the year here you’re walking in sweating, it was just strange. So I’m thinking is this a new restaurant? Are they not from here or something? We got this young female waitress that was one of those that thinks she’s so good at this that she doesn’t need to write orders down because she memorizes them all. I told her I wanted the salmon and asked her what side came with it. She said it was asparagus and I said that was fine. My husband and son then gave their orders. Their orders came and mine didn’t. When their food came I asked the person if mine was still coming and he said that’s all that was ordered. She showed up and said she didn’t know I was ordering the salmon, she thought I was just asking a question about it. So of course I’m thinking, if you thought I was just asking a question about it then what did you think my order was? You could see there was no point in even asking dumb dumb this question so she said she was now putting in my order. So of course I watched them eat with no food and then mine came when they were done eating and I ate alone while they sat and waited. They didn’t offer anything to make up for it. Yes the food is good but not nearly worth what they’re asking for it. It much more expensive than what the food and quantity is worth. Never again. I wouldn’t go there because it’s one of those places you leave feeling cheated and...

This is a strip mall restaurant at best trying to present itself as something higher and Italian. Do not be fooled that this is high quality Italian or anything even close to it.

My wife and I heard good things about this place and really enjoy Italian so we decided to try it. It was fairly empty at dinner time which made it easy to be seated. Also parking was fairly easy. The drinks were expensive but that's to be expected lately and the service was well above average.

The food was way, way below expectations. The pasta dishes were no better than store-bought pasta with jar Ragu sauce. The chicken parm was particularly offensive.

The dessert was not bad but was not above expectations so they would get average marks for that.

Most offensive though is that this is one of those restaurants that tries to stick you with a service fee or surcharge, above the prices that they advertise, to cover their overhead. There are excuses that it's posted on a sign in the lobby, and I was able to find one on the surface of the hostess desk, but since there wasn't a wait we didn't go to the hostess table or even look at anything on it. I strongly suggest that this be disputed by most people or taken directly out of the server's tip. Regardless, it is a bad, and I believe dishonest, practice that I suspect is a clear indicator of a restaurant that will not survive.

In this case it's probably just as well because this restaurant probably should not survive.

Owner's comments show the type of people that you will be dealing with. They did say one helpful thing though, stay home rather than enjoying...

I just moved to East Mesa and me and my honey are exploring new places I seen Sam and Lucas. Was very interested in going. I called and I asked the person who answered the phone, is it better to come in or make reservations he said make reservations I set it up . This where it gets so uncomfortable for me and my honey. I go in straight to the hostess and I was like my name is so and so I have reservations for me and my honey and she was like perfect . Then she said we are cleaning your table now and it will be ready in 3 mins. So me and my honey take a seat across the hostess desk . Then 2 older ladies come in and they have a look of disgust on their face they go to the hostess and say can we be seated the hostess points to a table at the back but the ladies refused it . The hostess had some nerve if they would have taken that table I would have said get a manager we had reservations and isn’t first come first serve? . We get seated our waitress was really nice , we gave her a good tip , there were some people in giving us looks. If you have something to say then say it and keep it moving. Don’t get mad when I clap back and make you look like a dumbo. The food was really good but I will be ordering in from now on I don’t like the fact people. We’re going to give our seats away .oh it did take them a minute to get the bread to our table . Again our waitress’s was really super sweet , nice friendly and told us about the specials they had. What the hostess did was extremely rude ,...