Osteria Romana - Main St. — Restaurant in Monroe

*UPDATE: Gave it another try. Had a delicious meal with my mom. Brian, our waiter, was fabulous! I will say though, at 4:30 and the place is empty, please don't make a face when we don't have a reservation and then say "you have to be out by 7." Second time this was done. I have made reservations in the past, but we were driving by and decided to stop in. Come on now, that's just wasn't necessary to say, and a bit insulting, honestly. If reservations are mandatory, then state it somewhere. Making patrons feel uneasy and rushed because they don't have a reservation is a definite restaurant no-no, in my opinion. 2 more stars for the delicious food and Brian.

I wanted to love this place. Walked in at about 4:45, the restaurant was pretty empty. Asked by the hostess if we had a reservation. I said no and she had a troubled look on her face. Walks away from us and then a gentleman comes up to us and asks if we have a reservation. No, we do not. He then says the hostess will seat us shortly. Hostess reappears and asks if my 84 year old mother and I wanted to sit in the bar area. There were 15 open tables available, why would we want to sit in the bar area???? We ask to sit in one of the booths. At first the hostess says the are ALL reserved. She finally relents and says we have to be done by 7:15. It is 5:00, I assured her we would be out by then. Ordered our dinner, but felt like we were an inconvenience. During dinner, I needed my water glass refilled. Three times a waiter/busboy passed through the restaurant and not one thought to refill my glass. The fourth time a waiter/busboy passed through, I had to stop him and ask for water. It clearly was not busy yet and there were at least 3 different waiters/busboys "walking" the restaurant and no one thought to refill my water glass. Food was okay but the service was not very good. I like to support local restaurants but the service is just as important if you want me to return or recommend your establishment. My mom was there last week and said everything was wonderful. Maybe it was an off day. So I may give it...

It appears you can’t post on their website so I’m posting on google. My husband and I eat out 5 times a week now that we are empty nesters and this restaurant is one we can’t recommend nor will return to. The experience was poor from start to finish. The restaurant is small and we sat at a table for two crowded up next to another table for two. We dined there on Saturday night 8/12/23. We ordered drinks and what I first noticed is that drinks came in a highball glass with a gigantic ice in the middle that took up 2/3 of the glass. I ordered a sour drink special and that was a sour mess and I could not taste the liquor. My husband had a johnny walker black which he drinks regularly and it was not what he’s accustomed to rather a very watered down version of JWB. So we switched to wine after that. He had a tuna tartar app which was ok and for entree he had the seafood risotto which was just ok because the seafood was over cooked and chewy. I ordered their special app which was zucchini flower and I’ve frequently ordered this at fine restaurants and what I was served was 2 fried mozzarella lumps with red sauce on side and not the delicate zucchini flower that is usually visible and filled with very fine ricotta that I’m used to. My entree was the strip steak with scalloped potatoes and haricot verts. The steak was cooked properly medium well with no flavor and was tough and the potatoes tasted like they were store bought with so much sodium that it was all I could taste instead of the creamy, slightly seasoned homemade version I make at home. So we had 3 drinks and the bill was $200 .. the lack of quality was so incredibly disappointing that we will not be back nor can we recommend this place to folks who know what quality food...

After years of this being our favorite spot, it has unfortunately gone steadily downhill. Each time we go there seems to be another table crammed into the to-small space, and fewer, less-experienced servers. This past time we went for our anniversary, and it took 20 minutes to be greeted by a server. It took another 10 minutes for drinks to arrive and then we had to flag the server down repeatedly for a second round. We ordered a salad to share and two pasta entrees. It was an hour and 45 minutes from the time we sat until our entrees hit the table (after 9pm when they finally arrived). About 45 minutes for the one salad to arrive. We saw tables seated after us being served first and, most notably, the table next to us received our entrees and the server attempted to argue with those folks and tell them that was what they ordered. There was no acknowledgement from the server of any issues and he regular sped past tables avoiding eye contact when we needed something. This used to be our go-to spot for special occasions because the service was always immaculate. The food remains stellar but all of the old guard appears to have left and their new servers get worse each time...