Abruzzo Italian Kitchen — Restaurant in Montana

Abruzzo's has been one of my favorite restaurants so I was surprised to have a bad experience today. The prices aren't quite worth the food to be honest but I like the atmosphere and the food is usually good.( $26+ dollars for a pasta dish with no sides. Salads are expensive too and no side salad). However today we had a bad experience. We order the $9 spaghetti and meatballs for my daughter off the kid's menu. She's not picky and usually eats everything so I was surprised when she wasn't eating her food and said she didn't like it. I gave her my dish and started to eat hers. Within minutes my mouth was burning like it was on fire. It tasted like cayenne pepper was in the sauce. It was too spicy for me, I can't imagine how spicy for my daughter! I asked her and she said her mouth was burning so bad she couldn't eat it. I asked the waitress if we could exchange the noodles for plain noodles because the sauce was very spicy--too spicy for a child. The waitress mentioned they do put crushed red peppers in the sauce. I'm not sure why they would do that for a child's meal! We kept the meatballs. When I got my bill I was charged 1/2 price for the spaghetti and meatballs and full price for the plain pasta. I asked the waitress why we were charged for both and she said her manager told her to charge us half since we kept the meatballs. I don't feel I should have been charged without at least notifying us that we would be charged for both pastas. I was not rude or angry but the manager came over to our table and I'm still a little shook by the encounter. When I explained to her that the sauce was too spicy for a child, she literally rolled her eyes at me and scoffed. She said in 2 years no one has ever complained about the sauce (essentially calling us liars). I calmly told her that perhaps there was some spice in the sauce tonight that wasn't there in the past. She again rolled her eyes and said that since we ate some of the dish, we had to pay for it. First, this should have been explained to us ahead of time. However, they should know better than to put spicy red peppers in a child's dish! Lastly, this is the worst customer service and the manager's attitude was appalling. She did remove the $4.50. I know they are always busy and in Whitefish so they think they can get away with this type of behavior. They probably will but I'm disgusted by it and disappointed. I'm tired of locals getting treated so poorly because they know they'll get more customers and can get away with whatever they want. I would expect to be treated just a little better. That manager should taste the sauce if she doesn't believe us that it's spicy! I recommend NOT putting red peppers in...

My family and I recently had the pleasure of dining at your restaurant after attending the Winter Carnival parade in Whitefish. We've been loyal customers since your opening in 2017 and have always enjoyed exceptional food and service, which is why this recent experience was particularly surprising and disappointing.

We arrived a little before 5:00 pm and were promptly seated at a lovely table by the window. Our server, Javen, was outstanding as always—attentive, polite, and professional. He made sure to check in with us at just the right moments, and the pacing of our meal was perfect. We began with the Elk Tartar and meatballs, both of which were delicious. Our entrees, the Wild Boar Ragu and Chicken and Mushroom Rigatoni, were exceptional and exactly what we’ve come to expect from Abruzzo’s.

The service remained wonderful throughout, and as we neared the end of our meal, we ordered desserts and coffee, savoring every bite. We were relaxed, enjoying our time, and there was no sense of rush. However, things took a turn when the interim manager, Moriah, approached our table.

To my surprise, instead of checking in on our meal, she informed us that we needed to vacate the table in 10 minutes as it was reserved for another party. My wife was still finishing her coffee, and I found this to be both unnecessary and uncomfortable, especially considering that we had spent around 1 hour and 40 minutes enjoying our meal. I felt as though we were being treated dismissively despite spending nearly $300 on our meal.

I want to be clear that this review is not a reflection of our experience with the food or the service team, who were exceptional, but rather with the manager's approach. As someone who has worked in the food industry and led a successful service company for many years, I believe in the importance of customer care and making sure guests feel valued. Unfortunately, in this case, the behavior we encountered left us feeling unwelcome.

I hope this feedback will help ensure that all patrons continue to enjoy the exceptional experience Abruzzo’s has been known for. We will certainly consider returning, but I would strongly recommend some additional training or consideration of how the management team interacts...

We’ve been visiting whitefish for a couple years annually and up until this year we’ve had great food and service at Abruzzo. Unfortunately, this time around was extremely frustrating and unpleasant. I made a reservation 5 days prior to the date needed and the host request a credit card for booking. No mention of the amount of fees that could potentially be charged for a no-show. 36 hours prior, a personal event came up and I called the establishment consistently during the day into the evening with no answer and no machine to leave a message. Now, I do understand they don’t open until 5pm but I was hopeful someone would answer knowing they’re there prepping for some time before services begin. I wasn’t able to get an answer until after almost 545pm. Which was 45 min after my scheduled reservation was to begin. The host was genuinely the rudest human I’ve encountered in a long time. She literally told me they were going to charge me $25 per person (for a total of $175) and that they answers phones all day and accused me of not calling to try to cancel and accused me of being a liar for explaining how the charges weren’t explained to me. Verbatim told me “I’m positive we told you how much when you booked and you didn’t try to call cuz we’ve been answering the phones all day.” After almost 5 minutes of trying to explain my concerns while being told I was lying, I begged to please reschedule our reservation for the next evening while being told it’s very unlikely they can fit 7 of us but she’ll try. We did. We showed up at 445p. They sat 7 adults at a small booth. We didn’t get a server assigned to us for almost 25 minutes. We had to ask twice for someone to please let our server know we’re ready to order. Thankfully the server, Steven, was pleasant and he did well for the most part. Our food was definitely sub-par and the quality was no where near where it used to be. Sadly to say I don’t think we’ll return here and I hope the service is assessed. Oh and they had the entire front room open when we left so they could’ve sat us more comfortably if...