Bocca Lupo Coal Fired Pizza Wellen Park — Restaurant in North Port

What a great restuarnt! Was in close proximity to all three locations and ended up choosing the one closer to Venice mainly because we figured we would visit a Venice Beach after dinner.

When we arrived, we were welcomed and were able to get a seat right away. In giving reviews, I am always honest and must confess we waited a bit until a server arrived at our table. It was nothing aggregious, just longer than normal. If we weren't so hungry and knew of other decent places with no wait, we may have walked out, so we decided to stick around and I'm glad we did.

Mariah asked if we were being waited on, picked up our order, and things quickly changed. Her southern hospitality and charm made up for the extended time waiting. While pure speculation, I'm pretty sure she was assigned a different area as she was all over the place. Despite this, she managed to check in on us, made sure we were hydrated, and provided us with outstanding customer service. A huge thank you to Mariah for your service.

I started off with a Hazify (New England Style IPA from Palm City Brewing) One of the great things about traveling to different areas is trying beers from different parts of the Country that may not be readily available back home in New Jersey.

I snacked on some Coal Fired Wings (Fried crispy, tossed in your favorite sauce and finished next to their 1200° coals) tossed in a mango habenero sauce. There were many varieties to choose from and was happy with my choice and would have been just as happy with some of the other flavors as well.

For the main course, we ordered the Pizza Margherita (Neopolitan tomato sauce with flor di latte (fresh mozzarella) and basil), Ravioli (Cheese ravioli topped with our homemade tomato sauce) and Vodka Penne (Tossed in tomato cream sauce.) Both pasta dishes came with two huge garlic knots that my son said was one of the best garlic knots he ever had and I can attest he has has many.

The food came out quickly and was delicious. Coming from New Jersey with so many great pizza places, I was reluctant to try the pizza but was impressed with the quality being I was 1200 miles from home. My kids devoured their food enjoyed their meal. For dinning out, I though the price point was perfect and was surprised it was not more expensive.

In finding places to eat, an important thing for me is to find a well balanced menu that could satisfy me and my daughter who is a vegetarian. This menu has many options to choose from we all walked out stuffed and satisfied.

A huge thanks to all those behind the scenes (bartender, cooks, management) for a...

My wife and I love the Bocca Lupo location further south on 41 in North Port, so we were excited to check out the new location last night. We ordered a large Italian, antipasto and the rice balls as an appetizer. All our food came out in the order we expected; first the salad, then the appetizer and finally the pizza. (Seems simple enough but so many times at other restaurants this seems to be a challenge). The freshness of the food and ingredients was apparent just like we get at the other location and we were all (my mom joined us) very happy with it. 😊 The service from Angela was also excellent 👏. The only thing none of us cared for was the atmosphere/ambience. That's not to say it wasn't good, but it's a little brighter than we are used to compared to their other location, and definitely louder. Obviously they are going for a younger crowd at this location based on the hard rock (possibly alternative?) music that was played fairly loud. Loud enough that talking to each other at our table was difficult. Now my wife and I are in our later fifties so this was a turn off for us..definitely for my mom too...but the crowd (and it was a pretty good crowd) was a younger 25-35 crowd I would guess, so they might have really enjoyed it. Plus it was a Saturday night, so I can't be harsh, just not our thing and that's fine, we will stick to the other location which is closer...

We visited a few weeks back for our first time, we had ordered drinks and unfortunately a beer was spilled on our table, instead of cleaning the table, it was wiped with paper towels. We should have just moved booths. We ordered the buffalo shrimp as an appetizer, it was horrible. Cheap breaded, possibly frozen shrimp with some sauce. We ordered a pizza, my son had the chicken Alfredo, and I had the wings all flats. The wings came out with 3 flats. Had to wait for the order to be corrected. Today we gave it another shot. We had a party of 4. We were grabbing lunch for my son's birthday while his sister is visiting from out of state. He ordered a cheese pizza, we had another pizza on the table (both personal size), wife had a calzone, and I had a sub with frys. The order took a really long time, I asked if our food was almost ready as its been a while. Our waitress said yes. 3 of us received our food, my sons pizza was given to another table. My frys were cold and I sent them back, when they returned them, they taste like they were double cooked. They were hard. The sub I ordered on toasted bread was very hard. My sons pizza came out a while after ours. Of course we ate not to let everything get cold. His pizza was burned compared to the other. Overall, both visits were not worth the $90 ticket with tip. Unfortunately. We won't be coming back. We wanted to love this place...