Sophia's Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Ocean City

TL;DR: Slow, rude service. The best thing we ordered was barely mediocre, and the worst tasted like canned great value tomatoes sauce. Also, an incorrect order that was cobbled together. Pros: jalapeños were spicy. Bread was decent. Large drinks. Cons: slow and rude service, terrible pasta sauce, overcooked, mushy noodles, incorrect order, then corrected order that was just a bunch of stuff piled on top of the original incorrect order.

Long version: We arrived around 8:45. The restaurant had posted they closed at 10 so we assumed we had plenty of time. We weren’t looking for a long drawn out dinner. We were all tired and ready to get back to our hotel for the night. We were seated quickly and then a young girl came to get our drink order. While she was taking our drink order, a male server came to the table and stated that he would get it and asked us to repeat our order. We gave him the drink order. He asked us if he could get us anything else. We stated no that we would order when he came back. Approximately 15 minutes went by— we did not get drinks— before another lady came and asked what we ordered. We told her we had only ordered drinks and hadn’t gotten them yet. She said “What kind of food are you ordering?” I started to answer her and she said “I need to get your order so we can get out of here.” As I started again to order, our waiter walked up to our table then and dropped off our drinks— one of which was a very large sprite when we had asked for a kids size for a 6 year old. After dropping off our drinks he said “Can I get you anything else?” I told him we’d like to order. He took the order— 1 half cheese, half pepperoni and bacon pizza, 1 pizza with pepperoni, bacon and jalapeños, and one order of chicken parmigiana and pasta. He left and a while later the pasta came out by itself. Several minutes later a young lady brought out a half cheese and half pepperoni, bacon, and jalapeño pizza. I told her that wasn’t correct. She left with the pizza and met the waiter who had the other pizza in his hands. The waiter then brought both pizzas and said “What’s wrong with the pizza? It’s what you ordered?” I explained the mistake and my husband said that he would just keep the pizza. The waiter walked away with it. He then brought the correct half back to the table and gave it to my husband and said they were remaking the wrong half. About 5 minutes later, he returned with half a pizza that was “correct” but it seemed as thought they had taken the already baked cheese pizza, added the requested toppings and then popped it back into the oven for a few minutes as the toppings were barely warmed— and by that I mean the pepperoni wasn’t even hot, and literally every topping except one piece of pepperoni fell off the slice as soon as one was picked up. The other pizza was mediocre but not terrible. The chicken parmigiana— chicken was crispy and tasted okay. Noodles were way over cooked, and the sauce tasted like tomato sauce directly from a can. After adding an abundance of salt and red pepper flakes, it was barely passable, but much improved for what we had to work with. I also found it interesting that as others were leaving the restaurant, someone was telling them that most of the people who are here on vacation eat here all 7 days they are here! It was definitely a one and done for us. Could have just been an off night but for $80 I won’t be back...

I must admit I was skeptical about trying Sophia's. We walked in and were greeted by Sophia herself. " Hello, sit anywhere". Okay, friendly enough. Paper menus, utensils wrapped in a napkin, pretty casual. As we sat waiting to be waited on, I noticed that Sophia seemed to be doing everything. She was taking orders cleaning tables, what ever needed to be done. There was a bartender and a couple of young men that were busing and food running. Sophia took our orders, from memory as the electronic gizmo was not working. We had com here because my Italian husband wanted Chicken Cacciatore for his birthday and no other restaurant had it on the menu. While we waited for our food, pizzas and other carry out items were flying out of the door! I ordered a Cosmopolitan which was one of the best I have had. Two Caesar salads that were huge. My husband's Chicken Cacciatore was authentic and delicious. I had Scampi. 6 very large shrimp, cooked perfectly and the pasta was perfectly cooked al dente. It was as good as what I make at home! Lots of butter, wine, lemon and garlic. Oh yes, a lovely rustic loaf of homemade bread and soft butter. The portions were huge, enough for another meal! We were pretty full so we ordered the blueberry lemon ricotta cake to go. Much to our surprise, Sophia appeared with the cake and a candle and everyone seated near us wished my husband a happy birthday. We got the bill and she did not charge us for the cake, and she gave us another loaf of bread to take home! The ambiance is not fancy but don't let it fool you, this is top notch food...

This place got great reviews from friends and other people we talked to. They said the wait was a lot but the food was worth it. They were right about the first half. We waited 20 minutes for no host to show up, but for a waitress, presumably Sophia herself, to yell at us to come in. All of this while disturbing the other customers and their dining experience. We sat at a table uncomfortably close the door due to the fact that when guests came in, they would be looming right in front of our table. After sitting down, it took so long for a server to come by that we all started playing “higher or lower” for when we would get out of there. After 15 minutes a nice man came and waited on us, but it took another 10 minutes to get those drinks. Keep in mind they had 8 waitstaff present. After we ordered, these waitresses would bring us food that wasn’t ours, and instead of ask, they would just show it to us and stare blankly. What kind of service is that?? This happened 4 separate times until we got out food. They literally use the Toast POS system which is built to assign orders and waitstaff to tables. This kind of service and disjointed food management for some overpriced mediocre Italian food is enough to make me say do not come here. I work at a small mom & pop pub that uses the same POS system, and while it has its problems, the staff and myself can certainly do better than this nightmare of...