Roberto's — Restaurant in Ogunquit

I am not one to hate a place and usually I am a very patient person but this place was very disappointing.

We decided Roberto’s because we were looking for a nice place to end our night at Ogunquit. Roberto’s outdoor seating was quite charming and romantic. Parking was easy and we parked behind the house. We noticed there was no outdoor host/ hostess to seat us so I had to go inside and request to be seated. We were seated by 7:35pm. Soon after a waitress came by and placed our order around 7:45pm. Here is where the problem begins....

First off, we are in a pandemic and outdoor social distancing was absent at Roberto’s. Our two-seated table was not 6 feet apart from other tables. I had to wait, with our masks on, until one of the guests were done with their table to request social distancing practice from a busboy. That took about 15 minutes of waiting while we already had our drinks on the table but did not drink it because it was not a safe distance.

Once that was over another waitress came and took our entree requests at around 7:45pm. The waitress NEVER told us in the begin that all entrees take an average of an hour. Was it a busy night? Yes, but not to the point of an hour wait for an entree. We noticed people being served their entrees left and right in a timely manner.

What we did notice that the waitresses and busboys were questioning who had our table. Meaning, which waitress was responsible for our table. We also noticed that their was a lost of lack of communication from our waitress to the kitchen or as she said “the Chef”.

At 8:53pm we were served a basket of bread twice, coke twice and a Stella yet no entrees. It was by this time the waitress informed us that the Chef makes everything from scratch and it takes an average of an hour to make our entree. To give them 6 minutes and she would have our entrees ready for us to eat. I was understanding but did tell the waitress that if we didn’t have our entrees by 9pm we were going to cancel our entree orders.

AT 8:59PM, over an hour waiting for our entrees we were finally served. Yet the joke was on us. I ordered a Lobster Risotto and my husband a Lazy Lobster with grill potatoes. A risotto takes about 15 minutes to cook and chopped lobster about the same time give or take. My portion of the Lobster Risotto was for two servings but the risotto was NOT fully cook or al dente! The creme for the risotto was not fully blended and it seems it was sitting on a hot plate for a while. I was too hungry to argue and I did some slim pickings on the entree. My husband’s entree, Lazy Lobster, was a small serving, ideally for a child. The Lazy Lobster is just buttered-up CHOPPED lobster and the potato cut fries that were over seasoned and burnt! He was too hungry and ate what he could. It took over an hour for these two entrees! Actually, these entrees are under their specialty menu. I did not take home the remainder of the Lobster Risotto.

After we ate we received the check and to our surprise we got fully charged. No manager or chef came to our table to apologize and neither did the waitress. She only explain to us that there was a wait for home-aid amateur entrees.

CONCLUSION: We don’t recommend this place for their lack of hospitality, poor waiter to kitchen communication/ operation, lack of proper customer service and most importantly lack of social distancing. They were lucky to get 10% tip from us. Hopefully the tip goes to the busboys for their good service on constantly filling our cup with water all this time!

I hope this helps to who ever read this!

Sincerely, A New Yorker who’s family comes from small businesses; especially some in...

Couple weeks ago, we decided to try Roberto's for the 1st time. We've been coming to OGT for years now but never tried this place out. Party of 6, 3 adults and 3 kids. Upon arrival, the hostess was kind and directed us to our table towards the back of the house. She was very kind and noticed her smile. Good start.

A few min later, our waiter showed up and was ready to take our order.

“hi, my name is _ _ _ _O S and I will be your waiter” - no smile and was holding himself with both arms on our chairs. Kind of odd.

We had barely sat down. We kindly requested for more time and ordered some drinks and juice for the table. As we settled in, we noticed the AC was aimed directly at our table and clearly was set on a high fan mode.

We ordered and kindly requested our waiter whether it may be possible to lower the intensity or change the direction. He was going to look into it. 25min later, our plates arrive (pasta with veal, lobster pappardelle and Bolognese pasta all around) but no mention of the freezing air coming down on us. 2nd reminder to our waiter to look into this bothersome AC situation. 15min later, still Nothing. I had put up my collar and the kids put their hoodies back on. Oh, look, waiter came back to check on our meal! 3rd reminder to address this AC issue and I pleaded; “can you please do Something”

His response : « I can get you a larger napkin to wrap around your neck ». I guess he was joking but, I knew where this was going. Long story short, it took 7 requests until a manager intervened and cranked down the AC. Finally! Meanwhile, we had not seen our waiter in order 1h15 or so. Actually, last time we saw him was when he opened our bottles of wine. All along the diner, we were serving ourselves. Not a big ask of course you might say, but I guess this waiter fundamentals were not a priority. This was embarassing for him.

Oh, we also had to request some water at some point since Casper the waiter had never came by. Nor were we offered pepper, oil or parm.

Unfortunately, due to the size of our party, gratuity was included. This is one rare time I would have literally added a big 0 on the dotted line. 1 out of 10 (at least he showed up to work that day).

As far as the food is concerned, the appetizers were good and so was the Bolognese. Interestingly enough, two of the priciest plates on the menu were the worst. The pasta with veal plate must have weighted 2-3lbs. The plate consists of a mountain of pasta and topped with 3 large veal cutlets. The pasta was literally bathing in a clear bland sauce that brought out no flavors. Perhaps it was to dip the lifeless fried veal cutlets, i don't know. The pasta was Al Dente, but only the pasta that wasn’t submerged in the swimming pool below. 2 out of 10

Second failed plate scored the same mainly for the same reason. My lobster pappardelle had a good lobster meat ratio and the pasta was also Al Dente. I had so much liquid it was almost like a soup – seemed like it was pasta water mixed with the lobster water and a couple chucks of butter. Senseless and uninspired. I calculated about 1 1/2 cups of liquid that remained once I finished. 2 out of 10.

So, as we left from our cold, lackluster evening, I wondered what this mediocre amateur of a waiter may purchase with the mandatory gratuity. Plenty of things I’m sure considering the 534$ total. I would suggest a basic online acting class to project a smile and sense of caring first.

Anyway, clearly not going back. But I am looking forward to the better service offered at Sbarro in...

My friend and I dined at Roberto’s last weekend, hoping for a lovely evening. Unfortunately, our experience was far from pleasant and cost us $200.

We were seated on the front porch, which was lovely. But after 15 minutes with no service, my friend went inside to remind the staff we were there. No worries, we weren’t in a hurry. A few minutes later, our waitress arrived and took our drink order. We asked for lemon drop martinis but were brought cosmos. When we tried to clarify, the waitress insisted that’s what we had ordered. There seemed to be a language barrier, but she eventually agreed to bring the correct drinks, for a total of 45 minutes until we received our drinks. We shrugged it off at first understanding it was a busy evening.

Appetizers came slowly, but once our entrées arrived, I had no silverware (it had been cleared and never replaced), and our appetizer plates were still on the table. My friend had to ask for help again, we needed silverware to begin eating-The woman who brought the silverware—who also turned out to be the owner—rolled her eyes when I asked for Parmesan cheese. She sent over the maître d’, who wordlessly started spooning cheese onto my friend’s dish without asking who wanted it. I had to stop him to get some for myself.

By that point, our food was cold. My chicken Piccata was poorly prepared, and my friend’s eggplant Parmesan was inedible bc it was cold. We asked for both to be boxed up. So far it wasn’t the greatest of experiences but not bad enough to write a long review, that is until the check came and we were asked if everything was good. We politely said it wasn’t and explained the obvious reasons why. We asked if something could be done about the drink error. But Instead, we were shocked to have the owner return, raising her voice and threatening to call the Ogunquit police if we didn’t pay. I’m not joking. We were stunned, as we never refused to pay—we had simply asked for consideration after a long list of issues. The owner was belligerent, defensive, and dismissive. She even told us not to tip the server if we were unhappy. Despicable behavior for an owner. She was so enraged she accused us of “complaining all night”, as if being forgotten and given the wrong drinks etc was our fault. Then when we mentioned the couple seated behind us had walked out due to the wait, she snapped, “That has NOTHING to do with you.” Wow. If it was my establishment I would want to know if I was losing customers.

It’s clear from other reviews that this isn’t the first time this has happened. The owner has previously responded by saying guests should’ve “spoken up”- in this case we did, but she was completely unwilling to listen, and deflected by saying maybe we’re just not the restaurant for you!!! Dismissive again. She turned it on us and made it as if we complained about everything, yet neither of us are complainers. Look at my other reviews, I love to give five stars!!! Sorry ma’am you are wrong!

The porch was beautiful and the drinks were well made (once corrected), but none of that made up for the rudeness of the owner or the poor service. Sadly, we won’t return and can’t recommend...