Salvinos — Restaurant in Otsego Township

Pros & cons after a few visits, see below for full review of a recent visit.

Pros -Lunch buffet is a good value & above average to good quality -Good tap selection of craft beers for the Plainwell area -Decor is modern & light

Negatives -Most menu prices -Maybe a positive for some...why do 100% of the female servers have pants so tight there are visible underwear lines? -Stromboli quality(only meal I've ordered off the menu & possibly the last)

Experience on a recent visit Sat at the bar & gave a beer order to the bartender. She spoke to the couple sitting next to me, walked away for maybe 5 minutes. Returned only to serve plates to a couple & leave again for another 5 minutes. Came back served the couple next to me, ate a few small handfuls of fries from the customers plate & had a couple minute discussion with them (appeared she was friends with the customers). Came back to me after attending to the rest of the people at the bar. At this point 12-15 minutes had elapsed since putting my drink order in & I'm greeted with her asking if I had made my mind up yet?......??? Yes, I'll stick with the original drink order..."what was that again?" She didn't wash her hands after eating off a customers plate before serving my drink?!? Also worth mentioning I have yet to be asked if I'd like a menu, in addition all bar patrons (approx 14) except the 4 people who received their meals were completely avoided in the approx 12-15 minutes.

Pasta sounded great. Menu claims all pasta is imported from Italy. I'm vegetarian & had a hard time justifying $14+ for packaged noodles & sauce. I would've considered pasta at this price if it was made in house fresh daily. After looking over the menu most prices felt as if patrons are paying an extra $2 per plate for modern looking decor. I settled with stromboli. It came out fairly quickly. First sampled the red sauce which was above average, and unfortunately the only honorable mention of the plate. After cutting the stromboli open it appeared all ingredients came from a can & approx 1/2 table spoon of clear liquid drained onto the plate?? I'm assuming the clear liquid was from the toppings not being drained properly or the water being cooked out of the ingredients into the stromboli. The dough was undercooked not to point of inedible, but combined with the liquid the stromboli seemed mushy. I prefer my pizza, stromboli & calzones to have a light crisp/crunch on the exterior & chewy inside. This stromboli was much closer to soggy than chewy, lacking any crisp/crunch. What has been mentioned about the quality to this point is what I would expect if Little Caesars started selling stromboli. I wouldn't expect them to have one end mostly one topping, the middle mostly the 2nd topping, with the other end being mostly the 3rd. I'm hoping this isn't the traditional way you serve you're stromboli. I believe most customers would prefer the ingredients mixed to roughly equal proportions throughout.

This review will be capped off with kindly suggesting a couple things which Salvino's has taken some flak for in other reviews yet doesn't seem to address.

1. -Most "Italian" restaurants will benefit from using as much fresh vs canned foods as possible. I've worked as a prep cook & it cost less (at least in my experience) to have a prep cook prepare fresh food daily opposed to ordering can goods. In addition to the overwhelming difference in quality of fresh it provides a much more authentic/soulful appeal. Can goods give the appearance of generic and/or carelessness...as if the restaurant is there solely to make money not out of a passion of food & drinks.
2. -Bartenders attention to customers appear to lack at times, this would seem like an easy issue to address. 15 min to get a beer & menu is disappointing to say the least. Should we assume I'm the only one in the history of the restaurant with this experience? Can we safely assume this would never happen again?

For these reasons I will only consider this establishment exclusively for lunch buffet and/or drinks in the...

When I call to play my pickup order I ordered a double bacon cheeseburger and ask the girl that got seasoned fries she said no but she'll put a cup of cheese in with it I thought what the hell okay and I told her I want to catchup mustard mayonnaise then I ordered my mom some chicken wing basket with fries go pick up the order remind you I left the tip get home look at my burger there's only one piece of meat on it with nothing on it dry as heck so then I called the girl she goes on to tell me we don't have double bacon cheeseburgers so why didn't you say that she said she gave me something else that had white cheese on it it tasted nasty as hell whatever the sandwich was I don't know I wasn't a regular cheeseburger and then we only got one order of fries does wrapped up in some like plastic stuff inside of a styrofoam container soggy as heck let's get back to the beginning when I first called ask her if I speak to a manager she hung up on me I call back I said you just hung up on me she didn't say nothing I said I want to speak to a manager did she purchase to say the manners is in a meeting this is 4:00 Saturday afternoon so can I get your name and I'll have him call you back I said no I'll call back when you're out of their meeting well they're not here I could tell she was lying she's very rude for that food very very very very very very very very very disappointed I will be trying to get ahold of the owner today I tried to get her name but she wouldn't give me her name I stopped there cuz I always see cars there but it must be because of the beer can't because of the service of the food not going to lie that was one of the worst Burgers I've ever had in my life I'm hoping to get the...

I ordered a bean burrito with mushrooms and peppers. Ordering went fine, and she never read it back to me. I specified what type of peppers I wanted in this burrito btw.

I get to Salvinos to pick up my order and pay for it. She read me the order and said banana peppers. I corrected her and said I wanted the red and green peppers, not banana peppers. She corrected herself and said yes that's what I meant.

So I paid for my food and took my food back to work. (15 minutes away from Salvinos).

I open up my burrito and it has banana peppers inside.

I call today to just let them know what happened, and the manager on the phone doesn't apologize, doesn't seemed concerned, and doesn't care to listen or really say anything besides I'll let whoever did it, know.

I hung up and said thank you.

If you don't think I deserve an apology for messing up MY food that I ordered and PAID for, then you never deserve my money again.

If you are a manager, you shouldn't sound like you hate your job on the phone and seem like you just don't care about your customers.

My burrito was gross but I still ate it because it was my only lunch at work. I wasn't calling to get my money back nor get free food, I was only calling to let them know what happened and how disappointed I was with it. Yet, now I feel like I should have with the way the manager handled the phone call. (Cassie was her name, maybe?)

I will never go here again/order take-out again. Learn some customer service...