In Riva — Restaurant in Philadelphia

I tried in vain to find a way to send this feedback directly to Foghorn and InRiva, but the contact emails are disabled. Now, it's public, not private.

Greetings. After enjoying food from Foghorn via GrubHub several times, my son and I decided to visit the restaurant today after his big final exam. The food was excellent, as we expected. The restaurant was clean and visually appealing. Unfortunately, our interpersonal experience with the man working the counter was quite strange and negatively impacted our enjoyment of our lunch. From the moment we walked in the door, he fixed us with a very direct but completely blank stare. His voice was nearly inaudible, his affect completely neutral. No matter how cheerful and engaging I tried to be, his countenance remained unchanged. After mechanically walking us through the first part of the order, at a frustratingly low volume, he totaled us out before I was done ordering. Not wanting to make things worse by asking him to reverse any steps in the register protocol, I paid the amount he gave and then continued my order. I almost detected a sense of exasperation from him, but again, his demeanor was so devoid of human emotion, personality or character, it was impossible to see. As we sat down, the television and the music were both blaring in the otherwise empty restaurant, making conversation a bit difficult. After spraying a few very clean tables right next to us with some stinky windex, he returned to his post and what I presume was a cellphone, never to give us another glance.

To be fair, he did not do anything offensive, unpleasant, hostile or actively confrontational. He took our order, our money and then passed the info on to the kitchen. It was simply the lack of any customer-service related attitudes or behaviors beyond the absolute minimum function of his job that was so disconcerting.

I am happy to report that the man who brought our food from the kitchen was pleasant and friendly, and as I said, the food was great.

I hope you are able to succeed and stay in business for a long time, and I look forward to getting your food delivered to my house again in the near future. I will not be rushing back to...

I had heard good things and I live in East falls so my fiancé and I happily decided to give the place a try. We arrived to a packed house but they appeared to be managing adequately as we were seated not long after our reservation time. But we were seated absent silverware and despite visiting the table for the standard intro-drink order-food order-process, we never received place settings, only to finally be brought after request post-apps arrival and lengthy delay. On its own, not a reason to leave a negative review, just a routine misstep at a busy restaurant. But when they brought out the pizza they just left the finished apps and dirty-used app plates on the table without bringing new plates - as I'm sure you can imagine, this is a problem given both the small size of the plates and the fact they're going to be predictably dirty with the sauces of an Italian restaurant. Our server only checked on us once and in that lone visit she was extremely distracted and disinterested such that it was difficult to even get a simple drink refill. And finally, after we were brought the dessert menu and my fiancé hoped to salvage the evening with a tasty treat we waited ten minutes without another visit from THE WORST WAITRESS EVER and left. It was finally at this moment where we broke our collective silence with one another as to the litany of issues throughout this ordeal of a dinner and discussed the incompetence of the evening. We tried to not let it ruin the evening but when a staff almost had to go out of their way to be this bad at their jobs it is somewhat difficult.

We didn’t complain bc I don’t believe in complaining to a restaurant manager about their staff unless you think it’s literally worth someone’s job. I believe the staffs tip and online reviews are the appropriate forum. So they got $5 on an $80 tab - the first sub 20% tip I recall ever leaving as an adult - and In Riva gets one star (bc I can’t give 0). The food was average for the price but the service was so lacking that to call it "service" is to imbue it with a quality which was absent from...

Visiting from NY I was really looking forward to coming here. First let me say.. the brick oven margarita pizza was 7/10, sauce was good but that’s really it. We also had penne vodka with grilled chicken 8/10. We sat outside. The service was extremely slow. We went today (Saturday) around 8:30pm. Our server was very tied into a deep conversation with other guest sitting next to us about music or headphones- don’t really care but the fact that we had to wait 25-30 mins to put a food order in was crazy. We got our beers quick at least. I then had to wave down another server or idk if she was even a server or what her title was but I asked her about a protein option and then asked her if we can place our order with her and she let us. Order took a bit. Still no one really checked in with us at all or asked how we were doing or if we needed anything. I had to ask a food runner to bring me a glass of wine - which he never did - understandable but my server was still tied up with the guest and the whole music or headphones or idk what conversation- I then interrupted their conversation and asked for my wine. I seriously think we could have gotten up and walked out without paying that’s how much I feel like no one even cared we were there. I noticed staff hanging around the bar chatting, and drinking alcohol as well, must be nice to do on shift while you have guest waiting. Also be prepared to see mice if you sit outside, we saw 2 running in and out of where the fresh herbs were that’s planted outside. We would have ordered dessert if the service was better, even more drinks, but with that horrid service.. it was impossible to even enjoy anything. I truly hope you train your staff better, people from all over come to visit and try your food and I get that you have locals and love conversing with them - I too coming from the food industry background in NY but you seriously need to do better. I ALWAYS tip because I know how hard is it to work at a restaurant- but with service like that they’re lucky we even...