Emporio: A Meatball Joint — Restaurant in Pittsburgh

The short opinion here is that there is a management issue that needs to be addressed in order for the employees to excel and make this place an enjoyable and desirable location.

The longer story is that we arrived on a Tuesday night where we were promptly seated and looked over the all things meatball menu. After about 15 mins we asked the hostess where our wait staff was so we could order at the very least our drinks, ideally food. More time goes by and the hostess of all people bring by waters and apologizes for the delay.

When we were greeted by the waitress, we ordered our food and drink (single beer, nothing crazy). However, she was having issues with their “new system” and wrote it all down manually. Very straight forward order with the exception of a kids meal where we switched the pasta from spaghetti to penne and wanted it plain.

Another 20-25 mins go by and still no beer or refill of waters causing us to ask the adjacent waitress who grabbed the beer from the bar that was sitting there and helped with the waters.

The food arrived by not our waitress but the other who was trying to help. A side salad was missing items, the kids meal was delivered with two pasta dishes, both with sauce. This poor other waitress trying to help, was too kind and there was no fault to her but we did ask for the manager.

No manager. Our regular waitress came by, acknowledged the issue and we requested the manager again. Our request felt more like a bother to the manager upon his arrival (I only saw him get up once to address our issue but otherwise he was flipping between his laptop and phone in a corner).

The reason for the issues was a new system and busy kitchen. While I can see both being a reason, why would you put untrained staff on a busy floor? The second is, how does a busy kitchen address the lengthy beer delivery or both tables next to us, who arrived at the same time, both left before our corrected kids penne was brought out?

That said, he offered to take a little off the bill which we had to ask about once we got the bill because nothing was discounted until it was mentioned with bill in hand along with wondering where our waitress disappeared to yet again.

A wild ride and everyone has a bad day but if you don’t train your staff with the tools you have, you aren’t going to pass down a good experience to the customers who keep the...

This place has gone downhill, and it's sad to see.

This place used to be one of my favorite spots in Pittsburgh. My fiance and I both loved it, and we just had it again for the first time in about a year. We've tried to go several times over the past few months, but we'd show up only for them to tell us that they were short-staffed and couldn't seat anyone anymore (this happened twice, and both times were about 2 hours before closing time).

We finally managed to go again, only to discover that the menu changed significantly -- less options, worse quality, and higher prices.

We used to both get meatball paninis. They were tasty, a great value, you didn't have to get a side, and you could mix and match the type of meatball (chicken, beef, etc) and sauce however you wanted.

The ability to mix and match is gone. You're forced to have a specific sauce per type of meat (beef ball had marinara, chicken had garlic & herb, etc).

They also no longer serve the panini, and the closest thing is the "smash ball" option which is about double the cost of what the panini was. Once again, you're forced to a specific sauce per type of sandwich. In this case, the chicken option was supposed to come with crack sauce. This is what I ordered, but I didn't taste the crack sauce. The meatballs were cold, and I'm positive it used the garlic & herb sauce from the "naked ball" menu because that's what my fiance ordered. I asked about this and was given some crack sauce on the side, but I was charged extra for it. I asked about the upcharge and was told that the balls are cooked in the sauce rather than having the sauce on the side, but I know I would have tasted the difference.

We ordered crack fries as an appetizer because it was one of our favorites in the past. Unfortunately, the fries were undercooked and mushy, when they used to be perfectly cooked and crispy. The crack sauce is also worse than it used to be. Much less of a tangy kick, and heavier on the ranch. Our side of crack sauce was also ice cold. What a shame.

I'm not sure if they changed ownership or what happened, but it's fallen so far. Very...

Utter chaos is the best way to describe the meal experience we had here, from start to finish. I dined in as a party of 3, and the waitress was incredibly friendly. However she did not check in with us more than a handful of times despite all of the issues that we had, and we had to ask for waters a full three times before they showed up. I am willing to chalk that part up to understaffing (after all, everywhere is right now), so the second star is for the benefit of the doubt and her niceness throughout the evening.

The kitchen, on the other hand, ended up being the biggest issue of the night. First, they did not send out the correct order for myself (they sent out a 2 meatball order instead of 4, even though it was correct in the system). Second, even though my food was properly sauced, they barely put any sauce on a second person's order. And when I say barely, I mean that the pasta was completely dry and there was a small splash on top of the meatballs. Then when they brought us more sauce to make up for it, they had the gall to charge us extra for it. Don't charge people for your own mistakes! The third person's order was just completely tasteless and the noodles were a soggy mess. All the sauce in the world wouldn't have helped when everything tasted like cardboard.

While I am willing to try eating here again, it will be a LONG time until I give it another chance. I can understand and deal with understaffing, but the kitchen absolutely does not know what they are doing, and charging for a mistake is something that a restaurant (or any business, for that matter) should NEVER do. If anything, they should offer something extra for the...