Sal's Famous Pizzeria — Restaurant in Plainfield

It is rare to come across a true one star restaurant experience because the restaurant either closes or it takes notice and fixes everything overnight, in this case I hope for the latter.

It's a given that in today's world service might be slower due to lack of employees but two and a half hours for one meal is a bit extreme.

My wife and I waited for 12 minutes before we were given a table, which is perfectly acceptable, but the first turn of the night is when someone was set down after us and was waited on before us. Not just a minute or two before us, they were at the table next to us and the waitress took their order and then disappeared into the kitchen. Even though our neighbors to the table next to us finished and left a half hour before we did it appeared that they did not have a pleasant experience themselves. The wife had ordered a meal and when the entree arrived she asked about the salad she never received and said just take it off the bill. Her waiter, instead of fixing the problem, said it's included in the meal price so there's nothing to take off.

My wife and I were eventually ask for our order and we're brought bread and oil. Considering this is an Italian restaurant theme I was hoping for good bread and oil but what came out was loaf sliced bread and tasteless olive oil, both cold. With their wood-fired oven it does not seem a stretch they could at least set the bread or a small loaf in there before bringing it to the table and perhaps add some seasoning to the oil.

Once our order was placed my wife and I waited 90 minutes for our soup and entrees. After tasting it I chose not to eat the soup just as I did not to eat the bread and oil. My wife ate about half of her soup.

I ordered the veal entree in my wife ordered the chicken entree, both with pasta and sauce. Only about half of each piece of my veal was cooked properly with the other half being undercooked, while my wife's chicken seem to be overcooked and we joked that it came from a rubber chicken.

It has been over two years since my wife and I last visited Sal's and it was our hope to have a better experience, especially after seeing the entree prices nearly double to what they were we got a warm feeling in our heart thinking that they have appropriately priced good food so they can make sure and have the service and support staff to consistently make that good food. It's unfortunate that we were disappointed and it is unfortunate to submit this review for a restaurant in my hometown. I live in suburbia and for decades the town residents support local vendors in the hopes that they stick around long enough to be good, I just hope that Sal's and other local restaurants realize that customer support is artificially subsidized and that if they really want to stick around for a long time they should pay attention to their customers experiences.

I wish...

It's been awhile since we've been here and we heard it was under new management so we thought we would give it another shot. Well not much has changed. The location and the restaurant itself is great. The service and food not so much. It first started when we walked in the door. We stood there while employees both servers and hostesses kept walking past not even acknowledging that we were even there. One gal finally asked us how many in our party then shouted at the hostess to take care of us. Hostess didnt seem very welcoming or pleasant at all. She seated us and gave us menus. We sat for nearly 20 minutes before server finally showed up. She asked about drinks then asked if we needed more time to look over the menu? We chuckled and told her no we were definitely ready. She brought our drinks and was off. We sat forever and the mood of the place was off. Patrons all seemed to quiet and no one was saying anything. All the employees looked miserable. The only time they "appeared" happy is when they spoke to customers. You know that ole fake smile you do when you have to. It took forever for our food to come and I'm pretty sure they mistakenly delivered my dish to two other tables. We asked for bread from one of the folks walking by while we waited and they said of course. Next thing the very unpleasant blonde hostess that sat us came over dropped a basket on the table, poured the dipping oil, and left all without saying a word. Her demeanor was if we were annoying or troubling her for something. With nothing else to do we of course just talked and watched everything. One table of 6 that was sitting before we got there seemed to be getting upset. When they brought there food out they only brought part of the table. They made three trips about 5 minutes apart and twice they took dishes back because they brought the wrong thing. Evidentally the lady sitting behind me also got the wrong thing or wasn't happy about the dish she received as she sent it back. Our food finally arrived. My wife ordered the pizza which was good. I ordered the lasagna not so good. It tasted like it had come out of the frozen food section somewhere and been heated in a microwave. We only saw our server a few times throughout. She seemed really busy texting and talking on her phone in the kitchen area. Actually really the only time we saw her was when she took our order and the only time she really spoke to us was when she dropped of the check. Thought it was funny it had a 18% 20% 25% tip recommendation at the bottom. I hate to never leave any tip but the service wasn't close to either of those percentages. I left 10%. We...

Went to Sal’s to get dinner with my family. As we sat and waited for service, we noticed there were only two servers for the entire restaurant. They were doing their best, but the server and the hostess got into a disagreement. Next thing we know, the owner is badgering our waitress in front of the whole restaurant. So we listened to them argue.

We finally got our food and it looked pretty good! After four bites, I gagged on something and it was a long black hair in my food! I nearly vomited on the table. I called our waitress over and had placed the hair on the table and informed her of the disgusting situation. Rather than the OWNER coming over and apologizing and asking me what she could do to make it right, she picked up the hair and took it to the kitchen. I couldn’t believe my eyes. She came back with the hair in hand and said she doesn’t have anyone with that hair color and told me it is my wife’s hair in my food. We were sitting across the table from each other and her hair was pulled back! Her hair color is blonde and this hair was jet black. I couldn’t believe that she came back out and said that. I told her she shouldn’t even have us pay for the dinner since none of us could continue eating. She told me I’ll pay or she would call the police.

I asked her to please give me the name and number of the owner, so I could let him know how she was treating her customers and she yelled and pounded her chest, repeating I AM THE OWNER! I will never eat there again and it might be the worse restaurant in town. Please go to the new Cunningham Italian restaurant and have a true dining experience. This place is unfit to eat at and the owner is probably one of the worse people I have...