Compari's On the Park — Restaurant in Plymouth

Family owned, for the most part is an excellent thing. Family owned independent restaurants are also disappearing faster than ever before as capitalist corporate America gobbles all the little guys up one by one.

The Plymouth community is very fortunate when it comes to the amount of small family owned places to eat that they have to choose from. Having the opportunity to spend more time in the area lately has unlocked the ability to dine out, and dine well.

Let's talk about parking first. Honestly, if Plymouth gets any bigger there will probably start to be issues regarding parking especially during busy dining times. Typically there is so much movement going on, there is always someone coming and going so I have never really had an issue finding a spot. Even better when it comes to this place is that there is a parking garage located directly behind it with a walkway that literally connects and comes out right down the sidewalk from the front door. You can't really beat that.

My wife and I wound up here for my in-law's anniversary, quite simple because this is where they wanted to eat. We made a reservation ahead of time and had zero issue being seated when we arrived. The first thing that I noticed though is that the main dining area is pretty cramped when its busy. Not a huge deal, but I personally prefer a bit more space when I am eating out (especially if I am with a larger group).

When it comes to service, it's okay. Nothing over the top, but also nothing too underwhelming either. Our waiter seemed pretty scattered, but it was also very busy, so I tend to give a little grace when someone is having to run around and tend to multiple parties at multiple tables simultaneously. That being said, we still got our drinks, refills, appetizers, and entrees in a very timely manner, and everything was as ordered.

Speaking of entrees, the food is really where this place shines and knocks it out of the park. It's just plain delicious. It looks homemade, it smells homemade, and most importantly it tastes homemade. Couple that with plentiful portions and you really cannot go wrong. My wife brought home her Risotto leftovers which I promptly reheated the next afternoon and it was just as good as the night before. It's just delicious. I am not sure how else to put it to you. You really just need to try it for yourself and see.

If drinking is your thing, they also have a full bar and an excellent selection of beer and wines to tickle your adult beverage fancy. Everything we had as far as that went was also spot on and great overall.

When all is said and done, if you're looking for a great Italian meal in a casual (but busy) environment, then this is your place. I would also recommend making reservations (especially if you have more than a couple people) because it does get busy quickly as the evening carries...

We came here on Friday evening, one of the few perfect days of summer here in Michigan when it was about 82 degrees outside at its hottest, and decided we wanted to sit on the patio. This would be our first visit to Compari's. We stopped in, put our name in, and got told the wait would be "1 hour." So we checked the restaurants around it as well (they're all owned by the same folks) - The Sardine Room and Fiamma Grille, and each said "1 hour" wait for patio seating, and decided to just stick with the Compari's decision. So we stood outside enjoying the weather, and waited. And waited. And waited. We saw several tables cycle more than once during our wait and eventually went in to complain.

The front desk staff really had no idea how to quote times, and they even told us we were "the second in line" to get a table at one point, when we watched about 4-5 tables get seated on the patio. After waiting for 1 hour 45 minutes, and seeing both the Sardine Room and the Fiamma Grille patios looking half-empty, I walked in to complain and possibly return the pager, at which point the hostess apologized and told us we would be seated in a minute, so we waited another 5 minutes and finally got a patio table.

We were already in such bad moods from the wait and the lack of attentiveness from the hostess stand, that we thought we were going to have a horrible rest-of-the-day experience. Yet, we were surprised when our server, Bridget, came over and completely changed our experience. She was super smiley, friendly, and joking with us, plus she was very attentive. She literally changed what would have been a 1-star rating to a 3-star rating all on her own.

The food was good, though I think the house dressing for their salad is completely lacking in any flavor whatsoever (there's zero tang to it). The lasagna was yummy, not the best out there but still above average for sure.

Eventually we called the manager over to explain the horrible waiting experience, and the gentleman with a large mustache simply nodded and tried to agree with us that it wasn't right. We've all seen this shtick before, and it was evident that our breath was likely wasted, that nothing would probably be done, and we received little to no encouragement to come back and try them again.

Still, what would have been probably the worst dining experience of the year was turned around to be an above-average experience by the wonderful...

I sent the following note in an email to Comapris management almost 2 weeks ago and haven't heard anything in response:

"My mom, husband, and I arrived at about 6:00 PM [on a recent Sunday] to celebrate my 50th birthday. The two young women at the podium at the front of the restaurant didn’t look up or greet my mother when she walked up. She had to get their attention to tell them we were looking for a table for 3. One of these young women then seated us at the four-top closest to the podium and handed us menus. Two different young men came by and set water glasses and a bread basket on the table, but neither of them said a word to us. We then sat there for over 10 minutes wondering where our server was. My mom couldn’t hear my husband or me talking because there was a very loud party of three young women at the table next to her discussing their workouts (I know restaurant managers have no control over the volume of any individual customers, but they can control how tightly-packed the tables are, and how the acoustics of the room are handled!). Finally, I flagged down one of the hostesses to ask if there was a server covering our table, and she said she’d get one. She didn’t apologize for our long wait. When we saw her go back to the podium with a handful of menus without talking to any servers, we walked out. Neither of the women at the podium paid any attention to us as we left.

"My husband and I used to be very frequent diners in your restaurant—we were on a first name basis with several servers and came in at least once a week until a couple of years ago when my husband retired—but this experience was so awful for us that we are unlikely to return. It’s obvious that you no longer care about giving your customers a good experience.

"We don’t expect instant service when we are seated at a restaurant table. However, we do expect courtesy from the various employees we encounter, and we also expect that a server will at least say hello within a few minutes of our arrival and let us know that he or she will be back as soon as possible to take our drink order. We saw two or three servers at nearby tables but none of them...