Bruno's Restaurant & Tavern — Restaurant in Portland

I have been to Bruno’s a few times and have found the food to be mediocre compared to other Italian restaurants in Portland. Tonight, my husband and I, along with some friends and our 5.5 month old, decided to go to Bruno’s since a few haven’t been. A friend called ahead of time and learned they do not take reservations but said at most we may only wait 30 minutes. When we got there, a friend put his name in for our party of 9. They said it would be 25 minutes. We didn’t mind that wait time. Then about 30 minutes later, we still hadn’t been seated and so our friend checked in with the hostess. She apparently told him that she “thought the table was being cleared off” or something that implied it was almost ready. 15 minutes later (a total wait time of 50ish minutes) I am beginning to worry 1) because it may be even longer to seat us and 2) once we are seated, because of how busy it was, our food may take forever. Because we had our baby with us, we needed to be mindful of the total time spent at the restaurant before he needed to go to sleep. I went to the hostess and asked for an update on the table, explaining that we have our baby with us and we just need to know realistically how much longer it was going to be. If it was going to be longer, we would need to split from the party and find alternative dinner plans. The hostess said “yeah, it’s been busy” and implied we should probably go. I realized at that point that they weren’t saving tables for us as people were leaving, to try to push them together and it seemed like they were waiting for one large table to open up. Then, another person came to the hostess stand and said it was actually going to be about 10 minutes. We were skeptical but we decided to give it one more shot. We actually were seated in the next ten minutes. BUT as we were all looking at the menu, the waitress comes by and said they sat the WRONG PARTY at the table. The table we were sitting at was intended for another party with a reservation. I felt terrible for the waitress because this was definitely not her fault. We all got up from the table and left. We didn’t want to wait any longer because who knows how long it would be. As we walked by the hostess stand, we got no acknowledgement or apologies. We left the restaurant very disappointed. I appreciate that mistakes happen, but this was a series of multiple mistakes. I was very disappointed with our evening and how it was ultimately wasted waiting for a table at a restaurant we didn’t even get to dine at. We will not be...

First time visitor..... I decided to check them out when I friend at work recommended them..so let's get rolling with a review with five important things I look for when eating out.

First let me say I went at 6:00pm on a Saturday and the place was super busy but in a nice way... very orderly with happy chatter and everyone was super nice.

1 - Parking: There is plenty of parking🙂

2 - Stepping in the door: Very nice welcoming entrance with a mellow low key people friendly vibe... happy customer's going in and coming out..lots of positive energy.🙂

3 - Seating: Lot's of seating and a nice long bar so if you like to sit at the bar your not crammed in. This is a seat your self place ( WHICH I LOVE ) so you can pick where you want to sit. 🙂I sat a table about halfway in. I don't like places where there is a " gate keeper " that you have to wait to notice you when they step away and then end up sticking you in the worse seat in the house.

4 - Service: Super quick and super friendly server. My drink order - a Corona with lime - arrived so quickly I almost was in disbelief. ( Have you been in a place that you look at the bar and see it's full and it seems like your drink will never come?) Even though it was busy my Server never seemed like she was rushing me and was very natural when talking to me... this made me feel like I was already a regular.🙂which I think I will be.

5 - Food: I ordered Lasagna. The salad that came with the meal arrived quickly and it was very good and everything in it was chilled and fresh👍 The Lasagna came nine or ten minutes after the salad which is perfect timing. The Lasagna looked great and it was fresh out of the oven and it was delicious.🙂 The only thing lacking in my opinion is there was no bread. Now I know some places have stopped serving bread because some people don't eat it and it goes to waste. But I wish the meal had bread..even a couple simple slices of Italian would have been nice. In my opinion serving a Pasta dish without bread is like serving Pizza without the crust. I should have thought to ask for it when I ordered but I just assumed it would come with a pasta dish. If you go remember to ask for 🍞..it might be free if you request it but I can't...

Dined here twice in last couple weeks with large groups. First group was 9 people and we sat on bar side and experience was overall okay except my daughter finding a small sliver of metal in her food. It happens, paid the bill $250 with tip and moved on. Our next experience was last night for a family birthday dinner of 12 adults on the dining side. Dining room wasn't terribly busy but kitchen was busy. Two tables were put together and drink orders were placed. I asked twice but never did receive my drink. Food orders were placed. When appetizers started coming out, eggplant parm instead of eggplant fries was delivered to my very pregnant daughter-in-law who has a dairy and red meat allergy. Instead of apologizing, the waitress was very rude to her and yelled into the kitchen that patron ordered the wrong thing! Everyone on that side of table heard her order Eggplant fries. She again explained to the waitress her allergies. Dinner arrived and my daughter-in-laws pesto was covered in cheese. My daughter-in-law simply looked down and said, "I can't eat this, it's covered in cheese.". At this point, the waitress became so rude that my daughter-in-law needed to excuse herself and went to the restroom crying. I asked the waitress if she could just help her find something on the menu that she could eat and her rude response was "this is an Italian restaurant, everything has dairy and red meat!". I asked what about something with a marinara sauce. Her response..."that contains meat! Wait, what? Marinara sauce shouldn't contain meat! Now the vegetarian at the table realizes she just ate meat! My wife decides to approach the manager/possible owner with the issues of rudeness and all hell broke loose at that point. Instead of trying to help the situation, he literally got two inches from her face defending the waitress and saying this is his place! Extremely threatening and aggressive. He continued walking around restaurant telling anyone who would listen and continually staring at my wife. Needless to say, bill paid $400+ never to give them another penny of my money. Vegetarians beware of...