Piada Italian Street Food — Restaurant in Raleigh

Absolutely terrible experience here, no greeting or acknowledgment as we walked into the restaurant. The chef and line staff were rude and didn't explain how they wanted orders placed, seen by the number of customer who were wandering around. We stood in front of the line cook for five minutes before he mumbled a barely audible. "What do you want?" To my wife. My wife was able to get in an order, but they completely ignored me and walked away while I was trying to order. They didn't even acknowledge when I tried to get their attention.

We ended up throwing away the food we paid for because the experience was so jarring and offputting. I gave them the average 3 stars to give them credit for food I'll never try.

From there, they just threw the noodles into a container and splashed sauce over it, we were not asked what we wanted in order, they just add a bunch of random ingredients and never talked to us. We wanted to eat in the restaurant, but we were not given a choice as they rushed us through their service line with a takeout bag or any communication.

Absolutely mindblown, this was the experience I had at a place this highly reviewed. I hope this could be accounted to a bad day, but I'm not willing to give them another shot after the customer treatment...

I had been waiting to try this place since it moved into this location, and now that I finally have, I am baffled by the high reviews for this restaurant. Truly. I don't leave reviews often, but my disappointment was palpable.

Where to begin?

I got two Piadas to try and have some variety plus a "Street Side" that was basically similar to a hot pocket. One was a Caesar Piada that was extremely dry and crumbling while being very salty, and this is coming from someone that doesn't mind some salt. It basically fell apart into dry flakes while I tried to eat it. The other was a pasta Piada with some odd tasting red sauce. While this one was less dry than the Caesar and slightly less salty, the pasta inside was mushy, and the entire inside just became a homogeneous odd-flavored mess. The Street Side was old and had been sitting in some food warmer for I'm guessing quite some time as it was extremely tough to chew through, and the meatballs inside it too were very salty. I am sensing a theme here, mask the unsavory flavor with salt whenever possible.

This place is a glorified Fazoli's but at least Fazoli's doesn't try and pretend to be some elevated food. It knows what it is, and this sits right alongside it, though in my opinion...

Honestly, the food here is incredible, but I’m debating whether or not to go back to this particular location ever again after my experience yesterday. I first walked in and was trying to look at the menu online on my phone and I was pestered 3 or 4 times by a man trying to get me to order and when I told him what I was doing, he insisted on taking me through the whole create your own piada process and ordering right then and there. Normally this would have been fine, but he walked me through the process and everything I told him seemed like an inconvenience. I also had to request more grilled chicken because he only gave me a half a scoop, and then proceeded to charge me for double protein when he added more. He also told me I was limited to only three topping when the guy at the register said it was unlimited. Honestly, the guy at the register was the only reason I didn’t call up the store and complain after. He was nice and provided good service apologizing for the way his coworker was behaving. This was honestly some pretty sad service, and I ended up paying 16 dollars for a small, barely filled piada. Like I said, not 100 percent sure I will return to this location or at all to this place even though the...