Aboca's Italian Grill — Restaurant in Richardson

We went there Saturday night 9/9/16 for a celebration dinner...this being one of our favorite restaurants. Made reservations for 8:30 to avoid the family/children crowd and we were seated immediately..right under the kitchen window although the place was almost empty. Shortly after we sat down they sat a very large family of about 10..with kids...right behind us. We should have asked for a different table at that point. A very sullen waiter came to our table, opened the wine we had brought and said he would be right back with bread and olive oil. Asked if we wanted an appetizer and we ordered Bruchetta. This came almost immediately but we had to ask for the bread and oil. What was said to be 'hot right out of the oven' was cold and slightly soggy bread. When the waiter delivered the appetizer he asked if we would like to go ahead and place our dinner order. We knew what we wanted...since we had eaten there many times...and we told him what we wanted and also the dressings for the salads. The waiter left and immediately came back with salads...at this point we had barely touched the appetizer. Two minutes later he showed up with our dinner order...and we said we weren't ready for that and he said he would put them under a heat lamp. Wonderful. Ever eaten paste that's been under a heat lamp? I swear not 5 minutes later he was back with the dinners! There is a large clock on their wall. We sat down at exactly 8:30....it was now 8:45! They are supposed to be open until 10:00 on Saturday night. A couple next to us left and the cleaner came over with a bottle of spray cleaner which she brandished freely all over the table, air and some of our table. Still the restaurant was almost empty....except for a group of very loud, very obnoxious people in the other room right next to us that continued to hoot and holler the entire time we were there. At this point...when the waiter brought out dinners again...and I'll spare you the description of the glutenous mess they referred to as Tortellini in Marinara sauce...we told the waiter we did not want the dinners and we just wanted a check for what we had already had and wanted to leave. We had also gotten the manager/owner over to our table to explain the situation to him. I am not certain whether the owner does not understand English, is stupid, or just plain rude. There was no apology for the horrible service we had experienced and he returned with our bill and the two dinners we had explicitly turned back and on the bill we were charged for them! We paid our bill and left. It was not even 9:00 PM at this point...and the waitress sitting across from us was folding napkins and making it quite obvious that they wanted to close up for the evening. I am just surprised that they didn't start putting chairs up on the tables and mopping the floor! I have never experienced such rude behavior at this restaurant before or any other restaurant. I won't give them any stars and will never return...nor will my company ever order lunch from them again. Oh...and by the way....I had ordered Ranch dressing on the sad little salad they brought out and what I got was Bleu Cheese! This place is rated as a great family restaurant. I don't know what kind of family they have in mind but my family has never acted this way toward guests nor served such unappetizing food! This website would also NOT post my review unless I gave it a star. Isn't...

So I work about 50+ hours a week as a restaurant manager nearby and hardly ever see my boyfriend let alone be able to share a dinner with him without being called into work. So recently my boyfriend and I wanted to go out for a nice dinner and chose this restaurant. I looked online and saw good reviews, so I thought it checked out. We went in, got a table, and our waiter arrived and asked us what we would like to drink. We said water and he mumbled under his breath some comments then went away. Shortly after he brought us bread and plates, but the plates were dirty. I pointed out the red smudges on my plate and he rolled his eyes and angrily mumbled something under his breath. He brought back clean plates then took our order. We asked for 2 pastas but we were going to share them. He got upset and started talking back to us, but we couldn't understand and he got upset and stormed off. He brought us out our salads and there was a hair in mine. I showed him when he returned to the table, he took it back, then brought it back to me really quick. I'm pretty sure be just took out the hair. I didn't eat the salad and he didn't follow up to see why I didn't. When we got our pastas they were not split nor did they get us an extra plate so we could do it ourselves. So we asked another server for an extra plate because we didn't want our waiter to get sassy with us again. Once we started eating we were disappointed because the food tasted like it was heated up/came frozen. At that point we stopped eating our food after a few bites. My boyfriend went to ask the waiter for the check but he saw us and went to the back so we asked another worker. They gave us the check and we noticed they upcharged us for splitting the meal. At this point my boyfriend and I were furious. I was about to walk out, but my boyfriend went to speak to the waiter. He told the waiter how terrible everything was and to take off the split charge considering everything that happened. The waiter got upset and went to the back. My boyfriend then got even more upset and went to speak to another waiter who talked back to him and walked away. At that point my boyfriend literally started screaming he wanted to speak to a manager and the manager came out and talked to us and apologized and said he would take care of our check and asked if we would come back. We are NEVER coming back here. I have never in my life had such a terrible experience at a restaurant. I facilitate classes with my company on customer service and I now tell every one of my classes about my experience there. It was...

Unfortunately, I cannot recommend Aboca’s for an event. I coordinated my boyfriend’s graduation party here for about 30 people (family and friends). One of the major aspects I needed for this dinner was the ability to do separate checks. I spoke with the events manager Vanessa on two occasions before booking to confirm that doing separate checks (about 10) would not be a problem at the end of the night. She repeatedly assured me they could do that, and there would be no additional fee for doing so. Before the dinner started I made a guide on paper for the wait staff on who was sitting where based on names and table numbers and specifically how to divide out the checks. They said thank you for the outline and seemed to understand it. I told them to please get with me with any questions. The dinner went well and everyone enjoyed their food (preset menu). However after dessert the waitress came up to me confused stating she could not do separate checks. She had Vanessa contact me who now stated that doing the separate checks was not possible because there were less people than I had estimated (I had asked her day before if she needed a final head count and she said no) and because there were kids there (I had mentioned at booking this was in part families with kids). Vanessa also said there would be an additional fee for the room reservation, for which she couldn’t really explain why—I had already paid a $100 deposit on booking and was told there was no additional fees beyond the food price. I pushed back which I hated to have to do and it was very awkward to have all our family/friends waiting around on me to resolve this over the phone when they were ready to go home for the night. Vanessa said to give her a moment and she spoke more with the waitress about separating checks. About half an hour later and the waitress was still working, clearly overwhelmed. People were wanting to head out so I just went ahead and had them charge me the full bill. It really soured the entire night to have to argue with them and feel taken advantage of. Plus when I looked at the final receipt they had added in a 20% gratuity based off of a total that included the $100 refundable event deposit, making the tip amount more than anticipated. If you’re coming for a regular dinner I think it would be fine but avoid them for...