Rafael's Pizzeria & Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Ringgold

We came in with our family (immediately family of 6, + extended family of 11). We were the ONLY customers there.

When it came time to pay we were not presented with a bill, only an amount on the portable credit card reader. We hadn't read that there was an 18% gratuity charge for 6+ people in the small print on the bottom of the menu. (So our immediate family would be charged this every time, I guess as a punishment for being a large family) We tipped 22.5% ON TOP of the gratuity before we realized 18% had already been taken out (since we had not received a check), and our bill for a family of 6 to eat pizza and salad resulted in a bill of over $100. We could have easily went to a much nicer establishment for that price.

When I realized why our bill was so much, I brought it to the attention of an employee. Her reply was that gratuity was pretty "standard" for restaurants. No ma'am, it's not. Not the ones that I patronize.

What upset me most about this is that we felt cheated because of not being presented with a check, and because we provided quite a bit of business and was essentially punished for it.

At best, the food and service was average.

I will not be back. I have given Rafaels more than once chance, and this was the last straw. I will not be charged gratuity for having a large family. I always tip well, and will continue to do so at restaurants that do not cheat...

So I take my 1 y/o out to eat for an early dinner before the fireworks at this hole in the wall restaurant. This irresponsible little girl put a cup of BOILING HOT MARINARA SAUCE DIRECTLY IN FRONT MY CHILD and of course in a split second he reached for it and half of it spilt directly on his hand that JUST HEALED from a previous burn!!! So as he screamed uncontrollably I got NOT ONE SORRY, IS HE OKAY,NOT A DAMN WORD from these pathetic people. They were all Huddled behind the counter along with another teenage girl who previously walked inside in PAJAMAS and gave us dirty looks. All we received were dirty looks, whispers, and stares. Then after staring at the girl in PAJAMAS behind the counter with the cooks and little server girl, she decided walk over and boast about how her sister works here and she knows the owner. Still NO sorry or showed ANY form of remorse about the incident at hand caused by her apparent little sister. For one you need to be thanking God that I'm not bringing you to court. You NEVER put a hot object or liquid in front of a child at a table . You put it at the farest end away from the child or hand it to the parent. I will NEVER go back here and I will not stop until I speak to the owner PERSONALLY and get my money back for the food we could not eat due to consoling a screaming child for 30 min. So if you want any type of "customer service" or CARE, do...

This was a bad experience. I feel like this place must have new owners because it doesn't seem to have it as together as they did when in the Remco Center. We came here a few weeks ago and it was very weird........it took way too long to get a seat and all the workers grouped up like one couldn't do anything with three or four more with them. We thought we would give it another try today. Not a good idea. We ordered the buffet even though there was no pizza on the buffet. We asked when they would be putting more on there and the server said they would be putting it out "now" and then she asked what kind we wanted. We thought that was kinda weird because if we wanted to just order pizza, we would have ordered pizza but, we didn't want to decide what kind of pizza we wanted. We would rather just have a variety which is why we ordered the buffet. Also, the lettuce on the salad bar was drowning in water and despite the fact that I tried to drain the lettuce before putting it in my bowl, I ended up with a very watery salad which was very disappointing since I'm not a huge pizza fan but hubby and little one love it and I love salad so that's what we got tonight. This will be my last visit to this...