Lydia's Italian Kitchen — Restaurant in Salem

Great food and pricing but employees really need to improve communication. I've enjoyed it here when I'm a customer, but when I'm picking up doordash orders it's kind of a toss up as far as what kind of service I'll get. Sometimes it's great and works fine, others it doesn't.

The most recent being a hostess who, when asked if there was a time estimate on an order that was already taking a while for them to prepare due to how busy they were, and already 10 minutes late for pickup, just kept responding "when it's ready we'll let you know" without ever actually checking in the back for a time estimate - and she couldn't even answer whether the order had been started or not.

While I fully understand that when it's busy, a wait is expected - this employee went to the back multiple times and was just refusing to actually check on the orders or give any information, which makes no sense at all.

As dashers we're required to ask that when there's a wait. We have a designated pickup and delivery time on our end - and recent changes in doordash have begun limiting our pickup times even further and penalizing our ratings for late deliveries. A delivery is considered "late" if it is even less than 30 seconds past the delivery time now. If we have a wait time during pickup, it not only starts cutting into the time we have to complete the delivery, we also are expected to ask 1. Has the order even been started yet, and 2. How long of a wait time is estimated. If we unassign from the order - and a long wait almost guarantees we'll have to in order to protect our ratings - we have to mark it in our app with the estimated time and reason for the wait.

The reason this is done is because doordash will use that time estimate once it's marked in their system to reassign it to another Dasher. If the Dasher is forced to mark it as 15 to 20 minutes+, or "I don't know", It will take longer for it to get reassigned to another Dasher and the customer will then wait longer for their order. Their food will likely be cold by the time they get it - if they get it at all, depending on whether another Dasher is available once the wait period is over.

Another Dasher then has to double back to the exact same restaurant for the same order when that happens - it's really a waste of everyone's time.

While I was there for an order today, three other dashers unassigned their orders due to the wait time and lack of communication before I finally reached the point that I could no longer get the delivery completed on time due to the wait and had to unassign from mine as well.

That means four orders were unassigned back to back, with no info to give, and 4 customers were left waiting some indeterminate time for their order as a result.

The problem with this behavior of refusing to even check on the order and then refusing to communicate with us is affecting more than just the hostess/host and the Dasher who is there. It is an important step that needs to be followed - and merchants should be aware of this in the contracts that they sign when they sign up for doordash orders.

People see us dashers as impatient but we are timed - we get penalized if we are late. And if the restaurant just communicates to us that the order has or hasn't been started + a time estimate, things run a lot more smoothly. We as dashers then know if we can or can't wait it out without taking a hit for it, but even if we have to unassign the order to protect our ratings, giving an accurate wait estimate will allow the order to get reassigned more quickly.

Some of these orders could have been, and were, ready less than 2 minutes after dashers left - but they had no way to know that if the restaurant refuses to communicate better with us.

I would just like to see some improvement with that - it would have taken the hostess less than 1 minute to get updates/ time estimates, while making everyone else wait 30+ for a simple lack of information. And I'm not ragging on them, I'm just...

So, my boyfriend REALLY wanted some spaghetti and meatballs, and he works at an Italian restaurant in the area (Remini's) where he makes the meatballs, and he wanted to try a different restaurant. We decided on this place after seeing the 4.3* review. I will say, we called and changed our reservation time due to our son taking a late nap, and then called back to see if we could come in earlier than we had rescheduled for, and they were very accommodating.

The first negative thing that happened was when I asked for a children's menu and our server told me that there were no children's menus available. Ok, I get that. However, no less than 5 minutes later, a hostess offered me a children's menu and crayons. Huh? Ok! Then, we got a family style salad, that was served with 2 plates and 2 rolls of utensils. Just a recap. It was myself, my boyfriend, and our 2 1/2 year old son. He is a toddler. He does eat food. When the server finally reappeared after our salad was finished, it was a moot point to ask for a plate, so I just asked for utensils for my son. He obliged.

So now, the food. I chose to build my own pasta, and was then told that apparently this option is only available during lunch, even though it is not listed anywhere on the menu and we were not told ahead of time, so now I have a hungry toddler and my boyfriend, both of whom are ready to order and I have to quickly decide what to get. Luckily I found a pasta entree that was basically what I wanted anyway. This came with the aforementioned salad, which was fantastic. My boyfriend ordered an appetizer of garlic parmesan wings, which were also great.

For the entrees, I got this ziti Alla Rosa or something along those lines, my boyfriend got his much anticipated spaghetti and meatballs, and our son got the kid's ravioli with meat sauce. Mine was good, no issues there. Our son's was way too hot for him to ever eat. My boyfriend's spaghetti was cold and the meatballs tasted like they were frozen and not freshly-made. When they were cut open, they had that grey look of not fresh meat.

All of this aside, we decided to get dessert. We decided to share a piece of cheesecake. This was served with, once again, 2 spoons for the 3 of us. The spoons, however, were the size of serving spoons, which made eating the dessert quite the challenge.

While we were there we heard another table complain about their food, saying this was the third and final time they will be visiting because every time it has been not good.

Needless to say, we are disappointed, but moreso in the server's refusal to acknowledge my child as a human being than...

I came to your establishment today, 8/16/20, along with family and friends to celebrate my 27th anniversary of receiving a double transplant. My sister Jackie and her husband John really like it so that helped make our choice.

I myself was not impressed in the least. Our reservation was at 4, orders were not taken til 5. Myself and 2 friends were sitting at far end and Ignored most of the time. I and friend ordered sweet tea, mine with lemon. When it came it had maybe 2 small pieces of ice, same as friends. At least 15 minutes past before we found server that we had to yell at to get her attention. We told her both teas had basically no ice, she did bring some, one glass to split. Most if the ice slid into other persons glass, I took last 2 pieces. I asked for another glass of sweet tea with lemon and ice. Tea came, no lemon. As I caught server walking away I said, did you have any lemon? She turned with a napkin in her hand with 2 pieces of lemon on it. She said, oh you need lemon and let me grab one piece.i go to take a sip and it was unsweetened. Three different glasses were brought over a very long time and all unsweetened. I told the server I think maybe someone had put unsweetened tea in the sweet container. I was standing near my sister Jackie and we both heard her say, I've been pouring it from the unsweetened container, which made no sense.

I had ordered the California wrap which is supposed to have ranch on it, no ranch to be found. It came with fries, which had a nice seasoning on them but they were cold, not warm but cold. A friend grabbed one same time I did, he looked at me and said, they're cold. At no time did the server ever come and inquire if everything was ok or do you need anything. I caught a server and mentioned the cold fries, she said, oll bring you some more, which she did, eventually but no seasoning, but did bring a small amount of ketchup which was not on first order or ever offered.

You all were not overly busy, I may be able to excuse some of it if you were, but I can think of no acceptable reason for such bad service and food. There is more but will leave it, this us enough to show why I will not recommend nor...