Theresa's Italian Steakhouse — Restaurant in San Diego

We were excited to discover a steakhouse located in the Mission Valley area which we had never eaten at before. It’s located inside the Legacy Christian Conference Center called Theresa’s Steakhouse. It’s located in the back area of the huge property and inside the hotel and up the stairs to the right. We dined here with another couple who had recommended the restaurant. The dining room area has quite a view of the Mission Valley area facing north towards the Town & Country Resort and RiverWalk Golf Course. The dining room was still decorated for the Christmas holidays. Our server that evening was Stone, and he took very good care of our table. Two of us opted for the Crispy Branzino seafood entree, and two of us ordered their Chicken Piccata entree. Our table split a bottle of Italian Chianti from the wine list. I also a Opted for a cup of their Zuppa Toscana (minestrone) soup. Stone also served us complimentary warm focaccia bread after my wife asked if we could be brought some. I had preconceived concerns prior to dining here as reviews from Yelp, Google, and Open Table were consistently meh to bad and many of the negative reviews were recently posted ones. Trying to focus on the positives, we liked the restaurant’s location, parking access, the dining room’s decor and ambiance, our server couldn’t have given us better service. The dining room was 10%-20% occupied the entire time we were present. No onto the food… The two who ordered the Branzino dish said they liked it despite both only eating half the entree, and taking the other half home. They both said the food was good, but it filled them both up, and were unable to finish. Me and my buddy’s wife who ordered the Chicken Piccata finished our dishes, but my chicken was difficult to cut with the knife and was a little drier than I’ve had elsewhere, there was no white wine lemon sauce which the chicken, pasta, and vegetables on the plate. The veggies didn’t taste fresh, nor did the soup I had prior to dinner. The soup tasted like it was canned and not made from scratch. I seriously wanted to like my food served that night, since I was scared to order a steak based on the prior reviews I read. But because half our table loved the seafood dish they ordered, and the other person who ordered the Chicken Piccata dish didn’t have as negative comments regarding her dish, I can’t really say my average experience was shared by the entire table. The restaurant could definitely do much better as far as the food was concerned. The prices were actually quite reasonable. I believe their filet mignon was only $28 for comparison. Don’t take just my word for it, definitely look at other reviews posted recently if you’re considering dining here. If you still opt to dine here, it’s a safe bet that the Branzino seafood dish will be a good choice. Oh, and their focaccia house bread was very tasty! Make sure you ask for it after your drink...

After a 3 Hour drive from LA we decided to celebrate Father’s Day at Theresa's Italian Restaurant ( it was our fist time at this place). We sat unattended for 20 minutes before we could get the attention of a waiter named Arturo. Far from being apologetic, he appeared to treat serving us as a huge favor. Despite the initial delay, we tried to brush it off and requested Arturo to take our order, his attitude was more of annoyance than service. When asked about beer choice we got the same response 3 times in a raw - “read the menu”- it was not only unhelpful, but outright disrespectful.

When my wife asked to speak with the manager, Arturo stated that no manager was on-site and suggested we lodge our complaints at the hotel reception. Once we came to the receptionist to see if there is anyone in charge of operations present at this time, we saw Arturo running towards us and screaming “I won’t serve them and they need to get out of the restaurant with their kids right now”. Not sure why did he feel like he is authorized to decide if we were allowed to stay with our kids at the restaurant or not and to be served by someone else but that was just absolutely insane. As the situation spiraled, we requested for a different waiter to finally get some food, as our 3 year old kids were starving after a long drive, only to be told that no one wanted to serve our table ( it looked like there were only 2 servers on a floor).

When we asked Arturo why he is acting this way - he demanded that we leave again, threatening to call security.

We left without tasting a morsel of food, feeling extremely frustrated, deeply disappointed and mistreated for no reason. Would not recommend Theresa's Italian Restaurant or step my foot into this restaurant ever again! It’s a chaos that lucks any respect, hospitality or...

Made reservations for Valentine’s Day, after being sat me and my beautiful fiancé were ignored for almost a half hour. There were three waiters who for some reason just chose not to assist us. After having to ask to be helped they finally figured out we hadn’t been helped and the guy who had been chatting with all his tables finally comes over with no apology and a rude tone just asks if we were ready to order when we didn’t have water or anything. I appreciate the hostess offering us a free drink but 3 waiters choosing to ignore a table was so off putting, even the people at the tables around us started to notice we were being ignored. Tables coming in after us were getting water while we just sat there. Food was fine but the service makes sense as to why this was the only restaurant I could get reservations at on...