Mizza — Restaurant in Santa Barbara

This is a tough but important review to write. We were headed to a concert and stopped at Mizza for dinner. We got a great table outside. Someone turned on the table's firepit and it was a lovely atmosphere, by the band. However, the service was god awful. I'm not sure if it's the fault of the server (Monica V) or the fault of the manager who gave the server tables both inside and out, (or both) but I would never recommend anyone go there based on our experience.

Drinks took a while to get to us, and while not busy outside, maybe it was inside.

When our food came, Monica never came to check on us. 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes. 2 of us needed something else for our dishes to be able to start eating. Food was quickly cold. Drinks were empty. Finally, we asked another server to go find our server. We told her what we needed and off she went. Another 5 minutes went by. Keep in mind, we had told her we had an event we needed to get to. Next, we went to the hostess stand to find the manager to ask him to get us what we needed. Finally, 30 minutes after getting food, Monica came over and we could order drinks.

We have empathy, having all been servers in the past. But the number one rule is to check on people almost immediately after being served food to make sure everyone is good to go. This didn't happen.

This all being said, the food and the atmosphere was good, despite for some of us having it be cold. My order was a little wrong, but by the time we go someone to get to us, I couldn't afford to wait for a fix, so I just ate what I had.

In our opinion, the manager should have come over at the end to apologize for the service, about which he was aware,...

Booked a reservation for this place during my birthday trip and had the WORST experience. Will definitely stick to Pascucci! Better food, service, and atmosphere.

PLEASE READ SIMILAR GOOGLE/ YELP REVIEWS because racism apparently is not new to them. I went with a couple of friends and made sure to make a reservation beforehand. It was not busy at all - maybe 3 or 4 other groups? We still had to wait about 15 mins to be seated. We ordered our drinks and food at the same time, but the food took over 30 mins to come out while we watched other receive theirs. Our waiter only came around to take the order/ drop off the drinks and food. We were watched from afar but not actually checked in on. Food lacked flavor and similar to other reviews anything vegetarian is nearly inedible.

After a couple bites I went to use the bathroom. When I returned to my table my friend was accused of being completely asleep (on a phone call with call receipts), another was accused of vaping (she has weak lungs and they don’t even sell them in the area), and I was accused of making a mess so large that “someone is cleaning it up RIGHT NOW” (literally just got to my table how does that even make sense?) Embarrassing and confusing to say the least. Our waiter also seemed confused as we had a an okay experience with him and tried to bring us a desert as an apology, but owner was argumentative/ rude and took all food from us while we had forks in our hands.

The owner’s defensive responses to negative reviews shows where she is in trying to improve or accept criticism. Entertaining though - looking forward to more defensive replies and criticizing their...

Racist alert!!!

This seems to be systematic discrimination against people of color so worth highlighting. If you read 1-star reviews here and on Yelp you’ll find other folks who suffered from a similar racist treatment. My 2 years old was starving and my aunt who had a heart surgery was looking forward for a place to lay down and enjoy a bite so we came this place.

Because of the kid we specifically asked for a regular table with regular chairs. The hostess put us in the waitlist and when we got an text notification we showed up at the entrance and this is when they said we’re sorry we cannot provide a regular table and that the only option available was a table with bar chairs. Meanwhile, just a few seconds earlier two fine white ladies showed up and, without being on the waitlist, were given a table (that was supposed to be for us). This all happened in front if our eyes. Is this discrimination or just bad management? You tell me. Micro aggressions are everywhere in today’s America and we need to keep our eyes and ears open to make sure our kids like together in harmony.

This restaurant makes over 10 millions a year and tries to make it look like a small family local business. That’s ok but what is beyond me is how they tried to put the blame on us and continue to lie on the review by claiming that we were rude while what really happened is that a mixed-race American middle class family was disappointed on their day gathering. We just shrugged and walked away and ended up going to a casual pizza place instead.

To be fair our interaction was with the hostess only. So this is not a review for cooks, waiters or...