Rico's Pizzeria & Pasta House — Restaurant in Sarasota

I really wanted to love this place. It's nearby and inexpensive so my wife and I thought we'd give it a try.

The atmosphere is pleasant, a little more "dive bar" than "dive pizza" with a pool table, a large bar, polished cement floors and 80's pop music that was a bit too loud for dining but perfectly fine for when the bar crowd rolls in later in the evening.

On our visit, 6/21/2020, there were no face masks worn by the staff and no arrangements to ensure the customers are socially distanced.

We started with a draft beer and a bottled beer; both were ice cold, the way we like them, and the draft beer was in a frozen/frosted mug. A great start.

We each had an "included salad", she a Caesar and I a garden. Both were mediocre. Points for the lettuce being a darker green, unlike the iceberg lettuce of many inexpensive Italian restaurants. Tomatoes were not ripe and had no flavor, olives and jalapeno peppers were fine, not much else to the salads.

My wife ordered her favorite dish, eggplant parm, and I ordered chicken francaise. The kitchen is open to the dining room and we watched as the cook handled the food with his bare hands instead of utensils. He picked up chicken from the pan and placed it on the plate with bare hands, placed the complementary bread on the plates with his bare hands, and he sprinkled shredded mozzarella on the plate with his fingers. Probably not unusual in many restaurants, but disturbing when you have to watch it happen to the plate just before it is served to you.

The entrees were not hot; they were a bit warmer than room temperature.

My wife, who never met an eggplant parm she didn't love, reported that the sauce was unpleasantly sweet, which suggests to us that we might find the pizza sweet too as it surely uses the same sauce.

My chicken francaise with penne was disappointing as well; the taste was forgettable, the portion of chicken appeared to be well less than a full breast, and I was truly quite hungry when all was finished, something I rarely experience in Italian restaurants.

Overall service was polite, friendly, but quite slow. There were five employees on staff and two tables with a total of four customers during our visit, but the staff was very immersed in their own small talk with each other and it appeared that the customers were a distraction to their conversations which were audible and not related to work.

Prices are very inexpensive, with entrees averaging $13 to $15 and large pizzas with two toppings running about $19. Our bill, with a total of four beers and two entrees, came to $44. For that low of a bill I wish I could love this place and make it a regular stop.

In the end, we have chosen not to return. I wish them well and I hope the owner considers some of our concerns in an effort to improve his restaurant. We would love to see more consistent positive reviews in the future so that we might try them again some day. But we get the feeling that this restaurant has been around long enough and is established enough that the owner may be less involved and the lack of attention to detail comes through in too many ways.

By the way, Rico's has several locations in addition to this Tamiami Trail location, but it is our understanding that while they all essentially share the same menu, each location is owned and operated by a different family member so the experience could vary widely between...

First, I want to stipulate that this isn’t the typical one-star, keyboard warrior, poor review. We try and give every business we visit, and review, the benefit of the doubt. The challenge here is, it was a train wreck from start to finish.

After seating ourselves, in a mainly unoccupied dinning room, although we were seated at the table closest to the kitchen area which had at least 6 staff members working away, it took what seemed like forever to be greeted. No problem, that happens. The only drink options that they presented were canned or bottled options. We asked about getting iced tap water and our server refused, stating something about their soda gun being down. Seems suspicious that they are even permitted to open without running water, but ok… I’m probably just missing something so let’s move on.

We ordered our food: French Fry appetizer, Mozzarella Sticks, a large Pizza and (2) orders of kids chicken fingers.

Fries came out quick and were a nice size portion, +1 for that. About 3 minutes later the pizza arrived. Quick, but ok. Next, about 10 minutes later they showed up with another order of fries. We let them know we had already received ours, so we agreed to keep them for the kids and just take the chicken fingers. Then they finally brought the other appetizer (mozzarella sticks) and eventually the kids chicken fingers came.

The timing of the food delivery was quite terrible and serval times we had to go to the bar to ask for things (ketchup, spices, utensils, etc), so the service was bad as well. Again, keeping in mind, they had to walk past our table twice every time they went into and out of the kitchen.

The kids chicken fingers were soggy, tasteless, and as my wife put it so eloquently “disgusting”.

On the plus side, the pizza itself was outstanding. The crust was great, toppings were flavorful and it was just really, really good.

To wrap things up with a disheveled bow, it took us ~20 minutes to get our check after asking for it and we had about 1/2 a pizza left to take home and they brought us a single slice box, so we had to stack and wedge our food in, in order to just leave.

We’d totally do take out pizza from this place if it weren’t 20 minutes from our home. Fortunately for us, there are 15+ other options in-between that make for a better risk/reward adventure.

I’d have to imagine that we hit them at a bad pocket on a slow Saturday night; sure hope so, for both your sake...

Cook was a complete hot head. We went for dinner, been here plenty of times and always had a pleasant experience. My boyfriend touched the menu which was sticky, asked me for hand sanitizer. Next thing I see is the COOK coming to our table accusing me of bringing in alcoholic beverages. I showed him that it was hand sanitizer and allowed him to sip my soda to see there wasn't any alcohol in it. My boyfriend and I were offended and decided we didn't want to give them our service and said we were only paying for our sodas. The cook then proceeded to get in my boyfriend's face, cursing and promising to put him in an ambulance. Says he gets off at 10 pm and to meet him in the parking lot. The entire staff then came out to hold him back from attacking my boyfriend. As we were out the door, the cook pushed into me and blocked me from leaving. THE COOK!!! It's a shame because we really loved this restaurant and they lost our business and the business of all our friends, family and co-workers. You don't falsely accuse customers of something absurd and then on top of that, threaten their physical well being. Bad for business. Never returning!!!!!!

*UPDATE: Whomever responded to this post from Rico's is lying to save face. My boyfriend and I were the ONLY customers at the time of service and when we were being violently thrusted out the door by the bald, overweight cook. Absolutely NO other customers were present, thus giving the cook the 'ok' to show his true colors. The entire STAFF is who came out to keep the COOK at bay since he clearly has anger issues, not CUSTOMERS as you falsely state. The COOK was offended that we didn't eat "his pizza" and weren't going to pay for it. After he falsely acccused me of bringing in alcohol (with my Bath n Body hand sanitizer in clear view on the table), I showed him it was hand sanitizer and he offered no apology. I'm sure he felt like an idiot. I could have pressed charges when the COOK pushed me, a female into the doorway. I didn't do anything wrong. So please retract your reply which you know is 100% false. You're only trying to save face. You need to fire that cook as he's unstable and is a loose cannon. Threatening to put someone in a body bag for not eating his pizza. Insanity...