Italo's — Restaurant in Scranton

After reading reviews, we decided to give Italo’s a try; what a massive letdown. I judge Mexican places on their Torta sandwich’s- and these were not very good. We each got a Niueka Tortas and a nachos al pastor to share. The Tortas were huge! The bread was toasted? Stale? To the point where it was like eating a giant breadcrumb. Each bite was a task trying to gnaw through the tough bread mashing the filling. It was like hunks of bread snapping off into your mouth with some random filling. The chicken was flavorless and dry, the carnitas were flavorless and the addition of ham was unnecessary and overpowered everything else on the sandwich. Seriously, the ham was just bad. Dry bread chunks and ham. We ended up throwing away more than half of the sandwiches because they were just not good. By throw away half of the sandwich, I don’t mean take one half and toss it, we literally took pieces off that weren’t eatable - most of the bread, the ham, some of the carnitas, some tough parts of chicken - and reconfigured the sandwich to make it eatable. So we probably ended up with half/less than half of the original sandwich to actually eat. I’d you don’t care about flavor or quality but want a huge portion, this is for you. We got Tortas from a place down the street (Hacienda Volcan I think) that were much better. The staff was friendly and really talked up how great these sandwiches would be, which made this even worse. Such a huge letdown. The nachos were ok-ish. By the time we got to eat them (about 25-30min after pickup), they were so soggy that the chips had become mush and you had to use fresh chips (not provided) to eat them. Better than the Torta but not great. Sadly, I won’t be back and would not recommend going. I didn’t take pictures because we just dove right in when we got the food (I don’t eat anything else on a day we eat stuff like this)- the food did look good. But that is saying something - if I hadn’t eaten anything all day and couldn’t stomach eating this. It really wasn’t good. Also, it was $70...

Restaurant is very busy but service is good and fast. Food is tasty and authentic. Wide variety of options to choose from, including fish, meat and meatless entrees, delicious salads, and good deserts. Signature cocktails to wash it all down with. I do think there should be more meat in the burritos (especially the "Southside "). There is too much rice, and I had to search to find the small amount of tomatos in the burrito. I go often, both dine in and take out. They have never screwed up a take out order for me, and they are usually spot on with the pick-up time. Parking can be problematic at times as it is all street parking, no private lot. You can usually find something within a 2 block radius. Only a problem when it's bitter cold or raining. Like many and most restaurants presently, they print tip amounts on the bottom of your check to choose from - 15%, 20%, 25%, or an option to calculate your own. What I question is why when restaurant owners do this (and they all do this, not just this restaurant), they calculate the percentage of the tip based on the entire bill after tax has been added! Why should consumers tip on the tax that was added? I'm not being cheap, I tip according to the quality of food and service rendered and then base it on the dollar amount I spent to get said food and service. Doesn't seem fair to include the tax in and then give the percentages based on that total. Unfortunately, it seems to be SOP for all restaurants presently, and I wonder why the general public hasn't...

TERRIBLE What is going on here? One group at one table in the dining room on a Saturday afternoon. 20 other empty tables. We are given the smallest table in and around the corner. Ten minutes before our server shows up who makes a laughing noise before everything he says. He had zero ability to interact, it's as if he didn't know where he was. We ordered our food and an appetizer which he seemed confused about. He didn't ask if we wanted drinks but suggested / asked if water would be OK? We ordered a water and a soda. Drinks arrived in small glasses with very limited ice. Maybe 10 ounces of liquid. Appetizer arrived and the queso was very thin but maybe that's how they make it; it's not for us. Food arrived without mention of the additional item I ordered. That item showed up a couple mins later but we had asked the girl who delivered the food for drink refills; she was not OK with us asking her. Drinks were awkwardly granted to us. The waiter did not return even to give us the bill. I had to go to the bar where he was sitting looking at his phone. He was surprised and weirdly asked if we wanted boxes. We wanted one, he weirdly reached behind something and grabbed two. I handed him my card which he was puzzled by. He finally returned with the reciepts to sign but it was awkward. I almost never don't tip. This was one time when I did not. There was no service. Food was probably hot enough to be safe...