Buca di Beppo Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Shenandoah

Our experience at Buca di Beppo (19075 IH-45 N, Shenandoah, TX 77385) was deeply disappointing and, frankly, unacceptable.

It began with our waiter, Edgardo (“Ed”), promoting a so-called “special menu” that was supposed to save us money. When we did the math, the savings weren’t there. When we politely asked for clarification, Ed became dismissive and condescending, insisting we were “overthinking” things instead of taking the time to explain the issue.

But it didn’t stop there. When I tried to clarify the pricing difference, he refused to listen or apologize. Later, when we asked for another dish (the cannelloni's), he said they were out of stock — something he could have mentioned earlier. This gave the impression that he was either pushing the “special menu” or simply deciding what to serve based on his mood. He also brought complimentary bread, saying, “full stomachs make better decisions,” which felt like he was rushing us to order. Without us asking, he brought another waitress to take over and left abruptly — without apologizing — as if we, the customers, were the problem.

The second waitress quickly took sides, treating us as if we didn’t understand anything. Rather than providing attentive service (like offering cheese for the pasta or checking on the meal naturally), she repeatedly came to ask if we needed “anything else,” disrupting the meal, and even asked if we wanted to box our food barely five minutes after it was served — while we were still eating. When it came time to pay, I left only a minimal tip due to the poor service, clarifying that it was for the previous waiter, not her, and she cursed at me as I was leaving. At that point, the entire experience had already crossed the line.

As I was explaining the situation to the manager, Ed interrupted our conversation under the pretense of being “concerned for the manager’s safety.” His demeanor, however, was intimidating and provocative — as if he was ready to escalate things physically simply because we were discussing his behavior and poor service. Even the manager acknowledged that the situation was out of line and told me to ask for her personally if I ever decided to return.

In short, the staff seemed to protect one another and turned a simple misunderstanding into a tense, uncomfortable, and intimidating encounter. We left feeling disrespected — and we won’t...

Let me start out saying the food is very good. We ordered the spicy chicken rigatoni and the spaghetti with meat sauce (not what we initially wanted). The spaghetti you have to add crushed pepper and parmesan cheese to, to give it some flavor. The spicy chicken rigatoni was amazing, probably one of the best pasta dishes I’ve had.

The service is lacking. My family’s experience was terrible due to our waiter. You could tell he was annoyed he had to wait on us. He brought our drinks out, only 3 waters. I was the only one who ordered water. I had to remind him my son ordered lemonade. My husband ordered beer. Every beer he ordered, he was told they were out of it. The waiter took forever to take our food order. He finally did but came back out saying they were out of lasagna. We had to ask for a menu to look at other options, he took a very long time to come back to get the order. Our food was brought out by another waitress. Another waitress in the area we were seated in noticed we had no crushed red pepper or parmesan cheese, she gave us crush red pepper but didn’t see any cheese. Our waiter finally comes, we ask for the cheese and he had a different waitress bring it to us. He never came back to get us refills or check on us expect to bring the check. He did ask if we wanted to see a dessert menu, but we were tired of his service and being told they were out of everything we wanted. Which is unfortunate because we had planned on ordering the ice cream sundae when we initially arrived and looked at the menu. When he dropped off the check, he picked our plates up and as he was walking off I heard him say “ugh”. I’m glad my husband looked at the check because the lasagna was never taken off. Overall, it was a horrible experience. It’s unfortunate, this would be a great place for my son's soccer team to come the next time we are in town for games. I won’t recommend it though due to...

Recently my family visited Buca di Beppo.

Let’s start with outside: when we parked there was no one really in the parking lot. That should have been a sign 🤣 us and 2 other cars. Walking into the building was weird. There were little white sacks in the corners of their walk way (outside of course).. Maybe insect eggs of some sort in various places…that was gross. They also had fake flowers as decor and it looked pretty tacky and cheap. But my husband and daughter wanted to try it so I did.

Experience: We went in and the service was really great. We were seated instantly. And our waiter was super nice. It was our first time so he explained the family style and gave us time to look at the menu. The decor was ok. Kind of drab. But i really liked looking at all of the different pictures and stuff on the wall. It was clean on the inside so I was certainly happy about that. The place is huge. Someone could really celebrate a birthday or have a party there.

Food: We ended up ordering the chicken Alfredo. When he brought the food, we were pleased with the serving size. It was enough to feed all three of us. I didn’t really care for it but my daughter and my hubs said it was good. It did have flavor to it. The Alfredo sauce taste like it was freshly made. The chicken was tender and it wasn’t dry. We wanted to order dessert but it was sold family style too and we werent up for spending 20 more bucks just for dessert so we didn’t order it. We had enough pasta to take some home too. Added a video. It did have sauce on it and it was enough sauce but for some reason that really doesn’t show on the video.

Overall I wasn’t impressed...