Italia Pizza Cafe — Restaurant in Southaven

What a local find from great online ratings like the one I'm about to offer!! This was an experiment for us. I would go here hands down over ANY pizza/pasta joint in Southaven, Olive Branch or Memphis...we've tried several that were somewhere between okay to fairly good. We were impressed with their very full men, offering many more options than average, pasta, pizza, and more. And, almost any dish could be customized. All sounded so good, we want to go back and try one of everything!! The lasagna is the BEST we have had in YEARS living in three different states, ranking with our favorite in Atlanta Georgia(!!!). We shared this along with garlic knots, along with a mouth watering pork BBQ Stromboli (pleasant surprise, as I'm a bit of a BBQ snob) and supreme personal pizza - with plenty to take home - AND which reheated well, sign of good quality food. GREAT value for truly flavorful, quality food! You can tell everything is made fresh onsite - not from a jar or frozen, not commercial. Everyone seemed to take pride in their work and invested in our enjoying the food - at least one cook and another server checked on us. Our server (Brandy, who was AMAZING and has worked for this mom/pop owned restaurant 14 years, was super friendly, attentive and knowledgeable) are opening two more stores soon. Their only downside is they are easy to miss after dark, as the windows are tinted and sign overhead wasn't lit up - we almost thought they were closed except could see ceiling lights through the glass front door. SO glad we experimented with this and...

I was not pleased with my service today. One of my friends said the pizza here was really delicious, we decided to try it. Our waitress BRANDY was really friendly with other guests when we arrived. I heard her talking and laughing with them , telling them about the deserts and just being really friendly. So I was excited to get the same service and friendliness, but I DID NOT RECEIVE THE SAME ENTHUSIASM OR FRIENDLINESS. She came to our table, never introduced herself nor did she acknowledge that we waited a bit before she even came to ask us what we would like to drink. She took our order and that was it, but she was still very enthusiastic and friendly with other customers. I won’t be eating here ever again. I had to ask the guy who bought our food to the table what her name was. I guess he told her I asked , she came back after he told her I asked and pretended to be a good waitress. I was not going to give her a tip but my husband said don’t treat her the way she treated us. Brandy you need to treat all customers with the same enthusiasm, friendliness and respect, you have no idea who you...

We decided to try this place because we didn't feel like waiting half an hour at Olive Garden. There were only 2 other tables seated when we got there. We chose a booth and it was obvious they had been there awhile because of how low we sank when we sat down. The floors were dirty. It was only 1pm so its was difficult to believe there had already been a rush to create such a mess.The server was fine. She was able to keep my husband's glass filled. she didn't go out of her way to make any recommendations. The food was ok and the portions were ample but it wasn't worth $50. We had garlic knots, 2 salads, chicken fettuccini, & chicken stromboli. At one point a guy came to the front with a dirty apron and gloves on and got a drink from the soda machine. I'm not sure what the purpose of the gloves were for since he was wiping his hands on the back of his clothes. I can see now why it wasn't crowded. It's called a pizza cafe but it does not have cafe prices. I should have gone to...