Taverna Rossa — Restaurant in Southlake

Good upscale pizza spot, even if it is a bit chaotic. Once you finally find parking in this patch of Southlake retail and walk up, the fair-sized covered patio can be pretty inviting. However, if you brave the indoor area, you'll feel like you've stumbled into a college town pizza pub for the middle-aged. The wooden interior and high ceilings combine for a noisy environment once it starts getting busy. After being seated, we watched servers and food runners scurry around from table to table, trying to keep up while simultaneously missing an opportunity to greet us and get drinks started (took a good 5 minutes to reveal who was working our table).

But honestly, these are minor gripes in the big picture here. Once they arrived, our server was friendly and quick on the drinks when they weren't rushing between tables. We opted for the family dinner, which is both a good deal and a lot of leftovers if you have 4 people or less. We added a meatball appetizer, and the seasoned meat and marinara went great with the perfectly toasted bread. The pretzel that came with the dinner package was okay, but honestly felt more like a giant, twisted breadstick (the queso that we paid extra for didn't do it any favors, either). The farm style salad was actually really delicious, probably helped by coating the whole bowl with ranch. This is also the point of the dinner when we realized that we needed to hurry up and finish our first course(s), as table real estate was VERY limited for us, and a big pizza was soon to be en route. The Classic Rossa came out piping hot, but still soft enough that toppings were hanging on for dear life as I scarfed each delicious slice. If you're an older pizza fan, or just a family that's had enough CiCi's for a while, you'll like the step up in class this pizza...

I’ve been a loyal customer of this restaurant for over two years because it’s our favorite spot in Southlake. They have some of the best pizza, and we love that we can build our own. Their wings are also delicious, and the 50+ draft beer options make it a fun experience every time. We visit regularly sometimes once a month, other times two or three times a month.

We always request a booth inside, and the staff has usually accommodated us. However, during our last visit, I wanted to sit on the patio since I was dressed for the nice weather. The host initially told me it was available, but when we arrived, we were seated near the POS station instead, right in front of the draft beer counter.

While I understand that restaurants can get busy, I noticed several empty small tables that could have been an option. Sitting in that particular spot felt uncomfortable it was right where servers were folding napkins and utensils, chatting, and working behind the scenes. It didn’t feel like a proper dining experience, and it was disappointing that our request to move was denied without offering us the option to wait for a better seat.

I’m writing this review because while the food is great, the atmosphere plays a huge role in the dining experience. I strongly believe that if a restaurant has a table in an undesirable location, they should either remove it or, at the very least, inform guests that they might have to wait for a better seating option.

This experience left a negative impression, and I hope the restaurant considers making improvements in seating arrangements and communication with...

First, let me say our SINGLE server was awesome.

.......However .....we had a group of 18-20 for a birthday lunch and no other attendants seemed willing to assist.

To make it worse, there was a utility team working on an OPEN sewer pipe just outside the restaurant side door that the manager decided would be okay if the door be left open.

Really?

AT NOON?

DURING LUNCH SERVICE?

When the wind blew, even a little, the open sewer smell permeated the entire inside of the restaurant.

Crazy.

NONE of the service members apologized for the stench. And only after it appeared to be an issue to the kitchen team did they finally close the door. I understand that the sewer situation was probably an individual incident, but the manager and other uninterested servers were NOT AT ALL concerned about our dining experience.

Again, our ONE server was awesome because she worked her behind off, without help, and continued to smile and accommodate us.

All other server personnel were too busy visiting with each other to be concerned with the excessive delay of our service, due to what, we are unsure....we were seated right next to the kitchen so it was very visible as to their inactions.

We were embarrassed for the manager, we wondered if he knew how to direct his team. It should not have taken our group of 18-20 people- in a sparsely attended restaurant- two plus hours to be served in a stench filled restaurant when (at minimum) three other servers PLUS manager were just...