La Vista Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Spring Lake

"Probably The Most Honest and Appropriate Review On Here, I Wish Google Had Appropriate Labels for Styles of Restaurants: Read Before You Buy!"

(I decided to stop by physically after remembering ordering once on DoorDash. I think some of the photos on there were AI generated.) BLUF: Low quality "comfort food" quick eatery in an bad town. Best enjoyed as pickup/delivery. You get what you pay for, but sometimes that "cheap" flavor is very satisfying for a craving when you're low on time. Do not waste your time on the "Italian" farce. This is run by Egyptian/Middle Eastern/Mediterranean staff with a Muslim-friendly menu. It's not a bad thing, just a little misleading since we have an actual Italian population in the Fayetteville area. La Vista serves Americanized Italian dishes, but they do not use the ingrediants or recipes to make the cuisine identify with the region. Just stick to the pizza menu. It's way more delicious than anything you could order from a chain at a price that is comparably a little cheaper. The deserts are not made in-house, but damn they are sourced by a great distribution bakery.

Breakdown:

Atmosphere: 1/5 We walked in, and the place smelled like bad plumbing - which was weird, but the building & shopping center itself is not the best condition. It may or may not be the fault of the restaurant.

I swear the dinnerware & placemats were from the Dollar Tree. Someone else mentioned it's a "great place for a first date," and I have no clue why, unless they mean for teenagers. Yes, it's casual dining, not meant to be fancy, but the mismatching of the wares did not make a logical style choice for the theme of the restaurant. As a consumer, presentation may matter.

The menu itself features a lot of spelling errors. "Alfredo sausage" instead of "alfredo sauce," for example. I didn't notice the "100% Pork-free" sign until checking out, so reading that error outloud confused the staff. Usually, these spelling errors are a huge 🚩flag for the industry to serve you different ingredients that aren't as advertised and get away with it.

Customer service: 1/5 The server audibly scoffed & rolled his head at my choice to order a Small pizza & two desserts to-go. That was bizzare, and my husband & I were offput by this because he insisted that the only choices were Medium or Large despite the menu stating otherwise. Sir, it was lunchtime for 2 people.

Food: 2/5 The pizza itself wasn't bad, but it was a bit bland. I was hoping the white pizza had an authentic alfredo sauce flavor, but I can tell everything sold here was prepackaged and of low quality ingredients.

Portions: 4/5 At least for the simple 1-topping pizza we ordered today, there was a sufficient amount of protein added for the value.

Price: 5/5 $12 for a Small pizza can easily satisfy 2 people for one quick meal.

Despite this review seeming harsh, if you read critically, I enjoyed my meal for exactly what it was. Due to the rude interaction with the staff, I do not think I will be returning or supporting their business in the future. (I'd rather stick to Army City for comfort food, even though their prices have gone up significantly over the years.) I'm actually surprised they have so much seating area for dine-in. This is not a usual casual dining atmosphere & they could probably afford a smaller property in a busier area for more...

I dined in with my family. The food was not the problem. It was adequate although a long wait and we were the only party at the restaurant. The service was poor. I want to share this so future guests have an idea how it is but I don’t want this to come off as me picking on the waitress but we did have to repeat our order five or six times cause she got lost or kept forgetting and it was just two pizzas and garlic knots. After 30 minutes the pizzas arrived and I asked her where the garlic knots were. She said she’ll go check. 10 minutes went by. She came up and said she never put the garlic knots in and asked if I still wanted them. I said yes please we were polite. She was polite just not good. When it was time to go, we received the check and they charged us for soft drinks five of them when we all just had waters. I asked her why we were charged. She says water is not free and that’s how she was taught to ring it up as a soft drink. I accepted that $14 charge of five waters even though they weren’t bottled waters which she later for me would have been cheaper and said OK it’s time to go. in summary, you will get better food and service at a bowling alley if you’re just looking for pizza. After I got my family in the car, I went back in and asked to speak to the manager or owner about the water charge because it really blew my mind and she said she basically is the manager and has only worked here three weeks because the owner was not in right now there were two men in the back but I didn’t push the issue and just said OK whatever. pretty bad experience. i’m sure on Google reviews. They will have some generic ChatGPT response how they’re so sorry that this happened but to future guests looking for somewhere to go please don’t go here don’t...

Firstly, food was absolutely amazing! I cannot fault this place for having great food. Our server, TEQUILA!🫶 was amazing and worked hard and nonstop from the moment we walked in to the moment we left. She not once sat down, got on her phone, or showed an ounce of frustration. She interacted with clients and made small talk where needed. However, the manager or whoever he is, is an absolute jerk. He verbally berated her for roughly 10 minutes infront of a lobby full of clientele and had it to the point where she just stopped acknowledging him and walked away. After we got our ticket we were kinda stumped on how it was such a large ticket but when eating out that can tend to happen. We paid split, partial cash and the rest card. The lovely Ms.Tequila took it and went to the jerk face and asked for help and was promptly shooed off of the transaction. When I got the notification for the card transaction it was VERY wrong. Our table did the math, called our server over, and she addressed it with the man. $20 of our cash had disappeared in the midst of the transaction. How that much money suddenly wasn’t in the register but charged onto the card makes no sense. After our server apologized profusely for a mistake that was NOT HERS but was rather made under HER name, we explained to her that we were not upset with her at all. And come to find out, this isn’t the first time something like this has happened at this establishment. So long story short, this place has good food and I would be willing to come back. However, Jerkface made the place so unappealing, we...