Lombardo's Trattoria — Restaurant in St. Louis

We decided to try dining in at Lombardo’s after a long day venturing in the city. We are staying at the Drury Inn and had ordered several things off their menu for carry out the evening before. We were so exhausted we figured it’d be a good choice since our hotel room was steps away. Upon entering, a nice gentleman seated my family and sent a waiter over to our table. The waiter comes and immediately seemed very annoyed. At first I thought maybe I was reading him wrong so when he comes back I smile and wait for him to be somewhat pleasant and again we get the impression that he was disgusted by us. He asked us if we were ready to order and we said yes and he just stood there and stared at us, never even acknowledging that we said yes and nothing in his hands signaling he was ready to take our order….just stood there and after the awkward silence I said “is that ok?” and with such attitude says “well I just asked if you wanted to order”. I was incredibly takin back. Sitting there in disbelief he then comes and hangs my husband napkin right in his face, signaling it needed to be in his lap. We were so upset by this server that we went and told the man that seated us to please cancel our order, gave him $10 cash in hopes it covered the 2 diet sodas that had already made it to our table that we never touched and we left. We told him that his server treated us like trash. He was very apologetic about the situation and said that wasn’t the type of establishment he was trying to run and apologized for the server’s behavior but clearly at that point the damage had been done and I was in tears I was so angry. Reason behind his attitude? Our guess is he treated us the way he did because we were sitting at a booth in his section and we weren’t dressed the part. We all had on our street clothes and tennis shoes as we had spent the day at the zoo and my little one had gotten his face painted like a puppy while there. It was 7:30pm and the restaurant was not busy at all. My husband was wearing a black shirt and black shorts, me in black shorts and a pink top…it’s not like we came in pajamas or looking like savages. I have a successful career working for myself and my husband is in leadership at a Fortune 500 company….we respect others and ALWAYS overtip our servers in the service industry….this business lost out on our business, the server missed out on a great tip and unfortunately the restaurant will receive a 1 star from us. I know my review won’t matter and that’s ok if it doesn’t, my only hope is the miserable man waiting on our table gets sent to the kitchen to run the deep fryer until he learns some customer service skills. The plus side of this is we set an example for our 6 year old….you never have to stay somewhere where people aren’t...

Let me start off by saying, the food was appetizing. We ordered several lemon drop martinis, which were also very tasty. However, the service was definitely lacking, with our waitress, Brittany. We ordered drinks and then she disappeared. When she finally came back, she spilled a lot of my martini on our table in front of my husband. Fortunately, none of it spilled directly on him. She apologized and told us that she’d be back with paper napkins. Five minutes later, she still hadn’t returned; finally, I saw her and waved her over asking for the napkins. She brought the napkins and then left again, so I wiped up the spill. Lemon drops are sticky, so I had to use one of the wipes I had in my purse to clean up the table. We still hadn’t placed our order, so once again, I had to wave her over to do that.

The starters were delivered and then dinner. Once we started on our dinner, new guests were seated at the table next to us, and I heard Brittany tell them she’d be right back with some bread. So I stopped her and asked if bread was complimentary, because we were never offered any. She told me it was, and asked, if we’d like some, I told her yes, that we would take it home with our leftovers. She brought the bread and disappeared again. Thankfully, another young lady came to our rescue and offered to pack up our meals, so that we could go on with our night. I’m not sure what the issue was with Brittany because they weren’t that busy at the time we dined. Our meal was about $250 with the 20% tip, and the couple we dined with spent almost the same amount. I expect better service for the amount of money we spent. Based on the service we received, I don’t know that we...

Loved our experience here. Greeted by the host, who informed us the booth we requested would be available shortly as another party was finishing up. This was not a problem to us, so we went to the bar to grab a cocktail. We were immediately greeted by the bartender who offered us a drink. The table took 5ish minutes before we were sat. One of the managers sat us where we were greeted by Jill. She went over the menus (it was restaurant week), and answered all of our extra questions. Jill was busy because of the restaurant week, but service never lacked because the manager came over to check up on us and we ordered a bottle of wine from him. When wine was poured, Jill was right over to take our dinner order. This is the best part of the night. They are known for their toasted raviolis which were fantastic, but I think they were out shined by the escargot. The house salad was standard, but not disappointing. For entrees we had the Filet Angelou and Veal Saltimbocca with the Rigatoni Seafood Pasta. They were fantastic. Some of the best food I've had out in a long time. Everything even the spinach pasta that came with the Veal, AMAZING!! The rest of the meal was fantastic. Cheesecake is highly recommended along with the espresso martini. Jill was a fantastic server; warm, inviting, knowledgeable and ready to give recommendations. The food was fantastic, to die for, I'm not going to act like I know what authentic Italian is, but this Italian restaurant is delicious and in my opinion...