Pomodoro Italian Restaurant & Bar — Restaurant in Tacoma

The experience was very odd. I went there with one of my good friends and her husband along with our baby daughters. We went in asking if there was enough room in the restaurant to accommodate our two strollers that we had with us due to our adventures before and our cars were not near by. Anyways, we were told it was totally fine and that they had a table for us in the back. Great! We sat down and the older gentleman seemed totally chill at first. We ordered our food and after that was when it got weird. The man serving us seemed frustrated that he had to maneuver around the strollers when dropping off our salads and soup. (there was plenty of space) and I can only move it so much due to my daughter still sitting in it right next to me. He then moves the empty stroller even more out of the way, being a little dramatic if I’m being honest. I have served before and I would never touch someone’s stroller without asking. Next he brought me an extra plate for me to discard my clam shells. My purse was on the table next to me and he pushed it away as though he was irritated again! We had all ordered drinks and finished them before we were even halfway done with our meals. Never offered to give us a refill, so I had to wait till he decided to come back (15 min) and ask for the refills. Last thing that really knocked my socks off was that the man seemed so caught off guard that we were going to do separate checks. He came back with one check and and told me that I needed to circle the items that were mine and then he would give me my check. We all ordered one soda and a menu item...it’s not hard to remember!! Come on dude. Lol. So after I circled what was mine, we finally paid and he dropped off our checks not even telling us to have a good rest of our day before walking away....the whole experience was really odd. My friends daughter did cry once but was easily calmed down and my daughter didn’t make a peep the whole time, so he couldnt have been irritated about that...It also wasn’t even busy when we first got there. We were polite the whole time. I don’t get it... The food was just okay. Spaghetti sauce was watery. (soup was very yummy though and they have big serving sizes) The lady server that was also working at that time was very pleasant and polite. I wish we had her instead. :/ This visit left a bad taste in our mouthes and I can’t say I would recommend this place to a friend...but maybe I’ll try it again sometime with a different server. This just shows, it’s not just the food that makes the dining...

I stumbled upon this place while searching for a decent Italian restaurant in the area at the last moment. Google directed us to park behind the restaurant, but you can park on the street out front if there is space. We were a little confused if we could walk from in the back door for the restaurant to the front, but thank goodness we chose to walk around to the front, because the back door is not intended for entry for customers. I wish that was more obvious. It was a Saturday evening so they were fairly busy, but we got lucky because a couple was leaving from the bar area so we were able to get seated there. I enjoyed the seat because we were in the bar area but at the front window so we could enjoy people watching during dinner.

The staff was kind and attentive. The atmosphere was laid back and easy going for the most part. Not stuffy or uptight. Which I appreciate for a chill meal with my niece.

Before our ordered food was ready, we were offered bread to go with the olive oil and balsamic already on the table. I chose not to have any, so I am unable to say if it was good or not. It was Italian bread cut into 4 hunks. I ordered the calamari and it was fresh, crispy, and nicely seasoned and a tad oily, but that is typical I suppose. It was served with an aioli and lemon wedge. It was extremely crispy and had varying sizes of actual calamari pieces. For my entree, I ordered the seafood medley with the white wine lemon butter sauce. The dish came with a choice of salad or soup and I opted for the salad with Italian dressing. I was not very impressed by the salad. It was very basic which can be okay if done nicely, but there were some dirty sliced mushrooms thrown in there an American lettuce salad mix and the dressing tasted like a typical bottled dressing. The pasta was nice and hot and had all of the seafood it says on the menu. The pasta was linguine and it was served al dente. It was seasoned nicely but I think it could have had more lemon and or wine flavor, but I still enjoyed it. I attempted to order the Kahlua chocolate mousse cake, but they were all out, so I had the tiramisu and it was okay.

Overall, I am happy with my visit and meal. This is a restaurant (in my opinion) for an outing with a friend(s) or family, but not for a romantic...

Worst meal I have had in Washington state to date. The food was uneatable, the service was subpar, and the staff didn’t control unruly customers.

I had high hopes and decided to try this place for a date night with my spouse. It started off well but after being asked multiple times if we had been help only to finally get somebody to take our order. We ask for bread (as everybody else has some) we was told they was out, so we ask for clams, and much to our servers surprise they had them. The clams tasted good but half was missing.

For our main course we order a spaghetti and lasagna with two salads. The server comes with the salads and says “the cook mixed them up, so you two figure it out.” 5 minutes later he told us they are out of lasagna ( not this is the house special ) and would give me a complimentary desert. I decided to get spaghetti.

The noodles was under cooked, the sauce tasted like bad store dried out bought and the meatball (yes one meatball which I was charged extra for) tasted as though they dropped a jar of pepper in it. At this point I could only pray for a MRE ( yeah the ones from the army that taste like paint). When we finished they insisted a free desert for the trouble, which we requested to go. It was slapped into a box leaving it smash and broken. I guess they felt insulted we didn’t want to be there.

Throughout our meal, other guest would get unruly because they drank to much. Ambulances would keep driving by light and serines, with the windows open to the establishment made it impossible to be able to hear anything. While another table had a mini fight which added to the noise. It was like it never occurred to the staff that simply closing the big window would help, or asking if everything was ok would remind people they are in public.

Never less we never made a fuse nor asked for anything extra just keep silent as we didn’t want trouble. Needless to say the 70 dollars ( no alcohol ) was the biggest rip off to date. I will never go back.

By the way I left hungry so went...