Sortino's Italian Kitchen — Restaurant in Tobyhanna Township

My name is Joseph Flannery. I am staying at the hotel at Kalahari resorts My dining experience was terrible. I ordered chicken. Parm asked to have fresh mozzarella on top. They put pizza cheese and charged me an extra five dollars. I asked for a side of Italian sausage. They brought me chopped up hot sausage on a plate. They also use for their pizza. !The chicken Parm was Burnt! And of course I sent everything back didn’t eat any of it. I asked to speak with management. The server repeatedly was apologizing. It is not the responsibility of the server to apologize. The manager is responsible for the quality of food ! And to give an apology, if necessary ! Not the server !A manager came to the table said she heard there was a problem with my dinner no apology !I explained to her the situation. Again, no apology just asked to have the food taken off the bill which they did no apology, and she walked away as I wasn’t even there! As I was leaving the dining area after I paid for my daughters dinner, I asked to speak with the general manager with the hostess a manager came out, another patron stopped her. She started talking to that patron, ignoring me. The person that she was called to speak with the hostess told her I was the one waiting for her and she still continues to speak with other people besides me, so I just walked away. I am a guest at the hotel I am staying here till Monday. I am just one of many people that come through here although I am a paying customer it seems they do not care about their quality of food because I am just one person of thousands that come through there, one person doesn’t seem to matter to them , because they make plenty money ! I will never set foot in this place ever again I was in the fine dining restaurant, Italian cuisine as a chef for 15+ years and the quality of food and quality of life even if it was one patron one paying customer they were always important and satisfaction was always my number one priority and quality of my food that I serve no matter how many paint just came through my establishment I find it very disappointing again I will never set foot in this establishment ever again ! I am here until Monday and if it wasn’t for my daughter, I would’ve already left to come here and spent thousands of dollars at the expectation is nothing anyone wouldn’t ask is to be taken care of and have a quality dinner! To call yourself a fine dining establishment you really need to...

First impression: Friendly but disorganized. The hostess had a hard time finding the reservation, that she herself took earlier the same day. We asked to be seated at an empty table by the window but the seater said it was reserved. However, during our entire 2 hour meal, it was never occupied. We were told that Tyler would be our server.

Decor: Although this was an Italian only restaurant, you'd never know it by the decor. It was carpeted and painted like a convention room cafeteria and there were absolutely no paintings or pictures on any walls.

Service: Debbie served us the entire meal. We never saw Tyler. Debbie was very nice but also very forgetful. Her charm made up for no less than 7 instances of forgetting something.

Food: The food quality was very good. Not the best Italian cuisine we've ever had but certainly very good and although the menu was short on choices, we all found things we liked. The portions were moderately sized. No one had leftovers but no one left feeling hungry. The Caesar salad was small but tasty, but the accompanying eggs were way too overly chilled. The Manicotti was creamy and tasty. The sauce was a bit sweet and the pasta was a bit overcooked. The Seafood over Linguini was excellent, although the clams and mussels were tiny. The wine list was very short and rather uninteresting, although it was priced as if it was, but we found something none the less. Although this is an Italian restaurant, they didn't serve bread before nor during the meal, and only brought a small portion upon request, and at a charge. We chose the hand filled and dipped cannolis for dessert, which were great. The coffee and cappuccino was among the worst we've had in quite a while, and they didn't have any half & half, only 2%. It took 3 times of asking to get sugar. Thanks Debbie.

Our total for two adults and two children came to $150 before tip. We left a 20+% tip and felt it was generous.

Overall, we enjoyed our dinner, but on our next visit, we'll probably first check out the other dining choices, and leave this as...

Tonight my family and I did not enjoy our dining experience at Sortino's. We are spending the weekend here at Kalahari Resort. Our server came to the table and took our drink and food order. She came back to deliver bread and never returned to our table during the meal. Our food was brought to the table by someone else. He was pleasant during the delivery. My thought is this is the minimum a server is required to do. I was wrong, I listened as another server told a family she was serving about the traditional ceiling fans. I listened as another server asked a family she was serving if anyone at the table had any food allergies. I watched as our server was much more friendly with a family at the next table. I can assure you there was nothing we did to receive this horrible treatment. Not sure why she chose to treat us like this and to be honest I don't care. We requested our check and the final kick in the but was her bringing the check without a pen to sign. She then took the other family their check with a pen to sign and explained the survey in the check to them, something she did not do with us. This was an education on where never to spend my money in the future. My recommendation, treat all families with kindness you never know who you are serving.

The manager came over and asked about our experience. We informed her of what happened and apologized for the horrible service and asked if there was anything she could do. At that point we just wanted to pay and leave. After receiving the pen to sign the check, we did.

The food was nice. I had a traditional brick oven pizza, my wife had fettuccine alfredo with shrimp and both of my girls had fettuccine alfredo with chicken. Everyone liked their meals. The service is not a reflection on the food.

If you receive similar service please bring it to the attention of a manager. Hopefully this will minimize the amount of people subjected to such...