Mona Lisas Ristorante — Restaurant in Town of Geddes

First off, let me say that we made reservations with this establishment well in advance (over a month), for a party of 14 for their so called "Thanksgiving Buffet". The Sunday before thanksgiving, the owner calls me to collect a $25 per person deposit to guarantee our reservation. That in itself was kind of sketchy as this was never mentioned before, but I reluctantly gave her our credit card number after talking to some family about this request. Fast forward to Thanksgiving day, we all got there on time, and stood in line for 30 minutes before we could even check in. Their lobby was so full, we couldn't move. My elderly father who's in a wheelchair had to wait outside in the cold because there was no place to put him inside. After another 15-20 minutes, I finally got to the front of the line, and told them our name, and we were finally seated after another 10-15 minutes. The two tables they gave us only had 11 place settings, and we had to go and ask what was up. They ended up giving us a second table that seated more people, and then we had to ask for water glasses, and more place settings. One of our tables had their water glasses filled up with water, but unfortunately, the other table did not. It was very dry, as my husband jokingly stated. We then placed our orders, and received our salads, and other drinks we ordered. My sister wanted the Brie appetizer, but the waiter stated that they were all out of that. When I took my children to the buffet, in the bar area, it was very very dark in certain areas, so it was hard to see all the foods. The bin for macaroni and cheese was empty, and the bin for turkey was almost empty, with tiny scraps of meat left in it. We settled for ham, a couple scraps of turkey and "prime rib", and some mashed potatoes. I did take a small gelatinous piece of dressing and gravy as well. When everyone started eating, we all discovered that this $45.95 a plate buffet that was not all you can eat, by the way, was the most inedible food we've ever encountered. The mashed potatoes were very lumpy and had absolutely no flavor. The dressing was jello texture, and disgusting. All three meat selections up there, (ham, turkey scraps, and "prime rib") was most definitely deli meat sliced very very thin. The haddock that was up there looked dehydrated and inedible so we didn't take any. When the waitress checked back in on us, and gave us the check, I think she knew we all hated the food, because we handed her very full plates back. The majority of the $32.95 turkey plate was canned vegetables, with only 2 tbsp of gravy on potatoes. I will say that the tiny amount of bread given to us before dinner was very good. The desserts of pumpkin pie (bought at price chopper, as a person in our party saw the label on the pie tin), and cheesecake were subpar. They didn't put cherries on the cheesecake as advertised either. Also, my sister and brother in law both stated the leek soup tasted like dish water. Our waitress, was very polite, but our overwhelming experience for the price, was extremely...

We were in there on a Friday night not long ago. Place was busy but it looked like thew were only two people waiting tables. Greeter appeared to be either new, high or drunk...he cleaned off the table for us and brought glasses over, then 5 minutes later brought bread plates and silverware, and finally brought over menus. I ordered eggplant parmesan with spaghetti. They're supposed to be an Italian restaurant, but the spaghetti was so overcooked it wouldn't stay on the fork, it was practically mush. Eggplant was burned which made the sauce taste burned as well. I ate about 6 bites before giving up as it was just too disgusting to continue eating. Our waitress was running her tail off with a party of about 15 or 20 people, bringing over plates as the kitchen finished them, so some of the tables got part of their food while the rest of the people seated there had to watch the ones who did get food eat while they waited 10 minutes for their food to show up. When our waitress finally got a chance to check on us I told her about how bad my food was and she was very apologetic, said that a few other customers got inedible food too, and offered me a free dessert because of how bad the food was (my husband had almost finished his food so I declined having them make me anything else). They never took my meal off the bill but at that point I just wanted to leave so we didn't contest that. I've worked in restaurants as both a cook and a waitress for 27 years and know how the kitchen can get sometimes but a restaurant that is supposed to be more on the upscale side should never have sent that plate out, would have had more staff on hand on a busy Friday night, and an Italian restaurant should know how long to properly cook spaghetti and eggplant parm. 2 stars because the waitress did try to keep on top of things despite being overwhelmed, but minus 5 stars for the quality of the food. Probably...

Update: Response here (or lack thereof) on Google shows that they don't care. A month in, and still no call back from the business or really any communication.

Placed a takeout order one hour in advance. Got there and I'm told it'll be out in a few mins. Well my order took another hour before I received it. Had multiple wait staff (+1 service star for the wait staff) ask the kitchen about my order during the hour I was standing there looking like an idiot. Every time they check, "it'll be a few more minutes". They were busy and all they had to tell me was my order wasn't even being made yet and I would've gladly come back closer to when my order would've been ready. Why it was decided to string me along for an hour baffles my mind. The kicker is when I finally get my order and get home to scarf it down due to hunger and having to go to bed, 3 out of the 4 items we order had issues. Chicken parm was overcooked and was dry, flavorless, and gave my other half diarrhea. Utica greens, we asked and paid for sausage which was missing. Calamari was over salted, greasy and missing the marinara sauce to dip in. Chicken Riggies at least didnt have an issue other than the flavor wasn't there. The chicken wasn't even seasoned before it was cooked which was weird. $100 for an order that was an hour late and had multiple issues is not what I was looking for from a neighborhood restaurant. Called and asked for the owner after we noticed the food issues and she was too busy to come to the phone and was told I would get a call back. Two days now and no call. The extra frustrating part is that during my hour wait, she had plenty of time to come out to say hi to someone that requested her presence. That was around the 40 min mark and not once did she even look over or apologize...