Frank's Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Town of Maine

I usually do not write reviews but after our appalling experience at Franks tonight I thought it important. We arrived promptly at 6:30 for our 6:30 reservation. We were greeted and asked to wait in the lounge and that it would just be "a couple minutes while they turn over tables." We entered the lounge that was full of other patrons also waiting for tables. After 35 minutes of waiting and the lounge clearing out of other patrons we inquired about when our table would be ready receiving a curt response that it would just be a few more minutes while the tables were cleaned. There were at least 5 empty, made up tables, at this time and after some pushback were seated right away. We waited about 10 minutes before we were greeted by our server and another 10 minutes for water and soda. We ordered Calamari that was so overcooked it was like chewing on rubber bands and all 4 of us had to eat off the same plate as no appetizer plates were provided. We received our salads, my wedge salad came with the wrong dressing and was missing the blue cheese crumbles, I had to flag down another server to get the correct dressing as we had not seen ours since she took our order. When she finally came back around we asked for bread, we waited another 10 minutes before asking another employee for bread and then another 10 minutes before asking a 3rd employee for bread, we received our bread 1 hr and 45 minutes after arriving. We completely understand this was a busy night with Fathers day but there was no point in the evening when our server stopped to apologize and to lets us know the kitchen was backed up, instead we see other tables around us getting attention from their servers and receiving their meals and refills in a timely manner. In fact the table seated next to us had their server at their table 6 times in the first 10 minutes they were there which is more than we saw ours in the entire 2.5 hours we were there. We waited an extremely long time for our entree's to arrive and as my Father got up to let the host know we would be leaving our food arrived. Once we were eating our meals the owner stopped over to see how our experience was going and we told him it was not going well, he asked what was wrong but before we could fully articulate all the evenings mishaps he started making excuses about the night being busy and that "the girls" were doing the best they can. He did not offer an apology nor solutions to make the experience any better and did not give us the opportunity to actually tell him what was wrong. The entree's were adequate but nothing to write home about. The Veal was slightly overcooked and another entree came out with the wrong pasta. We finished our meals and as we were exiting my Father stopped just to let the owner know the service was inadequate and that he would have a hard time coming back to which Frank replied "good, get out of here and don't come back! You aren't a good person." Never have I experienced this behavior from an owner in the hospitality industry and needless to say we will not be returning. Consider...

If your goal is to have some of the worst service in the "fine dining" category for this area, Franks is for you. While you are waiting a half hour for a basket of bread and a drink to be delivered, let Frank regale you on his pedigree and accomplishments. His tall tales are comical, especially coming from a guy who couldn't hold a candle to a true Chef and is too short to light said candle. During this painfully long diatribe, you would have already had warm bread and your cocktails at Cacciatore’s. Getting the waiter to bring anything was like pulling teeth. Come to find out he is new and we were told he would certainly be re-trained. How about firing the person who trained him in the first place and thought he was ready to serve tables? My wife ordered Branzino (European Sea Bass) Maybe to Frank it was a decent-sized piece of fish, but it is more than likely the bait fish used to catch the fish Cacciatore’s serves. Franks minnows are twice the price and half the size of any Branzino she’s had in NYC. My meal, what I could eat of it, was fair. I could not finish my meal as the remnants of the shrimp, mussels, and oysters from a different table were unceremoniously dumped into my lap and on my plate by a waiter who was more concerned with how cool he looked than the safety of those around him. After a perfunctory cleanup by the offending waiter, I sat waiting for five minutes certain someone would be by to finish the clean up and offer me perhaps a fresh glass of water not filled with marinara sauce. Nope. It was as if nothing ever happened and was ignored. I had to go find Frank and tell him of the incident and upon my return to the table, I listened as the offending waiter was explaining to my wife that he had already told Frank all about it. It was then that I spoke up and said that he was not being truthful and that Frank knew nothing about it until I had just finished telling him. Hmm. I wonder which one was lying? Neither my wife nor I made any fuss or commotion about the botched meal. We did not want to be “those people” and simply were curious as to how this would play out. In any other restaurant, when something like that happens, it is customary to be gracious and offer perhaps a complimentary aperitif or dessert or even an apology. Not at Franks, apparently Frank's "training" was cut short or he was too busy playing miniature golf to attend "etiquette" class. Wow. The ending of the evening was exactly as predicted. A failure. The only one to blame for this is the captain of the dinghy. The blowhard with Napoleon syndrome who spends more time out of the kitchen schmoozing rather than cooking and helping his line cooks empty the TV dinner trays onto people's plates and say...

If I could rate this place a 0 I certainly would. We got to the restaurant at 6:30 and our salads didn’t come out until almost 8:00. My friends pizza didn’t come out with the rest of the food and by the time it came out it was close to 9:00pm. When I said something to the owner he continued to interrupt me and put his hand in my face. I have never had such bad service anywhere I have ever dined. Please please please do yourself a favor and don’t bother with this place. Go to McDonalds and get a happy meal.

Edit: full story Ok first time poster here:

We went to a restaurant last night for my friends birthday. Our server did not get our drinks to us for the first twenty minutes and waited almost 30 minutes to put our order in. At this point we still didn’t say anything. After AN HOUR our salads finally came out. Well the birthday girls salad had a hair in it. Still we didn’t say anything. The waitress only returned to the table 1x to check on us and give refills for soda. After about two hours our food finally arrived HOWEVER my friends aunts food, who only ordered PIZZA did not come out with the rest of the food and did not come out for an entire 20 minutes. Still didn’t say anything. After much discussion we decided we would only say something if charged for the pizza. Well we were. I asked them if they wanted me to say something and we agreed. I went to find the owner and pulled him to the side and explained the situation. All of a sudden he escalated from 0 to 100 waived his hand in my face and accused me of trying to get free food from the restaurant. Mind you our bill had to be more than $500.00 the pizza only costing $20. He walked away yelling at me through that I was not allowed to return to his fine dining restaurant. AT that point I spoke up and said “Fine dining? Fine dining? This is not fine dining. A pizza took 2 and a half hours to come out and her food had a hair in it”. By this time he was back at the table and was still yelling at me. My significant other and I left and afterwards he came back to the table while my friends were there and advised them that he was in the mafia when he was younger and that I was someone who should be in the mafia because I am intimidating. Sir it is not my fault that I am 5’9 and you are 5’1. My other friend attempted to say something to the waitress and the waitress replied “I am not allowed to talk to you”. Weirdest...