Stefano's Pulaski — Restaurant in Town of Richland

Traveling for 3hrs with 4 more to go we chose to come here and eat.. worst decision made… after watching a party of over 20 (who I’m sure made reservations and ordered before showing) come in after us sit, eat, chat, and leave while we patiently waited.. not to mention the other 3 tables that also came in after us order and get served before us… we received our appetizer and sides to the dinners we ordered 30 mins after ordering and an hr from receiving that we asked our waiter a few times about our dinner, he informed us he had asked numerous times about our food and was ignored by the kitchen staff so we then decided, no hard feelings, we would pay for the drinks, cold yet over cooked appetizer, lettuce, and bread we did receive and go somewhere else since we still had a long drive ahead of us… we were told by our waiter, when we asked him for a bill for what we did get, that our bill was being prepared by his manager… and what a joke… shameful honestly.. she tried to charge us $108 with some food on our bill we ordered yet didn’t receive and thought we would want her have the kitchen finish cooking our dinners, that took them an hr and 15 mins to begin and weren’t even finished cooking when she had the audacity to ask if we still wanted it, and she’d have the kitchen staff put them in containers for us to leave with if we wished.. I’ll remind u that I mentioned we were traveling in the beginning, so if I wanted to eat on the go I would’ve stopped at McDonald’s and not chose somewhere I ordered a pasta dinner I thought I’d be able to sit and enjoy, we kindly told her we didn’t want the food at that point nor did we think the bill was fair… and the food added that we didn’t receive should be taken off. I also asked to see the menu again so I could be sure we were actually being charged correctly for what we did receive and your manager refused, instead she chose to say that’s the amount of the bill and expected us to pay… AND the embarrassment was ridiculous as u have other customers making comments to their company in the form of “ hey sally do u want dinner for free too” as if we came looking for free meals and hand outs! I, as well as the other adults I was accompanied with, have very good paying jobs and we had every intention on EATING AND PAYING for our meals. AND we had more than enough money with us to PAY! Disgraceful is the way your manager handled this entire situation, not only causing a waste in your restaurants food, but also costing our waiter what would have been an amazing tip for him because his service was impeccable! This isn’t a place I’d ever return to nor would I ever recommend to my colleagues who also do a lot of traveling and like to stop in random towns and try out new restaurants with good reviews. I hope moving forward u would teach your kitchen staff and manager the importance of good customer service. Thank u for the $100 fountain soda, burnt stuck together cold cheese sticks, lettuce, and over buttered hard garlic knots. This experience definitely made a good story for horrible stops in our travels book. Chick-fil-A was more than grateful for our business and we were able to be back on the road eating our “on the go” food 10 minutes...

--NEW NOTE after response from the restaurant-- Thank you for responding to me, I completely understand the challenges weather can present and that especially on days like these ingredients can be difficult, my point was that better service would have been to be upfront, to tell us so we can make a decision and maybe change out order, instead, you chose to not tell us until it was already an hour wait, then serve us a cold and dry pizza with 3 pieces of prosciutto and no sauce and charge us full price, that's my complaint, not the fact that things happen... as a result you lost a customer and if others read this, maybe more, I'm reading others reviews here, you seriously need to do something about service in this place.

I'm giving this a 3 star for service only because our server was wonderful, however, everything else about this place is an absolute disaster, pizza took almost an hour to come out, they were missing ingredients but didn't bother to tell us until we already waited for so long, then the pizza was no sauce, dry and non-eatable, the manager or anyone else didn't even bother to come speak to us, they simply dumped it all on the poor server who was very apologetic and felt really bad and it was not even her fault. Note to the management - next time, share what you don't have right away, come out and explain, don't let people wait for so long, and finally comp the order if you messed up, we paid for a non-eatable meal, which means we will...

My boyfriend has been a loyal, dependable employee at this small business—always stepping up, staying late, and doing whatever was needed without hesitation. This past week, he took one single day off to drive me to a medically necessary rhinoplasty. He gave proper notice to his employer ahead of time, and not only was it approved, but the owner even showed up near the location where I was having my surgery. At the time, we took that as a gesture of support.

Now, just days later, my boyfriend has been completely removed from the schedule—no hours for the entire week, no warning, no explanation. It’s clear this is retaliation for taking time off to support a loved one through a medical procedure.

Let me be very clear: retaliation is illegal, even for small business owners. Taking adverse action against an employee for exercising basic rights is a direct violation of labor laws. If he is fired, we will be pressing charges to the full extent of the law. We are documenting everything and will not hesitate to move forward with formal legal action.

My boyfriend is a kind-hearted, hard-working person who has been afraid to speak up for fear of losing his job. But silence protects no one. No employee should be punished for doing the right thing.

To the business owner: loyalty and respect go both ways. If you think fear will keep people quiet, think again. And to anyone considering employment here—know your rights, and know what kind of behavior you may be...