Prato 850 — Restaurant in Town of Smithtown

So me and my 8 month pregnant wife decided to stop in here for a last meal out before our baby arrived. What a disappointment... Before I delve in to everything that went south I will share the positive. They have a spicy tomato sauce that comes with the opening bread that was phenomenal. I will also say the wait staff and the food server were helpful and extremely friendly. That's unfortunately where it ends. First issue was getting sat right next to what I am guessing is the manager or owner. Having the guy looking over at our table repeatedly to check up on how his staff was doing was slightly unnerving. Followed by a constant stream of employees having to brush past to stop by his table to check on things with him was also pretty annoying. You didn't know who was there to help you or just waiting a turn to talk to the guy. Most places I have been to or worked at they grab a corner table or something off to the side not dead middle of the room. Should have asked to move seats if we knew it would be that bad. It unfortunately gets worse. We started with the Honey-Siracha wings. Which were about 50% well cooked crispy grilled wing and 50% seemingly not cooked rubbery skin and meat. Atleast they tasted okay. A quick heads up. They offer multiple flavors of wings with an option to split the order for an extra $1 per flavor. But they will not do this for the small size order which is one of only two sizes they offer. They can only give you a cup of sauce on the side but not on the wings. On to the main course. I order the Nonnas Sunday Sauce and the wife got The Prato Burger. The burger according to her was nothing special. The burger was ordered medium well and was delivered pink. Supposed to have "panko crusted advocado" which turned out to be an entire quarter of an advocado with few pieces of oily looking breadcrumbs on top of it. My dish was with 0 exaggeration the worst pasta I have ever had. In my entire almost 40 year life I have only ever sent back 2 dishes both were severely undercooked meats. This was my third. Who cooks pasta without testing one? In retrospect I realize it was very underdone, never having anything like this before I kept calling it gummy. But I am guessing it was some kind of fresh(or old fresh) pasta cooked in the sauce. It was the texture of old kids fruit snacks but tomato flavored. What I assumed happened was they subbed some kind of elbow macaroni for the advertised rigatoni and it had a wayyy longer cooking time that wasn't followed. Now you would figure here the problems end right? They are eager to fix that right up? Nope! I tell the waitress about how gummy the pasta is and I want to send it back. She asks me what I mean by gummy... A few minutes later the same owner/manager/whomever comes over to the table asking how everything is going? Strange question considering I just sent back a dish. Instead of asking us what he can do he asks me what was wrong with the pasta and what I meant by gummy like I was some kind of a-hole trying to get something free. Totally accusatory and made me very uncomfortable. For reference I'm ex-U.S. Navy 6'tall 200+ lbs big beard and covered in tattoos. And this guy hovering over us questioning me made me uncomfortable. So he was either trying to do such on purpose or just has 0 clue how to interact with people. He sounded like he didn't believe me. I should have told him to have a piece and tell me what he thought was wrong with it. It still gets worse. I order something basic The Smashed Meatball pizza hoping it will be quick. And the picture below shows you what I got. Nothing like the beautiful pictures you see of other pies in reviews here. It was underdone bland and doughy. You can see the remains of another slice from a place just up the street to see just how under done it was. They undercooked it either trying to get it out fast or because I complained about inedible pasta. It wasn't cheap either $16 for this. I should have complained about the pizza but honestly I didn't want to be there longer or have another...

I am never coming back to Prato 850. I gave this place 3 different attempts and I give up. The first time, my friends and I saw on their social media that they were hosting trivia. We were so excited, got a group together and went there. When we got there, nothing about trivia was mentioned so we asked our server who informed us it was cancelled. I understand things happen and things change, but wouldn’t you update your Instagram story after posting for days and even the DAY of promoting it? I literally opened the app and said “It says tonight”, with no post updating it was cancelled. It left a bad taste in our mouths, as that was the main reason we first went. The second time, I decided to go for brunch instead. I ordered avacado toast which comes with potatoes. When I received my food, I only received the toast with no potatoes. I informed my waitress Colleen who stated she wasn’t sure if that was true, and she needed to check the menu. I sat there waiting while my friend ate her food. After about 20 minutes, I asked the waitress about them again. She said she didn’t think it came with. I showed her the instagram (maybe their marketing needs help) where it shows avacado toast and potatoes together. She left, again, and for about 20 minutes - waiting again. Eventually, I got so angry I just ate the toast and decided to forget about it. Colleen came up to us, asked us if we want the check and said “Oh wait, your potatoes!” and gave them to me in a to-go container since I obviously couldn’t enjoy them with my meal (and I don’t even eat leftovers :( ). The third time, I decided to go for dinner. Colleen was our server again, which I was hoping there wouldn’t be an issue. And, there was. I was actually jaw dropped, since I NEVER have an issue anywhere this often. I ordered the Godfather, no balsamic. When the food came, it had balsamic on it. I told the busser/server who handed it out immediately that it needed to go back, which they took. In the meantime, Colleen came up and asked if everything was okay and said the sandwich was on the way. I informed her that it was actually made with balsamic, so I sent it back. She stated “Well that’s not my fault, that’s the kitchens fault. I put it in correctly”. It made me feel really uncomfortable that she stated this. I never once blamed HER specifically, I just wanted my order made correctly :/ I assume the manager, a jolly older man, came over and asked if everything was okay. I wanted to be honest and tell him this was my last time coming here, but he was so happy I didn’t have the heart to tell him. By the time my sandwich arrived, all of my 4 friends were finished with their food and waited for me to eat. I didn’t even want it anymore, the wait for a new sandwich took forever. Experience was AWFUL. BOTH TIMES TOO! Why did I have such bad luck? Why should my friends have to wait for me to eat, because the wait took so long for my own food? Why aren’t orders made to accuracy? I will never step foot into Prato 850, but wanted to post this to warn others that it is possible it could happen to them.

One month update, 5/29: Still have not received the gift card! I emailed them not once, not twice but THREE times to get an answer on the status where they said it was handled (each a week apart, no response until the third email). It was not handled, because if it was, I wouldn’t be emailing. I followed up again last night asking if I should just give up and haven’t received a response either. I hope this doesn’t happen to anyone else- beware of the false advertisements and lies! Sucks when you’re offered something and don’t receive it!

5/31: Took over a month and a bunch of emails, but finally received it. Huge shoutout to Allie for double checking with management for me when they said they sent it and didn’t. Let’s see if 4th...

Update: We were able to get in contact with them and they offered the full value of the gift card after our last experience, so $85. I think they handled it professionally and I will give them another try and will update this review afterwards.

My husband bought about $300 in gift cards to Prato850 during the pandemic- a $100 gift card for his parents and $200 for us. We go to dinner with my in-laws with the gift card back in 2021, order dinner and go to pay and the gift card didn’t work. My in-laws had to pay the full amount on their credit card and they accused us of trying to use a gift card with $0 balance. Meanwhile my husband had to return twice over the following week with the gift cards and his bank statement (the first time the manager never showed up on time) to prove that we bought the gift cards a day prior to using them, yet they all showed a zero balance. They turned out to have an issue with their gift cards not working with their POS system so they reissued another gift card, which we used $15 of and made sure the manager at the time gave us a receipt with the balance of the gift card and his name so we wouldn’t have an issue the next time we went to use it.

Fast forward to today when we decided to order takeout of 2 wood fired pizzas and a steak sandwich and went to pay and lo and behold, the gift card doesn’t work. We have the receipt with the balance and managers name on it, but they said “oh well, please pay the entire amount on your credit card”. They accused us of having a card that’s over a decade old, despite the receipt being from 2021 and the manager said “I don’t even know who the managers name is on the receipt”. Why is that my problem?After arguing back and forth, they reluctantly gave us the food and my husband was so frustrated with what went on for a second time, just left the remainder of the gift card with a $25 balance at the restaurant and told them to give the money to the staff, knowing damn well we won’t be able to use the rest of it because they can’t seem to figure out how to issue gift cards that work.

The wood fired pizza was soggy and limp, as you can see in the photo. It tasted exactly as it looked- pretty gross. For a restaurant that has managed to stay open for several years, you would think they would stand behind their gift cards without issue (especially when they’ve had these problems in the past) and know how to make a wood fired pizza that has flavor and is cooked enough to keep its shape. Highly disappointed, should have trusted the...