Vero Amore - Swan — Restaurant in Tucson

This is a review for “the still”, which is the speakeasy off the main dining room.

The meal started off ok. We met at the meeting location but stood with another party for a while until we were led in to the speak easy area. It was a cool idea but the “door” was open for our entry, as well as our entire dining experience, so it really just felt like we dined in a separate room not a “secret room”.

The room was cool and a good atmosphere. It was very intimate with only about 8 parties of 4 or less between the bar area and small patio. The experience started off great with banter with our waiter. My sister and I both ordered the “conversation cocktail” which meant you chatted with your server and they created a cocktail for you. After ordering our drinks, our experience went downhill drastically. Our drinks were unceremoniously dropped off so we actually had no idea what cocktail creation our conversation sparked or why. Then we weren’t checked on again or asked if we needed something for 1.25 hours. We had to get up and go ask them if we could order food. Then we noticed 3 out of the other 8 tables had to get up and also ask for something. Keep in mind they had 3 staff members for 8 parties with 4 people or less.

A woman came over and took our order. She was going to check on something for us and come back. 10 minutes passed with no return so we got up and found another waitress who took our order because The second waitress told us that the first waitress was “having a night”. So she reentered our order and we got our food in a decent time.

Now 1 hour and 45 minutes in to our meal we got our appetizer and then we had to ask for napkins and silverware, twice. When they were finally dropped off, they asked if we wanted another drink or if we wanted our water refilled. We all had empty waters. We said no to drinks and yes to water.

My sister and I ordered the “flaming cheese wheel” and saw the cheese wheel coming toward us. We got excited but they passed us and went to a table outside. That wasn’t an issue since they probably ordered before us but then the waiter said “sorry we only have one cheese we also it’s taking a while“. That wouldn’t have bothered me except for that right as he said that a second cheese wheel got wheeled out. It was the excuse in the lie that bothered me more than the wait time.

All of our food we unanimously agreed was very good, but it may have been some of the worst service we ever had. Our waiter ended up comping our drinks, which was nice of him, but we had to get up and ask for boxes and after we asked for boxes, he didn’t bring the check so we had to get up again and ask for the check. And then after we got the check, they never came to take it so we had to get up again and give him our check and then we left because we were so fed up. I would eat in the dining room, probably but I would never eat again in the speakeasy.

At the end of the day, we had to ask for every step of our meal and were never checked on. Good food, completely...

My whole immediate family of 12 went on Friday, June 13th for an early Father’s Day dinner, and it was extremely disappointing.! My son and son-in-law both ordered the cheese wheel and we are expecting this big show like we were told and literally the guy that was the “Cheese wheel operator“ said “who’s getting the cheese wheel?” With No enthusiasm, No show, No creamy cheese like they show on their websites little videos, it was so disappointing! Then the guy comes back to our table asking if any of us had the lighter that he used to light the cheese wheel. All of our pasta was extremely dry, even the ones that were tossed around in an actual wheel of cheese. The calamari tasted like breaded onion rings, my son and his wife also ordered a pizza that they sent back because they said it tasted like metal. Then server had to say “I don’t understand how it could taste like metal” instead of just saying something like “I apologize, can I get you something else?”All that said it was an extremely bad experience there, then it got worse when I called and spoke to the GM Darren. That evening I called and told Darren everything that happened, he offered me a gift card and I told him that my husband would probably not want to go back that I wanted a refund, then he asked me to think about it, talk it over with my husband and to give him a call on Monday. I called him Monday to let him know that I wanted my refund per our conversation on Friday. He then tried to refund me $22 when my bill was over $80 and then blamed it on their point of sale machine “TOAST” that it was not letting him refund any more than that and that he was gonna work on it all night and get back to me. I called on Tuesday and Darren gave me the run around and said that he was still working on the refund and that the money would be back in my account by 2:00 pm and of course it wasn’t . I called on Wednesday and spoke to the assistant manager Cass, told her exactly what had been happening and she told me he should’ve given me my entire amount back and that he’s not a really good general manager, and that she was going to send an email to the owners and CC Darren in the emails as well stating that I need to get my money back. I called them back again on Saturday, June 21, twice and both times told that neither manager was there for me to speak with. The gentleman that answered the phone was very polite and when I asked for the corporate phone number he got it for me. I will call them Monday morning to get this ongoing issue for over a week...

So disappointing in this place and will continue to discourage people from making a reservation here. If I could give it a zero stars I would. Here’s our story with The Still- My husband called a month ago to make reservations for our anniversary. We made reservations for the December 17 and about a week before our scheduled reservation received a message by text, (so unprofessional) that they had “over booked” for that evening and need us to reschedule. How anyone manages to “over book “ or not see a reservation done a month in advance is just mind-boggling to me, but my husband is a pretty mellow guy so he said sure we could be scheduled for the 18th (our real anniversary date). I was upset because we already had everything scheduled for the 17th, a sitter, then going out to the Still followed by a late dinner (a perfect evening to me). The 17th was what we chose because my husband was off on Sunday so time out on Saturday night would be no problem. Having to reschedule for the 18th meant that we had to cut our evening out short due to work on Monday. But fine, what ever, we rescheduled for the 18th we figured a nice evening out for a drink and appetizers would be better than nothing. But then you guessed it. We get a text (again very unprofessional) on the 18th just an hour before our reservation saying that they “need to close the outside because of inclement weather”, and need us to change our reservation again. Not sure what weather app there were looking at because it was a pretty clear evening with a very light breeze. They did start the text out with “happy anniversary”, (which is somehow supposed to make it better I guess) and tried to offer us a bottle of champagne and to sit us at the main eating area. Which, by the way, if we wanted to eat at the main restaurant eating area of the Vero Amore restaurant we would’ve made reservations there in the first place and news slash to the Still manager or person who makes the reservations- not everybody likes champagne, you and your staff need to do better and maybe ask the person YOU have wronged what YOU can do to rectify the relationship and gain back their trust. Anyway this is getting long. Beware of this place people it has been the worst customer experience of my life. We should have trusted the other recent negative reviews but chose to give them a try anyway, but nope never again. We will NEVER try to go to this place again (believe me; I can hold a grudge) . Do yourself a favor and...