Giulio's Greek & Italian — Restaurant in Valdosta

I travel for work and eat in many different places from small towns to big cities all over the US… I always try to patronize smaller family owned restaurants rather than chains whenever possible. I also make it a rule to not write negative reviews of small restaurants even when I have had a sub par experience because I don’t want to hurt small business. My usual policy is to say good things or say nothing. However, in this instance my experience was so terrible it had to be mentioned, if only to encourage their staff to change things. The front of house manager (who I think might of been one of the owners) was very courteous and hospitable from the moment I walked in. However everything changed when I sat down at the table. It took 10+ minutes for the waitress to even acknowledge me and even then it was only because the busboy asked her to. I ordered the fish special and a glass of wine. It comes with a house salad and they push hard for you to pay the $4 up charge to get the Greek salad. I declined the up charge but maybe I should have paid it seeing as the house salad consisted of only a few pieces of iceberg lettuce (not even fully chopped), two hunks of tomato, and two pieces of cucumber. I waited another 20+ minutes before I received my glass of wine. Again the bus boy had to come and ask me if I received it and go get the waitress to bring it to me. Finally 55+ minutes into my meal I receive my entrée. While perturbed by the wait, I really hoped it was because they were making it from scratch and it was going to be really good. I was quickly disappointed. Not only were the contents of the plate a strange combination of foods that were piping hot and foods that were cold from sitting but I pulled multiple pieces of bone the size of my thumb from the filet. And the fish was extremely overcooked to the point of being rubbery. The “seafood stuffing” was just your typical boxed style Thanksgiving turkey stuffing made of celery and onions and bread crumbs… Nothing seafood about it. The fish came with carrots and roasted potatoes. The carrots were good but the roasted potatoes were burnt and were closer to blackened potato chips. Finally after I have been at the table for 90 minutes and have eaten maybe a third of my food the waitress comes by and asked if I would need a box. I tell her no. She never asks why I did not eat the meal or even how it was so I am never given the opportunity to complain. The entire experience was terrible. 90 minutes for an awful, and yet fairly pricey meal. I would’ve given them one star except for the attentiveness of the busboy and the kindness of the front of house manager. The waitress should be busing tables and the busboy should...

Edit to respond to owners respons: It would have been one star if I hadn't taken into account the last 20 years. The fact that this was your response and not an apology for the food and the service shows my 3 stars are warranted. I've reviewed befor and given higher stars. Your response is says more than I ever could. You're welcome.

I have eaten at this place for 20 years and I never had a bad meal or service until, My birthday last month. The food was not up to par. The eggplant parm was small and not fully cooked and crisp. The backlava was dry and over cooked with no honey. I couldn't order a GLASS of Italian wine like I ussually would. I had to buy a whole bottle (I cant drink a whole bottle) and when the waiter (he was a young guy who had no idea about the food) brought the wine in the bucket he didnt open it at all. When I asked for it to be open, he took the bucket and the wine back and then came back out with a manual bottle opener and started to hand all of it to me, then decided to hand it to my husband for us to open our selves. So we just looked at each other shocked and my husband opened it and poured my wine for me. We also asked for an order of garlic bread with our meal. The waiter said ok but, never brought the garlic bread with our meal. When we asked him about it he claimed the table bread was our meal. We said " that's table bread. Weve had the garlic bread here before and table bread cant pass as garlic bread" he insisted the table bread was garlic bread so we gave up kn the garlic bread. Now back to the wine that I had to order the whole bottle of. We were getting ready to leave and there was still half a bottle of wine left so I asked if they could recork it for me. (most places who sell by the bottle have the ability to do that) They told me they could not. Why would you sell me a bottle then and why would you not sell it by the glass? They put the cork slightly in it then wrapped it with cellophane for us to DRIVE home with it like that. Aparently they are not aware of the laws. I'm so disappointed because this is my favorite restraunt and the only one around that had authentic Greek food. (Mom and pops do have Greek food and its subpar Italian) it has allways been amazing and some of the best food I've ever put in my mouth. On top of it being my birthday dinner. I get to go her 2 maybe 3 times a year on special occasions. I dont know what to do now or where to go. I'm almost...

One star because zero isn't an option. I don't normally give negative reviews but this place earned one. Terrible service, argumentative and rude managers.

Our family visited Giulio's for a graduation celebration. We had a large party of nine and a reservation at 7 PM. We arrived and we're shown to the table. Two people excused themselves to the restroom. The hostess came and offered wine, which we politely declined and asked for water instead. The hostess said "I don't do that" and proceeded to describe the menu, with two people still absent from the table. Our server came and introduced themself at around 7:10 and took our drink orders. No other service to this point other than offering wine and refusing water. Server returned at 7:24 with drinks and started taking food orders. Halfway thru placing our orders, the manager pulled the server from our table abruptly to run food for another table. No explanation or apology about what was happening, only what we overheard when the manager snapped instructions to the server. The server came back again at 7:36 to finish taking our food order. At 8:01, the server returned with soup and salad and informed the 3 members of the party that ordered Bleu cheese dressing that they were out of it. Another 10 minutes passed before new dressing was brought out, and food started coming out at about 8:10 and took another ten minutes to get everyone served. The check came at 8:45, including 20% gratuity (big party-understandable policy except when service is so terrible). At 9:00, I took the check and went to find the server to ask them to take our payment so we could leave. After handing the cards, it took another ten minutes for them to process credit cards and for us to leave

There were other incidents, minor individually but part of a pattern of awful service the whole night. The manager tried to tell us we were not neglected and explain they were short staffed. True, that is partly out of their control. But they do control wait times and how many tables are seated with the number of servers they have, so that each table has a good experience.

Absolutely none of this is the server's fault. The service was awful but the individual server was trying their best in a bad situation. Had the managers been more polite, I think we'd had let it all pass without leaving a bad review but they were not effective and...