Ciro Ristorante — Restaurant in Virginia

In response to the two recent posts above:

Hello, my name is Laura D'Agostino. I am both the hostess that greeted you and the owner's daughter. I was that person that was later insulted and yelled at by an older man that came to pick up your party, but I shall address that point later.

Let us begin with your reservation. The individual that organized your party, actually made the reservation for this week, i.e. Saturday the 18th. That is why I wasn't able to find your reservation when you walked in. Perhaps that was a mistake made by your friend that organized the party, but I do know for sure that she specified that date when she called in. Despite this mistake by your friend, I accommodated your party because I know how important homecoming functions are, and many high schoolers have come to celebrate this event in the restaurant.

Now, the individual that took your reservation told your party that you all had to be there by 5:30. However, only two or three of you were present at 5:30. I sat you guys down immediately. However, the rest of your party arrived closer to 5:50-6:00. As such, by the time all of you were ready to order, it was around 6:15ish. If you all had arrived at the time that we specified to you, then you would have eaten before the rush and been out the door at the hour that you would have preferred. Also, I was helping out with some tables, and I witnessed first hand that your server greeted you within 5 minutes of sitting down.

You reference other tables and say that they received their food before your party. But that simply isn't true. The table of 14 that was next to you, for example, had arrived at 5 pm; far before your party arrived. All of the tables that received food before your party had arrived there before your party. Food is served in the order that the tables place their order.

Also, if you know beforehand that you will all have separate checks, you should convey that information to your server before placing all of your respective orders. That way, there is no confusion in the end. But your party waited until the very end and then the server had to figure out what you all had, so that he could properly prepare your checks.

The final point I wish to address is the man that came to pick up your party. Since this is my family's restaurant, I take great care to make sure that everyone has a positive experience when they come to dine in. This is my life and my passion. If there is ever an issue, I am the first one to try to resolve the situation and work with my customers. However, this man that came to pick up your party was incredibly frightening. He not only GRABBED one of my employees, but began shouting and using foul language for everyone to hear. This is a family restaurant, with small children nearby. I cannot tolerate such rude and disrespectful behavior. When I attempted to see what the issue was, he began shouting at me, waving his arms around me, and was trying to get into an area that is strictly for employees only. I felt very threatened and not only feared my own safety, but that of my employees as well. Quite frankly, your party is very fortunate that I will not be pressing assault charges against this man that verbally abused and assaulted one of my employees and threatened my own safety.

As an immigrant myself, I take great offense that you would even try and say that I tried to discriminate against a party in my own restaurant. That's not the person I am, that's not the kind of people my employees are, and those are not the values that my establishment promotes.

I wish you all the best and I hope you realize how you all mishandled this situation. Your conduct is not an appropriate way to treat others. Respect and love for all people must never be...

I don’t know what’s been going on lately with Ciro’s, but the past few times I have gone my order’s have been altered and I don’t get what I ask for. I’m with my family so I don’t complain out loud, because “if the food’s good, that’s what should matter”. But at the same time, if I receive something I didn’t order, and there’s no one else within the restaurant it should be addressed. But last Sunday, I’m dining with my parents and the server asks me what I’d like to drink and I ask for an Arnold Palmer. It’s one thing if she had asked me what that is as I saw a puzzled look on her face, but she didn’t, accepted my drink order and returns calling out all the drinks for my family, except for mine and says “Here’s yours” with a Shirley Temple. I’m already frustrated and want to address it, but my father tells me not to as it’s an honest mistake and says it was a drink I loved as a kid, and leave it alone. As I mentioned earlier, if she had asked me what that was prior to giving drinks, it would have not been an issue. Upon ordering, we had a margherita style pizza with sausage and pineapple, as well as 3 pasta dishes, tutto mare, lasagna, and agnolotti with chicken. Pizza comes out first and 20 minutes later our pasta comes out. And mine is wrong, again. Instead of agnolotti, I get cheese ravioli in marinara and chicken— for why? I have absolutely no clue. My parents assume that’s what it was, but I look on the menu and agnolotti is meant to be with a cream sauce and spinach half moon filled ravioli. I don’t eat the ravioli as I get heartburn from tomatoes, it’s dry from sitting in the broiler, and I lose my appetite quite easily because again, my order is wrong and I don’t want to be in the restaurant much longer at this point in time. Our server does not come to check on us or ask us how the food is for another 20 minutes, but when she did, I immediately said I just wanted a box, as there’s nothing I can do with my complaint and probably would have had to wait another 40 minutes for my actual order if I did so. The food is delicious and I’m not discounting that and a lot is made in house, but service is lacking in addressing issues, whether it’s not understanding the order or if for whatever reason they ran out of a particular dish, it should be talked about. It’s also another thing if it were busy, but my family was the only table seated...

I was absolutely disgusted at the service of Ciro Ristorante. I had to wait half an hour before I was able to receive service from a waiter. I thought that maybe the restaurant was busy, since it was a Friday night, but my party and I had to wait a full hour before receiving our meals. At this point, I was becoming very impatient at the way the restaurant was serving us. Another huge factor to our disgust was the manner in which we were serviced. My party and I accounted for another party that entered the restaurant about an hour after we did. They were serviced in less than 10 minutes upon arriving and received their food within 20 minutes of ordering. We were astonished in the way our party was treated compared to theirs. However, my party and I decided to give this restaurant one more opportunity through asking for our receipts, so we could make sure we had received the proper amount of change and leave. This proved to be the most irritating effort that I've ever experienced when dining at a restaurant. We were forced to wait for 30 whole minutes, and at that point my party was brought to argue with the restaurant owner/manager. He was denying everything that we were arguing with him about: Their terrible service, their mix-up of our reservation, and the unfairness of the service. Furthermore, when the language became more fierce and the calm argument became filled with profanity, the only thing that the manager could comment about us was our rudeness. This was completely hypocritical coming from him because were forced to sit in their restaurant from about 5:30pm to 7:30pm. We had to wait 2 whole hours to order, eat our meals, and pay our dues. My party eventually grew tired of trying to argue with a man who would not even attempt to apologize and made excuses for himself, so we left. I know for a fact that I will never return to this restaurant and I would recommend anyone else thinking about this restaurant to deeply...