Sal's Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Virginia

Adored this place when it was Mama Concetta's and the NRV mall store before that. I decided to swing in and see how the new place was. I imagine their dinner is still delicious, but the lunch left much to be desired. First and foremost, while the lunch is all-you-can-eat, it is NOT a buffet. You're still having to go through the slow process of waiting to be seated, waiting for someone to take your drink order and bring them out, take your order for food from the list of all-you-can-eat items, wait for your food to cook, and then they bring your food from the kitchen. Repeat the order/wait process for additional food items. I appreciate that this maximizes the freshness of the food and keeps operations uniform for the kitchen and wait staff, but it is too slow for the normal lunch crowds. I was delighted to find the restaurant packed when I came in, but discovered this was more due to slow speeds than popularity. It's easier to pack a restaurant if you're slow at turning tables.

If you've got an hour or less for your lunch break, this is NOT the place to go. Orange Road's traffic was horribly congested with lots of traffic lights, making travel much longer than the GPS predicted. Having 2 servers for the whole restaurant certainly didn't help with speed. I would normally overlook this in a review unless it was a regular event--perhaps they had some folks call out that day--but I was appalled when I was welcomed to the restaurant by who I presume was the owner (I hadn't seen him with facial hair before) and he said my table would be ready as soon as HE cleaned it off. He then proceeded to mull about for a couple minutes waiting for the bus staff--running around frantically trying to keep up with the lunch rush--to clean off the table. I got the impression that the manager was not concerned that the wait staff was clearly underpowered and had no intention of helping ease their burden. That said, the wait staff was friendly, proper, and nicely dressed, albeit lacking efficiency and clearly understaffed.

As for the food, you get a sufficient variety in the lunch menu, though food quality was mixed. Presentation was better than expected. The pizza was as good as always. The meat lasagna was satisfactory. The cheese ravioli was very good. The pasta primavera was just awful (they even misspelled it on the menu); despite being smothered in white sauce and having a variety of veggies, all I could taste was the broccoli. Of course, I didn't get to try all the other menu items since portions were set by the kitchen rather than myself.

As much as I loved previous locations of this restaurant, Roanoke/Salem has much better offerings. Next time I'm craving Italian for lunch in Roanoke, I will...

We went for an early supper on a Saturday evening. I arrived first and was greeted by a very unhappy looking woman who didn’t get any less dour as the evening wore on. A server set me up quickly with a table for 7 and I thought I might enjoy a Campari and soda as an aperitif while I waited for the rest of the family. This Italian restaurant doesn’t have Campari… I asked for a vermouth on the rocks instead, Cinzano or Martini and Rossi, you know, the famous Italian vermouths. Sour woman came and told me they don’t have these sorts of things, “Here is our wine list.” I had a beer instead.

So already I sound snobby, but they are an Italian restaurant.

Reading the menu, I started cringing with episodes of Gordon Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares in my head. The menu leans heavily, heavily, on pizza, pasta, and sauces. Italian food is so much more. Most entrees come with a salad that is Olive Garden-esque and poorly presented, languishing in the bottom of a cereal bowl.

Apparently once a restaurant gets off on the wrong foot with me, I’m not very forgiving. I apologise, but I’m also not exaggerating my disappointment.

One child wanted the kid’s cheese ravioli plate with alfredo sauce instead of marinara. The cheese ravioli is $6.99; there is an alfredo pasta dish on the child’s menu for $7.99; the ravioli with the Alfredo sauce substitution was $11.99. Make of that what you will.

I got a small (10”) cheese pizza. It was larger than 10” and heavier on the sauce than the cheese, which made the center too soggy to be able to pick up a slice and eat it (the tip flopped down so that I couldn’t put it in my mouth). I tried to eat it with a knife and fork, but the knife would cut through all but the very bottom of the crust. Sawing back and forth I was burning more calories than I ate. Finally, I flipped the tip over the top of the slice toward the crusty rim, picked it up and ate it that way. My niece was unable to cut into her Stromboli and ended up tearing it in half and eating it like a hand pie. The crust tasted nice but requires a steak knife to eat.

Clearly other people have different expectations of a restaurant (I’m looking at you, Ms Dour) and Italian ones in particular because Sal’s is popular and there was a line waiting for tables.

So take my review with a grain of salt and dine at your own risk.

Shout out to Ari!! Ari was a new server when we ate there. We presented her with four adult women, all chatting our heads off, a middle-schooler, and two toddlers. She did awesomely and was tipped...

We got a few appetizers: caprese, stuffed mushrooms and garlic knots. The only appetizer that is worth it is the garlic knots. The caprese doesn’t say it comes with balsamic vinegar on top but it does and it’s thick and not delicious. I prefer my caprese without it so if you don’t like balsamic vinegar make sure to request it without it. The tomatoes weren’t super red either. I would not order it again if we ever came back.

The stuffed mushrooms were like $6 and you got 5 of them… really? That’s it? I was thinking like a basket or something but nope. I would not order those again either.

If you want a side of alfredo to dip your bread it it’s $5 for a tiny ramekin, not a bowl. You are probably better off getting a kids meal hold the pasta for $7 if you want alfredo to dip your bread into.

The salad was iceberg lettuce and kind of flat. I wasn’t a huge fan.

My alfredo with penne was good but my husband didn’t even eat his chicken Fresca because it was too bitter/wine tasting. I tried it and did not like it. He basically took two bites and couldn’t eat anymore.

We were sat (8 people) by the side door that leads out onto the patio, we asked if we could sit outside and I guess the extra 6-10 ft they would have had to walk was too far because they weren’t seating anyone outside anymore. Instead it was legit freezing and cold. The ac was blowing straight at us at 66 degrees. The people at the table next to us thought it was cold too but they were not as cold as us since it went over their head and shot directly at us.

I mentioned this when we were checking out and the lady at the register just shrugged and was like what can you do? I was like I dunno turn the air down a little so we don’t freeze?

Overall the food was ok but the ambiance was not good enough to really want to come back. And apparently the card for William Byrd my husband’s cousin had just expired so we didn’t even get the 10% off even though he had the new one at home and didn’t realize it expired 8/31 and he needed to put the new one in his wallet for 9/1. Watch out for those expiration dates and ask to sit away from the ac unit if you don’t want your food to get cold and your children and yourself to freeze if you do...