Michael's Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Waukesha

I really hate leaving bad reviews and always think about how much reviews mean to businesses, but I have also started to think, why doesn't the business care about possibly losing me as a customer? Are they putting that thought into their product? I really wanted to like this place, I love Italian, it smelled so good walking in, and it is a charming kind of 80s style italian restaurant that are quickly going extinct. I decided to try some appetizers and if they were good try more, hey they hand bread their mozzarella sticks instead of taking the easy way and throwing them in a wonton....great sign. The mozzarella sticks weren't amazing, but they weren't awful either. If I went there again, I'd order them, but I wouldn't go out of my way to buy them. Definitely pricey at $11 for 5. They are bigger than the average stick, but for $11, I expected more. The cheese garlic bread....well I was brave enough to try a bite. There was this brownish goo on it, that I hope was garlic, but didn't really have a garlic smell or taste, the bread was dryer than dry, where was the butter? The layer of cheese was so thin, it made me think of Kramer and the meat slicer, add to that a corner was burned to take it to the next level of dry. Who said this is the kind of quality we want leaving our kitchen under our name?

Full disclosure on the bread on the left, I lifted up the cheese to see how thin it was and what was underneath and to identify what the brown stuff was after the first bite.

-Response, the cheese garlic bread just wasn't overcooked. The seem to have been quite a few reviews about stuff coming out of the kitchen that shouldn't have, so someone should've said that is not good enough to leave our kitchen, not well you should tell someone about it. I drove from about 15 minutes away, so I should come back and wait for someone to make it the way they should have the first place, ignoring the other issues with it and just dealing with it being burnt? I would expect a response that said something to the effect that we are ashamed that came out of...

We have ordered take out pizza from Michaels. It has always been good. They do a good job with balancing the right amount of all the ingredients, and you can tell they pay attention to the details.

This was our first time eating inside. We came on a Friday night, around 5:30. We couldn't make reservations (they only do reservations for parties larger than four). We were surprised that we were able to get a table right away. The inside is quite spacious (bigger than it looks). It was noisy inside, but you could still have a reasonable conversation. There are plenty of tables for different size groups. Our service did a great job the entire evening.

We got settled in right away, with waters and menus. We decided that we would order our Fried Calamari appetizer right away, along with our drinks. The cocktails came out in short order and were a good pour.

We then ordered a mix of different entrees including: Italian Salad with Blackened Salmon, Fish Fry, Spaghetti and Meatballs, and Capellini Pomodoro. While we waited we were also served both Garlic and Italian Bread. I would characterize the food as "good" but not great. The Garlic Bread tasted a little "off". We all felt that it has a strong, almost sweet/musty garlic flavor. Normally we would have eaten all the bread and asked for more, but there was leftover. The calamari was good, the breading was light, and the meat not overly chewy. However, it was a little soggy, and could have benefited from being cooked longer. The Blackened Salmon I had was very good. Had great flavor, good portion size, it was hot, and well presented. The Capellini was good, it's angel hair pasta al dente, and the chicken was tender, with excellent flavor. The Fish Fry was overcooked to the point of being tough. My mother ate very little of it.

We were full, so we had some of the leftovers boxed up. No dessert for us this time.

So the food we got was a mix of good and bad. Not sure we would dine in again. Maybe just stick to the...

My husband and I decided to treat my mother and rest of my family to take out from Michael's last night. Big mistake. I ordered online, and was told via the app that it was a one-hour wait time. We got there at 6 pm when it was supposed to be ready, and waited a full TWO HOURS to get the food. As if that wasn't bad enough, the restaurant was at capacity of people having to wait a minimum 1-2 hours for their food. WHY NOT JUST OPEN THE RESTAURANT AT THIS POINT????? There were only three women operating the phone line, online orders, and the 50 people waiting in line. None seemed to care about getting the food out to the right customers faster. When I approached the blonde high school-aged worker to ask when my food would be out after two hours of waiting, she said: "you had a large order, so it's a 1.5 hr wait, but the app won't let us give more than a 60 minute expected wait time." When I told her that it clearly wasn't a 1.5 hr wait time because it was already THREE HOURS since I made the order, she just said "sorry, it's not our fault the app won't let us update people on the wait time," in the most snide, condescending voice. When I started talking to the other customers in a loud voice about the treatment I had just received, suddenly my food order magically appeared out of the kitchen. When we lifted the bags, they were searing hot on the bottom, clearly as a result of sitting on a warmer for a while. And when we got home to remove all the food, the pasta boxes had all sunk into each other. Our food was waiting in the kitchen a minimum of 10 minutes when it should have been brought out immediately. The poor Door Dash and other delivery people had to miss out on half their night's pay just because of this. And I didn't hear a single employee apologize for it. Disgraceful! I will never...