Elisabetta's Ristorante — Restaurant in West Palm Beach

My wife, sister in-law and their friend were accused of doing cocaine in the bathroom and I believe it was racially motivated! My wife made reservations for brunch on 9/17/2023 at 11am at this restaurant for myself and seven of our friends and family. My wife, sister in-law, my mother and myself showed up first. My wife and sister in-law are black and my mom and I are white. They let the hostess know that we were there and ready to be seated. My mom and I are standing behind them. The hostess says in a snotty tone, “You need half of your party here to be seated.” My wife looked at me and then looked back at her and said, “There’s four of us here”. Half of a party of eight is four if I’m not mistaken. Instead of asking if there were more people in the party there, she assumed that my mom and I were not with them, probably because we are white and they’re black. She proceeded to ask if we wanted to sit inside or outside. We told her inside. About 10-15 seconds go by without another word. Next thing out of her mouth is, “Could you all please step to the side so I can help the other customers?” Every time I’ve eaten out at the restaurant, if there isn’t a table immediately available, they will say something like, “Ok, your table will be ready shortly”, and that would indicate to us that we are done checking in, but like I said, this was not the case. Both of those instances, we let it slide without saying another word about it and went to sit down when the table was ready. The next two hours between 11am-1pm were great. Our waiter, Edwardo, was awesome. Come the end of the meal after we all paid our bill, my wife, sister in-law and their friend, who is white, all get up to go to the bathroom together, which is a common thing that women do. My mother also went to the bathroom shortly after they got up. A couple minutes later, their friend comes back to the table saying that the manager said that a staff member saw them doing cocaine in the bathroom. I got up and went over to where they were talking to the manager. My sister in-law is upset and crying at this point after being accused of something without any proof. This is how the story unfolded. They went into the bathroom and all three were in the stall together doing whatever women do in the bathroom together. A few minutes later the manager came knocking on the bathroom stall and asked, “Did you guys pay yet? There are people waiting to use the bathroom”. She was referring to my mom which was just washing her hands and waiting by the sinks for them to come out. The only reason she could be asking if they paid yet would probably be because she didn’t think they were paying customers and just came in to use the bathroom. Mind you, we’ve been sitting at a table in the middle of the dining room for the last two hours. You would’ve had to go out of your way to not notice us as all of the wait staff had to pass by us. If that’s the case, that just shows how poorly vigilante the manager is. The manager leaves the bathroom and they come out after her. She waits until their friend walks away and says to my wife and sister in-law only, “A staff member told me that you were doing cocaine in the stall and we don’t allow that in this establishment.” They were caught off guard by this and started questioning it because not one of us has ever used cocaine, let alone know where to buy it. This isn’t the 1980s. The manager directly accused instead of trying to find out all of the details. As we all were gathered around this conversation at this point, the manager was just talking in circles saying that a staff member told her that they SAW them doing cocaine. Even if that were the case, that would have meant that the staff member was either peeping through the crack of the stall door or they looked over the stall, both of which I’m pretty sure is a crime. We ended up leaving under our own volition and will never return to this restaurant. We have contacted a civil rights lawyer and the NAACP as this is textbook racial profiling by more than one person at this...

Much hype about nothing.

Food: * Service: * Atmosphere: **(inside AC not good)

I’ve been told about this place for a while now by family members saying we must to try it and sit in some gazebo birdcage type seating. This places sounded like it’s one of the places to be at in the Palm Beach scene (usually that immediately makes me not want to go).

So on a random Monday night we decided to give it a try last minute to celebrate an anniversary with a dinner. We were able to get a gazebo table which is kind of cool but is outside and near the road but it’s also ICW adjacent so I can see the coolness factor vibe. There was a nice breeze off the water but it was still quite warm sitting outside. Truth be told it wasn’t much better inside since the restaurant is open air it’s not that much cooler inside.

So we ordered drinks, apps, and food. My wife ordered some special Prosecco popsicle drink which was nothing special. It was pretty much sodas all around otherwise except for my daughters Shirley temple which tasted better and looked cooler than my wife’s Prosecco cocktail that was basically Prosecco with a broken popsicle in the glass.

After a slight delay in ordering because our waiter seemed to get lost or was busy with other tables, in a restaurant that I wouldn’t say wasnt busy or crowded but I wouldn’t say dead either. It’s what I would expect for Palm Beach at the end of the season on a Monday night.

When ordering my wife inquired about an item that has mushroom to see if it could be prepared without to which the waiter said yes it could be done without mushrooms. This was clearly requested as she has a mushroom allergy. We finished ordering without anything out of the norm.

Apps came out in a slightly longer than reasonable amount of time but nothing too crazy. The food followed soon thereafter without much waiting for fanfare. The bread provided while you wait is terrific. It was worth the carbs.

So when the food arrived my eggplant parm, the Monday special, was luke warm, had very little cheese or sauce, and was lacking in flavor. My daughter ordered plain pasta with butter and cheese (she is 11). Her order came out with sauce and no cheese. They took it back and returned pasta with butter, no cheese, and it appeared they rinsed the pasta under some water to remove the sauce and made the pasta soggy and congeal together. We then asked the waiter for grated cheese which took forever for him to bring and I will get to why that was in a moment.

So when my wife special order (without mushrooms) arrived the item contained truffle oil and we later learned diced mushroom also inside. So her item arrived, contrary to what we were originally told, it was made with truffle oil and contained mushrooms within which made my wife ill. Unfortunately my bride, on our anniversary, spent part of the evening in the restroom sick vomiting.

The manager came over to check on things and see if she could help which felt partially genuine, partially CYA considering someone screwed up the order. This made our already absentee waiter seem to be even more scarce. To make up for things they removed my wife’s items from the bill which was nice but after brining us an “anniversary” tiramisu “on the house” later when the bill arrived we were learned we were charged for it….something we never ordered.

In summary - 3 of the 6 meals were not good, service was not good, atmosphere was ok but overrated which is what I believe sums up this place…an overrated Palm Beach “hot spot” that I will not...

It’s hard to believe that a single waiter could have such a significant impact on a dining experience, especially since I’ve always had great service in the past. But today at Elisabetta's, our experience was completely ruined by our waiter, RYAN. Honestly, I’m still shocked at how unacceptable his behavior was towards us. To start, our table didn’t have any forks or napkins, which was inconvenient but, something that has an easy fix. We had to ask another server to bring them, and thankfully, he handled it right away. When we asked for bread to start, Ryan tried to upsell us on an appetizer. We politely declined as we were already ordering pizza as our entree. He responded in a very dry manner and just walked away without saying anything. When it came to drinks, I ordered a Sprite, and my boyfriend ordered a Coke. His drink had a sweet aftertaste, which is typical of Diet Coke. Since he can’t have artificial sweeteners due to its effect on him, he asked for another regular Coke. As the other server brought it, my boyfriend mentioned briefly to Ryan that it might’ve been Diet Coke because of the aftertaste. Ryan scoffed and, in the most sassy tone imaginable said “It WAS already a regular Coke.” I wish I was exaggerating, but I’m not. Throughout the meal, we felt so uncomfortable that we kept turning to other waiters for help. We didn’t feel we could ask Ryan for anything whether it was refills, napkins, or even sides. When our pizza arrived, Ryan didn’t offer us cheese or chili flakes, which is rare for the Elisabetta’s dining experience. I had to ask him myself, and he did end up bringing them. The whole thing felt rushed, and it seemed like Ryan was doing the bare minimum to get us in and out.

Here comes the worst part of the experience. When it was time to pay, Ryan set the card machine down on the table and left us to fill it out in front of him. My boyfriend tried to adjust the tip since, frankly, this was the worst service we’ve ever had, and Ryan didn’t deserve anything close to a 20% tip. We accidentally clicked “pay now,” and when we asked Ryan to help us go back to the previous screen, he told us it was automatically set to 20% and there was no way to change it. My boyfriend said he didn’t want to leave that much, and Ryan rudely said something along the lines of, “There’s no way to go back, it was 20%.” Then, he had the nerve to ask, in a hostile manner, if there was something wrong with the experience that we didn’t want to leave 20%. This completely caught us off guard not just because of his tone, but because tips are optional. We tip based on the service we receive, and this was awful. We were essentially forced to sign the screen as Ryan glared at us, claiming there was nothing he could do. After my boyfriend reluctantly signed, Ryan walked away without saying a single word. We went inside to get help, and thankfully, the manager was understanding and helped us with the payment. While the food at Elisabetta’s is good, this experience was so uncomfortable that I’m not sure we’ll ever return. To make matters worse, this happened on Valentine’s Day, a day that should have been enjoyable. Ryan’s behavior made what should have been a special occasion a terrible one. It’s hard to put into words how disappointed we are with how this entire...