Vesuvio Ristorante — Restaurant in Woolwich Township

This seems like a place that's enjoyable if you're a regular. The staff spent a lot of time talking to customers that very obviously frequent the restaurant. My experience was quite different, however. The host pointed to a table across the dining room and said "you can have that one in the middle", my wife and I walked toward "the middle" and were still confused by which table we were to be seated. Other guests had a more personal experience and were walked to their table, as I observed. I felt like an extra in an episode of a sitcom starring the people sitting at the tables next to me, with the staff also being part of the cast. I wouldn't say we were ignored, but our waitress gave us 10-15 second interactions that were brief one-liners. It was functional and transactional, but definitely not personal.

The vibe of this place is weird. It feels like an Italian diner and not so much an Italian restaurant. It has all the "we're Italian" decor, but the dining room feels very dated. Very strangely, they played country music the entire time. It didn't really make any sense, and I really hate country music. How do these two things go together at all? Parking also quickly becomes a nightmare. Good luck finding a spot unless you get there early.

The menu doesn't look professionally printed, which kinda adds to the "diner" vibe. It's not a deal breaker, just another thing that takes away from the restaurant vibe. But that said, I've eaten at plenty of diners that felt more polished than Vesuvio.

The food was really just ok. I ordered the chicken parm, which had a few bones in it as I somewhat startlingly discovered in the first few bites. At least the portion size was reasonable, albeit the spaghetti portion seemed a little small relative to the chicken. Otherwise, it tasted fine. The salad was really just a plate of lettuce with a single slice of cucumber and tomato, nothing special. Bluntly, it wasn't bad, but I've definitely had better.

Comparing this to Terra Nova, Italian Affair, even Gia Nina's; I can't reasonably recommend this place. I've been to all the other places I've mentioned and they're far and away superior to Vesuvio's in practically every way. Piecewise, Gia Nina's might be the most appels to apples comparison and it's still not close. I don't get how this place is always so busy, which was really the only reason I thought to go there. Maybe the regulars love it, I guess. It's not for me. I'll go back to Gia Nina's for Italian food at this...

We went for dinner. We were seated in the back. The waitress put the menus on the table and napkins and silverware on top of the napkins. One of the knives had wet pasta on it. The salad was fresh but mostly lettuce. It was okay. The bread was awesome! The high light of our meal. We both had the broccoli penne with wine sauce. One plate had much more than the other one. The dish didn't have much taste at all. The entire time we had to listen to the wait staff talking in loud voices. I did not need to know that one of them asked her husband to put cream on her aching legs and he refused. She also was complaining about nursing her child and other problems. She was obviously very upset with her husband. We waited longer for our check than was necessary. Obviously some people that came in were regulars and they were treated much better than we were. I won't go back. It was a very unpleasant experience. My husband and I couldn't even have a conversation because of the staff conversations going on. Mediocre food at best and an...

The staff is very friendly and the service was good. We started with bruschetta which was good, and mozzarella sticks which were not good because all you tasted was the breading soaked in oil. Two people in our party ordered from "today's specials", and liked their food. However I ordered the penne and broccoli in a white wine sauce which came out cold and had no taste. They took it to reheat and it came back steaming but was cold again within 2 minutes and I ended up taking 75% of it home. Very surprised that I ended up paying for my full meal despite this. Another person ordered chicken parm, which was about on par with most diners. The quality and price of basic menu items are poor. I did not imagine that for $17 I would get premade box pasta and a little broccoli in a flavorless sauce. The chicken parm was $21 and it comes with a small portion of spaghetti and 2 small pieces of chicken that might add up...