Buca di Beppo

Reviews 4

A

A Private User

My boyfriend and I went to the Huntington Beach location this afternoon and experienced the worst service we probably have ever had at a restaurant. We ordered from our waitress, Lisa N., drinks, mozzarella garlic bread with a side of marinara, chopped antipasto salad, linguine fruitti di mare, and cheese manicotti. Twenty minutes later, we are brought our bread with no marinara. We asked Lisa if she could bring the side of marinara we had ordered and she said okay. A minute later, we are brought our salad and entrees all at once. We hadn’t even had a piece of bread before our entire meal was sitting before us. Five minutes later, Lisa finally brings the marinara. She makes no acknowledgement that our appetizer and entrees were brought out at the same time, much less apologize. My boyfriend finally says to her – “Would you please bring our entrees to the kitchen to keep warm while we eat our appetizers?” Lisa N. says rudely, “Well then, let me know when you are ready for these dishes.” After we felt rushed to finish our appetizers, we were brought our entrees. During that time, she took our appetizer plates away along with the only napkin I had. There were no other napkins at the table I could use, so I went without. We also did not receive waters with our meal. My boyfriend asked her when we were almost finished with our entrees, “Can we please have some water.” She only brings one glass of water, so my boyfriend had to explicitly request, “We both would like waters.” We have been frequent customers at Buca di Beppo, specifically the Huntington Beach location, for over seven years. However, in all our experiences eating at this Buca’s and other restaurants as well, we have never received such poor service as we did today. What made it even more outrageous was the fact Lisa N. never once apologized for all the food coming out at once, or not bringing waters, etc. In fact, anytime we asked her for something she would say, “Oh ok” as if it was a burden to her. Lastly, before today, I had not been to Buca’s for a few months because of the bad experience I had in picking up an order to go. That day, I had called ahead to place my order, however, when I got there to pick it up 15 minutes later, Lisa N (yes, the same waitress as today) read back my order and had apparently forgot to include the main dish I had ordered! She simply said, “Oh, it will only be about 10-15 minutes while we make that dish for you.” Again, she made no apologies. I asked her, “So is the rest of the food I ordered just going to sit there while the kitchen makes the dish?” She responds with “Yes, don’t worry though, it will keep warm.” After my experience today, my boyfriend and I will not be going back to Buca di Beppos for a long time, and definitely never the Huntington Beach location ever again.

BR

Brian Bergström

We were treated to a dinner here last week and it is just lousy. I remembered why I hate Buca di Beppos. First we ate in the Pope Room, as a Catholic I can say it is kinda weird... I mean I can appreciate all of it. But since I am guessing most people are not Catholic dedicating a room to the Pope is odd. In fact we were among the last to arrive in the party and the poor protestants we were supping with had already had the bust of Pope John Paul II removed from the room. I have seen it before, and having the Popes head in the middle of a lazy Susan is kind of creepy. We were a large party, but that doesnt excuse the slow service, it is not like we didnt have reservations. Or that since there is a room constantly booked for large parties, they should be properly staffed for it. Especially if when it gets close to the time for the next party they are rushing you out. Come on, if it didnt take forever to bring the order wed be gone naturally. Food was poor to mediocre at best. The selections were Spaghetti and demolished meatball pieces, Chicken Parmesan and Pasta Alfredo. The Alfredo was simply inedible, how can you go wrong with pouring a box of Spaghetti into boiling water and the Chicken was actually edible. There was also a salad and horrible cheesecake type something. It didnt taste like any cheesecake I have ever had. There was no crust, and tasted like it was missing salt and other ingredients that bring out the flavor. Maybe it was some kind of healthy, sugar free, salt free, gluten free dessert substitute. So I was seated near the host so I saw the bill, so for 3 bowls of salad, 3 bowls of each of the 3 entrees, and 18 slices of wannabe cheesecake it was $568 including tax and tip with soft drinks for some of the people. No alcohol that I saw was served. Thats more than $31 per person!!! Sorry I wouldve come a little unglued if I were paying for that... For $50 I could go to Costco and buy a lot more and better frozen Italian food that could be thrown in the oven and taste 100x better. Even pick up a $6 box of garlic bread with 27 slices. Yeah I would have to work a little to cook it, but for $500 it would be worth it. Parking was awful, we circled twice and were late to the dinner, so we just parked in the "to go" spot, nobody said anything. One last humorous event, before the kicked us out, someone stopped by with a digital camera and had everyone bunch up on the far side of the dirty table and took a picture. Then came back with 4 pictures with a Buca di Beppos border around them and said we could buy the pictures (which are going in the trash if we didnt anyway) for $10 each. Really??? We took pictures at the event ourselves and for a couple dollars I could print everyone at the table 8x10 photos if they wanted.

A

A Private User

My husband and I enjoy eating at new establishments so we decided to give this place a try- BAD DECISION. We have one "eat out" day a week and it was so disappointing to waste it on such total yuck food. Okay, granted the atmosphere is cheery- lots of fun pictures and "authentic" looking Italian fare to look at. The horrible lasagne was chewy, rubbery, tasted old and literally like canned dog food. (YES, I have indeed sampled ALPO) My husbands chicken dish was equally as nasty. His very first bite was a big chunk of chicken gristle. The runny sauce was liken to that of Campbells tomato soup with milk added. The appetizer was burnt, again, tasted old, and was swimming in a vat of cooking oil. Sorry Buca- but the memory of the food still makes my skin crawl. The service was okay- but the food just ruined the whole experience. We will never waste money there again.

JE

Jes Go

We visited this location on 1/08/17 for my mothers birthday. We believed we had a good experience until I check my bank statement and they stole from us $30. We left the waitress a cash tip of 15%. It must of not been enough that she chose to steal from us by altering the bill. The bill says it was 10 people and even that is altered , it was 5 adults and a child. We cant even trust an establishment like Bucca because they hired a thief . We are calling corporate and the location we went to. I will not hesitate to file a police report. I have a posted picture on yelp of her name on the receipt .