Dolce "Ristaurante" in Oaks

[Disgruntled customer]

Went there for lunch yesterday with my wife and I must say this was by far the worst experience I ever had. I cannot entirely blame the waitress, after all, she was the ONLY one there! No other waitresses, no managers, no nothing! What are the owners thinking? We waited about 20 minutes to get our drinks. My wife ordered one kind of a panini and I ordered another kind of a panini. The soups sounded good, so we decided to split a bowl of soup as an appetizer. We waited forever. Finally, my wife's panini came out at the same time the soup came out. The waitress told me my panini would be out in just a minute. Meanwhile, over 30 minutes pass by, the soup is gone and my wife has long been finished with her panini - but I still never got mine! I finally got the waitress's attention and told her to cancel my panini. She apologizes, but that's it. A place with even decent customer service would have still offered the panini for free, but no...just an apology and a slew of excuses that I really didn't want to hear. We waited about 10 more minutes for the check. I always pay with a credit card, but decided to use cash this time for fear that this establishment would charge me the wrong amount. I am a VERY patient person, but this was ridiculous. I will NEVER go back and I can guarantee that if they don't get their act together right away, they'll be gone within weeks. Oh, and by the way, another couple came in after us and after they waited about 20 minutes with no drinks, they just walked out (something I was VERY close to doing as well). One last thing, there was only 2 other parties in the whole place besides us, so it's not like they were busy. Aside from all of this, the lunch and dinner menus both looked good, but at the same time, who cares what's on the menu if you never get your food!

[Roddy]

I would lean towards giving these guys the benefit of the doubt. It's an extremely hard thing to start a resturant, and this is probably a growing pain more than an indication of the future. Hopefully they'll learn from this incident.

[Never Again Customer]

Went there for dinner last night after a movie - and I must say, it was horrible. We each ordered a caesar salad and it came out, not even tossed but with the dressing on the side and you know it was straight out of a bottle - had that nasty vinegary after-taste. I ordered the chicken parm and the waitress me if I wanted a side of macaroni with it. I kind of looked at her "macaroni"? She explained that they didn't have spaghetti - wait this is an Italian eatery, right? How do you run out of spaghetti?? My chicken parm was cold and the cheese was like rubber on top - like it had been sitting a while. It was almost like they made mine and then realized that my husband's meal went with it, so mine sat. Can't blame the waitress - but I just will never go back to this place again. Over priced and not worth it. I would have rather gone to Max & Erma's and had a beer and a burger.

[Kelly]

I agree with Roddy....except that if they ran out of spaghetti they could have at least ran over to Target and got more!

[Disgruntled customer]

Roddy/Kelly, trust me, I thought about giving them the benefit of the doubt. However, it's hard for me to do that because from what I understand and have heard (from a couple different people), the owners of Dolce used to own Oaks Pizzeria (before they sold it to open Dolce). If this is true, they are certainly not new to the restaurant business and should know better. If I am misinformed on this and Dolce's owners are not the same, then I can see myself giving this place one more chance - just not any time soon.

[Roddy]

That's interesting if it's true that those guys used to own Oaks Pizzeria . . . come to think of it I haven't seen the original Oaks Pizzeria owners there in a long time. I know that that pizza place was really well run, so this is surprising. I want to find out more . . .

[psufan227]

The owners are the same so it is a little surprising about the quality of the food, however the wait staff at Oaks were never that great or attentive so it would not surprise me that it hasn't improved. Oaks Pizzeria is definitely not as good as it used to be since the change.

[Steve]

We waited to be seated for 9 minutes, which is fine, and expected. It took 6 minutes to get water. The bread was cold and stale. Let me tell you about the waiter...he came back after 15 minutes of sitting and said "what would you like to drink; how bout an appetizer?". Seriously, didn't he think 15 minutes was enough time? He stood in the back on the wall; meanwhile, everyone needed water. 1 hr spent and the salad still failed to make it out! This place is over priced, slow, and just freaking awful!

[Jan]

Hmm, we had a similar experience. Place looked nice, chairs were comfy, by the service was appalling: no drinks menu, drinks never arrived, sat with 2 empty water glasses that the water-boy did not seem to notice despite repeated passes by our table, the rather grumpy waitress had no information on the food besides that the pasta was fresh(?).

Our food tasted good (chicken with sage and ham), but the cappuccino (no foam,$4) was clearly a mix from a can! The deserts were all frozen Bindi products on a Bindi menu. Get real folks.

Hope they get a visit from Ramsey soon...

[unhappy customer]

We ordered paninis for lunch. 35 minutes later we received our lunch and no one bothered to tell us it was on the way either. One of the paninis was cold in the middle. The other was a vegetable panini which, consisted of celery chunks, shredded carrots, hot cucumbers, roasted peppers (the only veggie that should have been there) and spring mix salad. It was terrible.

There were only 12 people in the restaurant and we were told everyone ordered paninis and they only had one grill.

Also, the spelling of the restuarant is incorrect. "Ristaurante" is not a word in either language.

I hope they can pull it together before losing their business.

[Disgruntled customer]

Has anyone been to Dolce recently? Are they any better? Are they still in business?