03/28/09

good food, bad service

by karab

The food is pretty good. $13 for a pasta and shrimp dish. It's cash only, which is fine since the pricing is pretty good. They do charge a corking fee altho it's $2/bottle. I've been to a ton of Philly BYOBs and I never paid a corking fee at the 2 LA Viola's, Branzino, La Fontana, Bellini, etc.

So it was a Saturday night, we were squished in a corner on top of the neighboring tables. We were there over 2 hours because the service was slow. We had to ask for bread, more water and such. The wait staff was plain rude, especially when I asked them about the check. So they put in a 18% tip, which I can understand for a group of people but they put the tip on not just the total bill but the tax too. I find that just plain wrong, I do not have to pay tip on tax. And being that the service was horrible, we didn't even think they deserved the 18%.

I was there once before during the week and the service was good because we were the only table of people there. I think they are just too overwhelmed during there weekend.

• Pros: food god, reasonable priced
• Cons: slow service, rude wait staff, very small space

02/22/09

Surely Philadelphia has better!

by ChristopherAnn

In Philadelphia on a brief visit and stumbled into this place. We should have known that it's not exactly in the "whatever we can do to please our customers" business when we were told that it's cash only. My husband wanted to leave right then, figuring if they don't mind inconveniencing customers when it comes to payment, they won't mind inconveniencing them in other ways. But I was hungry, the food smelled good, so at my insistence, he checked his billfold and I checked my purse and we thought we had enough, so we stayed.

I am surprised they are still in business. The food was just okay, but the service was arrogant, even rude. I thought maybe they only treat out-of-towners like that, but came here and read a review (too late, unfortunately). If La Baia were in a small town and it was the only place to go, that would be one thing. But Philadelphia is a great food town, and it surely has many wonderful restaurants from which to choose. As tourists, this place left a bad taste in our mouths. Who wants to be treated poorly in return for just average food?

01/19/09

Worst experience EVER

by chinesefairy

I advise anyone to stay away from this place, unless you enjoy being insulted/yelled at by the restaurant owners.

Service was rude from the minute we walked in. We were meeting friends who had been holding a table for us. Granted we were running a bit late, but there was NO ONE else waiting so we really didn't think it was necessary to treat us like criminals.

The restaurant is so crowded that one has hardly room to breath. When the lady who would later serve us (presumably one of the restaurant owners) was standing by the door, my friend could not get up to go to the bathroom. I asked her politely if she could move to the side so my friend could go use the restroom, she told me in a very rude voice to "just wait" (not sure what she was doing...).

We were also told that we would have to vacate the table in 45 min (although it turned out no one had reserved our table)

We were later joined by two other friends who did not eat an entree (but four of us ordered appetizer, entree, dessert and coffee, spending over $30 per person), but at no point in the process did they have to make ANYONE wait on a table or turn anyone away because we were "taking up" their precious seats. I suppose this was still enough reason for them to categorize us as customers who came to take advantage of their restaurant. Our candle at the table was never lit, and every one of our dishes was served with a good dose of contempt.

When the bill came, we were quite surprised to find corking charges and roughly 20% gratuity added to our bill (neither was mentioned anywhere on the menu or by our server). When we politely inquired about these charges, we were yelled at by the restaurant owner (presumably husband of afore-mentioned lady) that he had been in the restaurant business for over 20 years and that we were not in a position to tell him what to do.

Food was decent but by far did not offset even a fraction of the terrible experience.

• Pros: Good food (enjoyed the calamari appetizer)
• Cons: Extremely rude staff/owners, insult you when you inquire about unexplained charges