A group of us visited Pesto's last Sunday to gorge ourselves on the buffet... I really gotta quit doing that, gorging that is. Regardless, here is the lowdown: the breadsticks are fantastic--warm and buttery, the pizza is pretty good too, however it is hit and miss on the pasta choices. A couple of the dishes were really good and a couple of them were marginal.
But that's okay! It is unrealistic to ask any random diner to give a thumbs up to each and every dish set before him or her, right? Right.
I like Pesto's... really like it. See my earlier posting for proof. I have dined at Pesto's since before they moved to their current location. They are not perfect, what restaurant is? Mario Batali doesn't have anything to worry about, I am sure. Food, cleanliness, ambiance, etc. were all on par with all my previous dining experiences.
Okay: now the other shoe drops. Since I am not used to dining with larger parties, I was caught unawares by the automatic addition to our bill of an 18% gratuity. Our server, a young woman named M___, did not mention it and since we all had the buffet, we were not reminded of it on the menu. Nevertheless, when the bill was paid, we dutifully added our gratuity and it was accepted without so much as a comment about the now $42 or so dollar tip she had received for her sterling efforts in keeping our beverage glasses full. Ka-ching.
Yeah, I know it was our fault for not paying closer attention, which we should have done. But it was pretty obvious we had made a mistake and neither the server or the management made a comment. It was just money in her pocket, I guess. This shows a fundamental lack of integrity on the part of the server and a lack of training on the part of management. They should train the server to clearly identify that gratuity is added to large parties... unless, of course, they simply do not care.
I despise the practice of automatic gratuities. It forces the diner into an awkward situation if service is sub par, and ultimately insulting to the intelligence and honesty of the average diner. While I know servers in general will probably disagree with this sentiment, the fact is, an auto grat is a server's license for mediocrity.
Lesson learned.
TV dinner like italian restaurant...A step above Fazoli.....The best italian hands down is zaza up the street. Not a wanna be ..The real thing...From their Veal to their Tiramisu...Nothing compares to zaza....
ReplyDeleteFor the benefit of the NWI culinary audience, I will respectfully disagree with the anonymous poster on January 11, 2012: many things compare with zaza's. Cafeteria food for instance. You can read about my experience in my review of zaza's if you'd like under the name johnp. That said, Pesto's isn't great...kind of like an olive garden as far as the authenticity scale goes, but they have a few good options and charge 1/2 as much.
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