Viva Bene Italian Ristorante, Worcester Restaurant Review
Viva Bene is an Italian Restaurant tucked into the very center of Worcester, across from the Foothills Theater. We had been recommended this restaurant by two different people and went there with a group of six people. It was six in the evening on a Tuesday but there were very few patrons in the restaurant. We were seated at a table near the back. The room was nicely done, white linen tableclothes, wood accents in the room.The waitress took a while to come around for our drink orders, and then took a while to return with the drinks. Then it was an even longer while before she showed up to take our orders. We had to ask her if there were any specials before she told us what they were.
A number of us ordered the portobello mushroom, which was all right but nothing special stood out. The bread does deserve a mention, it was fresh and well enjoyed by people. They served the bread with butter, oil and cheese, which provided a selection of alternatives.
When they took away the appetizer plates they put the dirty fork and knife down on the table for use with the main dish. I found that extremely unsanitary. They should have either put them on the bread plate, or taken them away and brought me new, clean ones. Especially as the linen tablecloth now had stains on it from the mushroom juice that was on the fork.
The main dishes came out. They were also all right, not bad, not spectacular. I had the veal marsala. It was reasonably good if a bit plain. However, I still had a medallion of veal on my dish when the waiter came along and took away my plate without any comment. Other people were still eating, so it wasn't that I was the last one lingering and obviously "done". I found that odd.
I had the rocky road chocolate dessert which was again in the "good" realm.
As we were finishing the main part of the meal, the waiters slid open the doors next to us to reveal the back room which had a noisy party going on. While the doors were closed the noise levels were fine - but with those doors wide open we could not hear ourselves talk any more. You would think the waiter would close the doors again but he left them open. We had to go over and close them ourselves - and ask for him to - to keep a reasonable talking atmosphere.
One of our members who hadn't gotten wine initially later asked for a glass of wine and was given an iffy answer about the waiter getting to it. Then the waiter returned a while later and asked if she still wanted the wine, which of course she did, and it was finally brought.
The worst problem was with the bill. We asked them to put the charge on several cards, each clearly marked with the amount to go on it. We do this everywhere we eat since we all tax deduct our meals. We told her we'd do the tips separately so this was only for the main meal. She came back after running the cards and said we still owed $42! We found this outrageous since if anything we over-pay. We re-added up the numbers ourselves and we had covered the bill. She apparently had some problems with basic math. We ended up leaving a 30% tip because we all wanted to make sure the bill was covered. The service here definitely did NOT warrant a 30% tip. Nobody felt like dealing with the issues of fixing the bill though - we all just wanted to leave. So the tip was a farewell gift to them, because I know I at least will not be going back here again.
I was really quite surprised by this series of events. I've rarely had these kinds of service problems in a restaurant. Usually it's one thing that stands out, not the entire evening of poor service.
Comments from my friends:
"My salmon was overdone and dry."
"I think the sweet marsala took away from the veal. I thought I was eating pad thai."
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