a bone to pick - A Veneto Glorietta

A Veneto in Glorietta 3 used to be a good place to eat.  And though their service isn't as good as that of their QC branch, my friends and I hang out there all the time because their food is great and inexpensive enough and the location is convenient. 

Last night was another time when unable to think of where to have dinner, we ended up yet again in A Veneto.  Surprisingly, we easily got a table after waiting for 5 minutes.  Since we were waiting for our friend, we decided to just sit there and chat for a bit. 

Our food came about 5 minutes after we ordered, which wasn't really surprising.  The oil and garlic pasta was too dry and wasn't even the least bit warm.  Eating it was like pushing dry, starchy food down my throat. The A Veneto classic pizza we ordered was slightly hot enough and was the only saving grace of the meal.  We still managed to finish off the pasta and pizza because we were hungry.  As soon as we polished off the food and without a second to spare, a server came over and took away our plates.  So we sat there nursing our drinks and catching up when suddenly one of the servers came by again and took our not-so empty glasses without asking.  Then another dropped the playbill on our table.  I looked around and saw that there wasn't any waiting customers by the door.  It was just about 9PM so they weren't closing yet.  So why were they shooing us away?  Disgusted by the service, we paid our bill and left the restaurant. 

The thing that I've started to dislike with this A Veneto branch is that their service was never that great to begin with. You would think that throughout time, they'd start improving on it.  I honestly put up with their bad service because I used to like their food.  But for some reason this year, when tables were starting to be so difficult to get by,  their service turned from not great to sucky.  You wait for a table for 30 minutes (if you're lucky) to an hour (if you're not), pre-order your food so you'd get to eat as soon as you're seated and when you do get a table, you end up eating lukewarm to almost always, cold food.  And although I understand that pre-ordering your food so you could eat as soon as you're seated facilitates faster turnover of tables to serve other hungry customers, it still doesn't justify serving cold food and practically hurrying people with their meals.

Maybe A Veneto should try to expand their premises to accomodate their growing clientele and perhaps, retrain their service crew on their hospitality skills.  Just because people clamor for their food doesn't mean they will put up with bad service.  Trust me, after years of putting up with that kind of service I'm through.  A Veneto is no longer a place I'm willing to spend my money on.