Interesting Dining Experience

Let me start out by saying that Joseph really dislikes Buca Di Beppo. He doesn't like the atmosphere or the family style dining. And he especially doesn't like the set up of the rooms. But that's just him... I like it.

We got a $100 gift card to Buca for our wedding and have yet to use it so since we're still not fully up and running in the kitchen I decided to ask him to go there for dinner last weekend. He agreed only because there were no other options as long as we were home by 7pm (we left the house at 5pm)...

We drove downtown to find out that there was a battle of the bands going on for the Poinsettia Bowl that was taking place the next day. Every other street was blocked off :( We finally made it to the parking garage and went to go put our name down. The hostess let us know that the wait would be 10-15 minutes. Perfect because I was starving!

We sat down and waited for a bit. We started to notice a large amount of people filing into the waiting room. After overhearing a few conversations I learned that there was a party of 30 and a party of 10 waiting to be seated. Urg... We were waiting for 20 minutes when the party of 30 was called back. We were waiting for 25 minutes when the party of 10 was called back. And finally after waiting 30 minutes we were shown our table.

I was really hungry so as soon as the hostess sat us and the waitress came to take our drink order I asked if we could start out with a basket of garlic bread and marinara sauce for dipping. We got our drinks and the waitress took our order. 15 minutes later a random waiter brought us a bowl of marinara sauce... but no bread. 5 minutes later we received our salad. We ate two large helpings of salad each and looked around for our waitress.

10 minutes later (30 minutes after we ordered it) she brought out our garlic bread. We basically ate the whole basket within 15 minutes. We were a bit curious as to why our food hadn't come out and I noticed that a manager-type kept on walking through the room and always glanced over at our table. 45 minutes after ordering our food the waitress came out to explain that the party of 30 we saw in the waiting room got their food order in before us and that's why there was a hold up... but not to worry because she was going to comp our dessert.

She than left to go take care of her other tables (we overheard her telling one of the hostesses that she could not take one more table so I am sure she was super busy and was over booked). Joseph stopped her when he saw her again and said not to worry about the dessert, we weren't interested. And finally an hour after ordering our food we finally got it. We were starving again so we consumed almost all of it.

The waitress came over with the bill and let us know that everything was comped. She than hurriedly walked away. I didn't think I heard her right and neither did Joseph so he opened up the bill. Yup. Free. Joseph's face was priceless. I know he was thinking... 'but we have a gift card!' He was also thinking about the fact that we had only enough cash on us to pay for the parking garage. We were planning on only putting a certain amount on the card and paying the rest on the debit card so we could leave a tip. Joseph had to part with a few of his $2 bills :(

As we were waiting for our boxed up left overs, the manager-type I noticed earlier came over and introduced himself. He was the manager and was terribly sorry for us having to wait so long and mentioned that he saw how long it took for us to get our food. He presented us with a $10 off card that they normally give to patrons on their birthdays. Great. Now not only did we still have the $100 gift card, we had another $10 card as well! Joseph can't win. And we got home at about 8:30...

It goes without saying that Joseph is definitely not going back with me. So if you're interested in going out to eat at Buca's with a friendly pregnant woman for free just hit me up!