San Vito - revisited

It's nice to offer jobs to local youth but I recall my waiter was really young, maybe still in high school or soon after. He took our order and then once the food was delivered, never saw him again. Had to hunt down the manager who then took our dessert order and got my check. I fault the management for this not our the waiter. The manager should have been overseeing each section of tables. I think it's great hiring local youth cause I like spending my money at places that hire from the community. But it's also good business sense to hire more experienced staff who know what they are doing. DON'T PISS OFF THE CUSTOMERS! Thats why I haven't been back since opening. Food was very good for the price but due to the bad experience and the mistake on my check I won't be going back. Unless one of the friends takes me out there and I see things have changed. My $.02 worth.

I wished Emilos would move over to this side of Rt28.

-Teak

 

where else would they get their workers from? Do other companies ship people in every day from maryland?

 

Some of us who are older forgot how thankfull we were in getting our first job. Thanks to the owners of San Vito who teach the young folks both leadership and responsibility. The food is fantastic. keep up the great work. Thank you San Vito.

 

Carol: Thanks for posting your comment to SV and showing the manager the link to this forum. If you have another bad experience - I would love to hear about it. Again, I want more choices for places to eat close by so to me I want to support local restaurants in our area. When I get burned by a restaurant my first knee jerk reaction is tough luck I will take my money somewhere else due to the competition but it goes a long way if they are able to make me happy in the end - they will get my business back. Now Delta Airlines is another story grrr...

 

I think it is helpful when we post our experiences about local establishments -- both good and bad, and thankful to see in most cases, the management of the establishments are responsive.

Like you, seeing how much Broadlands has developed, I like to give my business locally as well.

 

Well, I visited San Vito this evening and it'll be the last time for a very long time, if ever again.

I have no complaints about the quality of the food but I have serious complaints about service.

My decision isn't based upon one visit though - this was a last chance for them based upon problems with the last three times we've either visited the restaurant or attempted takeout.

The last two times we did takeout, they got the order wrong. Greviously wrong.

The previous time we did dine-in, we waited over an hour for our meal and finally gave up, asking for it to go as we had our 4 year old with us. We don't generally go to places that aren't "family-friendly" specifically because we know we have an impatient child who gets cranky waiting around. This was during the week and the restaurant was not terribly busy.

Tonight was the final straw. While the start of our meal was fine with the exception of ordering iced tea and not being offered sugar or artificial sweeteneer for it (which should be provided without having to ask), the problems started when we attempted to redeem the gift certificate we received for a free dessert for our anniversary. We waited over 20 minutes for someone to be able to show us the dessert tray because our waitress wasn't trained to do it (?!). Then after waiting another 20 minutes and still waiting for the dessert, I gave up and took our child out of the restaurant. It was another 10 minutes until my husband got the dessert and he asked for the bill. It took him over 20 more minutes to actually get the bill after first being given someone else's check for more than twice the cost of our meal. No one was apologetic and the manager (whomever was wearing the pink shirt) studiously avoided him.

The problem isn't just the servers and the kitchen - the problem is the MANAGEMENT.

We will not be back.

 

I've never had a problem there. Carry out is always convenient, and the take-out staff responsive and courteous.

Your experience didn't relay an attempt to talk to management. I'd think they would have addressed any concern if you had given them the opportunity. I may be wrong, but I don't think so. At least not from my experiences at San Vito's.

 

Unfortunately, we've also given up on San Vito.

 

We have never had a problem there, food is good and we havnt had any problems with the service, and we were there just last night.

 

hahah...take it easy John Grisham. What'd they put in your carryout box, the head of your prized race horse?

I've never had a problem there.

 

We did attempt to talk to the management when we were there - management *ignored* us, even when my husband specifically asked to speak with the manager.

I e-mailed the owner using the link on their webpage at the same time I posted on this forum. We received a call from the owner last night where he acknowledged there is a problem with service, he said they had "all new hires" last night and they are planning to bring in an outside consultant to address service issues.

I don't expect five star service at a restaurant like San Vito. I do expect that it shouldn't take an hour to order dessert and get the bill. I do expect that someone besides the bus boy is at least apologetic at the time.

I also do expect carryout orders to be correct, especially when it involves meatless entrees that come piled with sausage. I can understand messing it up once but twice is not acceptable, especially when it is mentioned when placing the order that it was wrong the last time and having the order taker repeat back what we ordered. That's laziness, and again, not acceptable.

The food itself is fine. I'm glad others have had good experiences there. I have not - at least not over the past month.

 

jdhauer - your post makes me wonder about management of SV myself. We frequent SV a few times a month and have had experienced some service issues and we have almost always heard personally or from others about "new staff" being the issue. I realize that transition can be high in the restaurant business, but when we go to SV, we rarely recognize any of the wait staff. Just curious as to why SV's turnover is so high.

 

Good point. We have never had a problem with the food but wait times and service has been touch and go...

I can only hope when Clyde's opens it will help with the overflow of too crowded restaurants in our complex. Bonefish is at least a 45min -1.5 hr wait using call ahead. I have not tried 321 Ashland but the prices are not an every weekend deal. The steakhouse I have never been too, it always looks crowded from the outside.

Will be interesting to see....

 

We ended up at San Vito last night. Never been there before and as a little nervous based on the recent opinions expressed. Here's my take:

Food was excellent. HUGE kids meal pizza shaped like a fish-very yummy for my 3 year old. My husband finished his entire bowl of linguini with clams, so I assume that was great, too. I had the boring old salad, but I was actually craving a boring old salad.

The service was good. Maybe the management got wind of the latest rumors and pulled everyone in. We were given new drinks when we were about 2/3 empty, and received our check promptly. Our waitress came back to check on us many times, but not too much as to be annoying.

All in all a very pleasant experience.

The only negative thing I noticed is that there were plenty of employees just hanging around-they were all young males, and they seemed much more interested in chewing the fat than doing anything else. I could't figure out what their roles were. Maybe they were servers who were waiting for tables. But their presence seemed a bit unprofessional.

Other than that I was very impressed and we will definitely be returning for more food!


On a side note, when by 321 Ashland last night-they have happy hour 5-7pm with free peel and eat shrimp and cheese. Has anyone tried their Sunday Bruch (it was advertised $15 per adult, $7.50 per child-seems very reasonable to me)...

 

Hello all! My name is Darren Gruendel, and it is now my job to make sure the staff at San Vito does everything we can to satisfy you. While I work through the gaps in my computer competence (I haven’t been able to create my own login to this forum yet!) I’ll use Mike’s access so I don't have to delay responding any longer. First, on behalf of Gian Piero and the rest of the owner/management team I would like to sincerely thank all of the loyal customers that have made San Vito such a success in so short a time. With write-ups in the Post, the Washingtonian, and most recently in Food Service Monthly, combined with your fantastic comments and referrals (noted on the 1,000 comment card registrations I have reviewed!), San Vito has experienced explosive growth.

I have enjoyed meeting many of you on the floor at San Vito in the past 2 weeks and I look forward to continuing to do so in the very near future. We see as many as 2,500 of you a week, about 700 more than in our most ambitious projections, so it will take me some time to get to know you by name but I truly hope you will help me make that happen.

I can assure you the owners are keenly aware that we have had one or two “blips on the radar” with regard to our service consistency. For this, I apologize. I know that however infrequently service lapses occur, when it happens to YOU it can feel like no one cares. No restaurateur, and certainly not the group of true professionals that make up the San Vito team, takes such things lightly. In fact, we discuss each of them, however few, in every management meeting and quite honestly even a single incident can keep one up at night.

As attentive as our managers are it is always helps when we have your eyes and ears to help us spot those few things that might otherwise go unnoticed. So, thank you to those that have given us the opportunity to improve by taking the time to provide feedback. Without making formal excuses, I would like to ask for your patience as we deal with the sometimes frustrating realities of creating a stable, high-performance culture out of a group of teen and college age kids many of whom are tasting the realities of employment and professional endeavor for the very first time. Given the nature of many of your comments, many of you are clearly professionally oriented and/or aware, and as such you know that personnel turnover in this business is always high, doubly so in non-urban centers where employee age is markedly lower.

These are good kids, and in general they try very hard to make sure your needs are met. Many come and go with college schedules and despite the challenge to stability, we like it that way. This is your restaurant and hopefully your kids can get a professional start here. That said, while I always try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt and a second and even third chance, those that cannot deliver to standard despite additional training are rarely here long. You’ll always see some new faces and out here they will almost always be a bit inexperienced for a short time. We’ll do our best to speed up training, but please be patient as they learn the ropes. We all had to start somewhere! Not to diminish the significance of past events with over-simplicity, but sometimes it simply takes some time to attract and train the appropriate talent.

We have hired another wonderful General Manager who will work under me and start in just a few weeks. I assure you, you will be very happy. Until that time, you’ll see me and our Director of Food and Beverage, William Wotherspoon, a 20 year food service veteran, around working with Larry and Autumn to make sure everything is up to standard.

I am very happy that the vast majority of you are so pleased with what we have done; we certainly are very proud of the results. And again, to those few who have had the misfortune to experience a “blip,” my sincerest apologies. I hope that you will come back and give us another try (by all means let me, Bill or Larry know that you have had some problems in the past – we’ll help “make it right”). If you choose not to come back, I hope you will find a way to let me know if you find a better place. I’ll go and learn what we might do differently in the future.

I am very proud to be associated with the owners and managers of San Vito; they are all good people doing the very best to provide you a place where you not only enjoy the best authentic Italian food and wine but also where the service makes you feel truly like a member of the family. This is our mission; I think we are doing pretty well and I promise you we will always strive to do better.

Semper Fidelis,
Darren Gruendel
Chief Operating Officer
San Vito Ristorante Italiano
“Good Food, Good Wine, Good People”

“If we listened to our intellect, we’d never have a love affair, we’d never have a friendship, we’d never go into business, because we’d be too cynical. Well that’s nonsense. You’ve got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down." – Ray Bradbury

 

Darren, thanks for the post. I think I can safely say that we Broadlanderianerites (covering my bases ) hope that SV maintains the reputation it has earned. The food is excellent and most often the service is adequate or better.

I do understand the difficulties of maintaining a wait staff in this area. Especially since a good number of teens do not have to or want to work. Not like my days in high school where most 16+ aged kids worked. Hence, my family and I can tolerate a delay or two every now and then.

Keep up the good work.

Cheers!
Bob

 

Wow - I so rarely have my business sought after that when it happens I am floored and more than willing to give a second, third chance Please understand we as a community want you to succeed. We want to have many choices in the area and love small family run/established or oriented businesses. The food has always been good - I think almost everyone agrees.

We will make another trip there soon. Thank you for taking the time to respond here in our forum.

 

Yah, keep up the good work...and keep Khartoum's head out of Jack "jdhauer" Woltz's carryout boxes.

 

Darren,

I have visited San Vito many times since its opening. We are regular customers and enjoy the food and atmosphere. We went to SV again last night for dinner and had a disappointing service experience. After being seated we waited more than 5 minutes before a server finally approached us. Salads were delivered along with dinner and the server did not check on us for refills more than once.

This is not the first time we have had service problems there. My main point is that the service problems are more than a few isolated incidents. I spoke to a manager about the problems and he told me "we are having a bad night". I hope you realize this is not just a couple of isolated incidents. We will give SV some more time to get the situation under control but managers need to be aware that this is happening alot, not just once in a while.

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