Fabio & Joe's

As most of my readers know Cathy & I eat a lot at Fabio & Joe's, the local Italian pizza shop. One of the biggest reasons we eat there so much is because its across the street from our apartment. With this review I’m going to cover our visits for probably the last six months to year. Most will be just a general over view, but some more recent ones will be specific.

When Fabio & Joe took over a few years ago we started going back. One of the first things we noticed was they treated you almost like you were part of the family. The quality of the food also improved greatly from the previous owner, so for several years now we've been loyal customers. But about six months to a year ago that started to change. When we'd go in there was an Italian guy working there that treated us like dirt. It honestly felt like he felt we weren't worth his time. Although the food hadn't change, the service was causing us to eat there less and less. It got to the point where we would only go in if we needed something quick and had no other choice.

Eventually we noticed that the guy who was treating us so bad wasn't there so we started going back a little more. But within the last two months we've had some experiences that really started turning us off to Fabio & Joe's. The first one we called in an ordered for two dinners. I can't remember off hand what Cathy ordered, but I ordered spaghetti & meatballs. When I opened it I found there were no meatballs. Cathy called over, and they treated us like we were lying. After a little arguing Cathy finally got the owner to agree yo let her walk back over for the meatballs. Now I understand people try to con businesses, but you can't argue like that.

The next two times we were in we had issues with either the food or the service. The first time we ordered salads. The salads themselves were like a normal salad, but we got the cold shoulder from the employees, including the owner. The next time we were in we ordered a pizza, half mushroom half pepperoni. We, it was more like 3/4 pepperoni and 1/4 mushroom. Plus like the previous time we weren't treated the best.

The last time we were will probably be the last time for a while. It started with the call to place the order. The person who took the order either wasn't listening or something. I know they put in a new register, with a new ordering system, so I gave them the benefit that that was the issue. What we ordered were two baked zitti dinners made with a little extra sauce. I asked for ranch dressing for the one salad, and french for the other. After asking me again, then repeating it, I thought it would be right. When I went over for the food she kept trying to insist I also ordered a turkey sub, which I didn't. Then the one making subs snapped "well what did you want in that bag." so I told him what my order should have been, and he snapped "that's what's it the bag." I picked up a two liter of soda, and waited for her to tell me the total. When she did it was almost $4.00 more than what I figured, so I double checked what she charged me for, and found out the prices went up, but the menus weren't changed. When I got home, the first thing we noticed was we both were given ranch dressing. Then we looked at the size of the salads to see they were only about half the normal size. When I started eating my zitti I found it was over cooked, I didn't ask Cathy about hers, but it was probably the same. But after all that we found something a few days later. Since I didn't use the ranch cups, I put them on the fridge. A few days later Cathy took one to use as a vegetable dip, and found there was a hair in it, so I’m really glad I didn't plan on using it for my salad.

A possible answer to the problem is he could be getting burned out. When he opened the restaurant it was him and his wife. Now they have two children and she spends most of her time home with them while he's at the restaurant. So I’m not sure if he has lost his passion for the restaurant or not, but he has to change or he will lose a lot more business then Cathy and I.