From: blamb@rodan.hri.com (Bill Lambert)
Newsgroups: ne.food
Subject: Pappa Razi in Concord
Date: 9 Sep 92 16:03:57 GMT
Reply-To: blamb@rodan.hri.com (Bill Lambert)
Organization: Horizon Research


Speaking of Italian Restaurants, well.... sort of,
I had very mixed experience last Friday night at
the new Pappa Razi in Concord - formerly HoJo's
until a couple of months ago. Now Concord just
doesn't have all that many restaurants. Because of
difficult zoning regulations and high NIMBY among
the populace, new locations are very hard to come by.
So Pappa Razzi is quite noticeable, and it was fairly
crowded.

The food was good, well almost, but the service was
abominable. At first, when we entered, there were 3
people greeting customers at the door. This seems
good, but given that level of attention, why was there
only one harried waitperson in the bar? We were told we 
would have about a 30 minute wait. After the waitron passed
us by for the 3rd time without any acknowledgement, I flagged
her down. She said, "Do you want something.... or are you
waiting for a table?" I said, "Both.... actually...." and
she reluctantly took our order. My wife's drink came first,
but was wrong. My drink came about a minute before one of the
hostesses came over and told us our table was ready. Now I
had to try and flag down the waitperson again to get the check
(which she might have brought in the first place). This took
awhile. When she finally brought the check, I had my money ready,
but she said, "I'll be right back...." and took off again for
another few minutes.  I guess it took almost 15 minutes total to
get out of the bar after we were called.

In the dining room, the wait staff looked harried,and acted annoyed
by the fact that they had to wait on you. The waitress yawned out
a special of Taggliatelli pasta with fresh tomato/basil/garlic
sauce, mussels, scallops, shrimp and hot italian saugsage. It
sounded good, so I ordered that. My wife ordered Spaghetti Bolonese,
appetizer size. While waiting for dinner, the waitress brought
"fruscetta (sic?)" bread. They have to serve it using two huge
forks like chopsticks, and she dropped mine on the floor. She
said, "I'll get you another one." But didn't until later when I
asked. We had to ask for water. We overheard two couples at a
nearby table complaining to the manager about the service in the
bar, as they had some trouble with waitress about refusing to get
them drinks. The manager seemed contrite and gave them a bottle
of wine gratis.

Our dinner came. It didn't take so long, but with my pasta.... no
sausage. When the waitress came, I asked if there should be sausage
and she said, "It must be there.... did you order it because of
the sausage." I said, "Well.... that's one of the reasons. Why
don't you ask, because if they're out of sausage, the staff shouldn't
tell people the wrong specials." My partner's Bolognese was good,
but it was a large order. We didn't realize this until later when
we got the check.

While we were eating, two different waitresses came up to our table
with hands full of food, and said, "Did you order the datada?" I
noticed this a lot..... people wandering around with food with no
idea where to bring it. Once I said, "Why don't you try over there?",
pointing to an adjacent table. I was right, and she thanked me :-)

I ate my dinner - sans sausage. It was really good; balanced flavor
in the sauce, fresh ingredients, pasta and seafood cooked to perfect
consisitency. I was more than halfway done when the waitress brought
a mess of greasy sausage slices on a plate. She placed them beside me
and said, "Here you are..... by the way, the kitchen said they put
them in there." At this point I wasn't going to argue, and I could
recognize that my pasta dish was probably a lot better without *that*
sausage anyway. We finished our dinner and asked for the half eaten
Bolonese in a doggy bag (my wife is small and isn't a big eater).
When we got the check, I noticed we were charged for a large order.
I let it pass, as I just wanted to get out of there at this point,
and I could just hear the waitress saying, "You ordered the full size."

I think it's a special sort of torture to get good food along with
clueless service. In this case, I can't blame the individual wait
staff so much as lack of training and lack of organization and
staffing appropriate to the size of the restaurant. After this rather
long-winded description of our experiences there, I was wondering
about other people's experiences at the other Pappa Razzi places.
I know they have restaurants at Chestnut Hill and Galleria in
Cambridge. Have people's dining experience's been similar at these
places, or can we expect the Concord place to sort out the mess
after awhile.

The manager of Pappa Razzi should go up Rt. 2a about 2 miles and
have dinner at Pasta Villagio in Acton, where the owner greets
you at the door, and the wait staff is exteremely attentive and
well-trained. This place.... relatively inexpensive, but lacking
the glitz and gimmick of Pappa Razzi, will undoubtedly suffer from
their nearby proximity.

Too bad.

- Bill Lambert