I have a confession to make before I go any further with this review: My husband and I occasionally visit chain restaurants when we really don't want to put much effort into going out to eat. OK now that is out of my system, I can continue. We've been to Buca before (visited the location in Columbus probably about 8-10 times with friends for group dinners) so we know the concept and that it's about sharing and all that jazz. We ended up at this location on Sunday night when we were trying to find *gasp* TGI Fridays. Well let me save you a drive to this part of town and tell you that Fridays is no longer there. Anyway, we saw Buca and decided to suck it up and eat there. We had about a five minute wait and then were led back through the kitchen (as you are at any Buca) to our table. We had some confusion with our service because at one point we were told our waitress got a big party and wouldn't be handling our table anymore, and then she did for the rest of our night. Weird. Unfortunately the food was not as good as we remembered. The cheese garlic bread was cut into squares and wasn't served in a pie shaped. The caesar salad was under-dressed, but as a plus it held up nicely as a leftover for me to have the next night for dinner. Chris thought the chicken parm was not as good as it used to be (we think they changed the recipe or something). My side of fettucini alfredo was good thankfully and heated up nicely on Tuesday night as my dinner. All and all, the food was a major disappointment even for chain restaurant standards! The bright spot was that for $69 (includes tip) we got four meals out of the food we ordered. Buca was a 2.5 star experience for us, but I'm rounding down to 2 due to not living up to our standards.

negative

I was very impressed with their craft beer selection they had over 30 craft beers on tap. And a lot of the beers soon to be local brewed to the Phoenix area I really like that. The food was impressive too for a pub. I had fish tacos which tasted very good and were reasonably priced. My wife had the chicken skewers which were also very good and reasonably priced. Overall I am very pleased with this place in Surprise I hope they do well and I look forward to visiting them again soon. It's good to see more local establishments like this opening up in our town something else besides just the chain restaurants.

positive

Came in to buy a mac book pro. I've done a lot of research on which one I wanted, so I knew what I wanted to buy. I stood at the apple counter in the middle of the computer department and wasn't able to get any help. I've been to this location plenty times before and its fine if I am just grabbing something I need and go. But if you are actually needing to wait for an associate, you have to walk around and try to hunt down someone. Giving an extra star because the guy that actually helped us was very friendly.

negative

A relaxing place to have wine, and talk with the very knowledgable (what is the difference between cab franc and Carmenere), great service (waitress came on time and performed pourings properly) and sexy (well at least the waitress) staff. Blue/Black diamond wine bar - Great for me and deliberate by the wine bar - Medium/Advanced wine patrons come on down. Newbies stay away because you're not going to get educated. Just dont tell anyone about the place during live music night... I continue to come back year after year when i am in phoenix because of the athmosphere and wine selection. Very extensive wine selection (3000+ bottles) on file make you wonder where are they hiding it all in this cozy location. And now the critque: Waitstaff has a bit of the starbucks effect where they are act with an aire of being smarter than the patrons. They serve Bistro and flatbread style food - perhaps my choice was silly but it over salted my palatte to the point it started to strip the roof of my mouth. With such a wine list, a little more probing from the waitstaff to make the pairing work out would be helpful. If you're going to act smarter than the patron, be more 'intrusive' in helping pair the menu. I am used to wine bars around the country and the prices are above average most likely caused by the scottsdale area effect. Finally, bring your solid black "going out to the club" outfit - seems to be the uniform of choice of this speakeasy-like patrons. Great dark athmo to take and sauce liberally your date. Give it a shot.
positive