Lombardi's Italian Restaurant & Bar Issaquah

Recommends

Dorin D.

Joined 1 year ago

average. I gave it 3 stars but feel more like 2.5.There is not too much of italian other then the names on menu.First thing comming you will notice the smell, not the food but the old and moldy place.As about the food my wife like it but me not too much.Will try something else next time.

Doesn't Recommend

BJCMGC

Joined 3 years ago

Where's The Italian?. My husband and I were hungry for a Italian dinner...this was the wrong place to stop!

First thing that happened, the hostess was the most rude and snobbish person I've seen or met in a long time. She started to seat us and hit the waiter behind her with a chair and didn't apologize, then I noticed she was going to seat us at a very small table...I asked if we could be seated at a larger table. I was told "no, we have lots of reservations tonight." But 10 minutes later she seated 2 people next to us at a larger table! By the time we were finished there were maybe 20 people in the place! Now for the food, uhhhhh!!!! Garlic bread came with marinara sauce? It tasted like stewed tomatoes! I will say my tortellini was good, but I was glad I only had a small serving...I'm not sure the pasta was cooked completely. I would have liked the ravioli but it came with salmon....not everyone likes fish. The menu choices were terrible. My husband had the lasagna, it was worse than frozen, no flavor, very little meat or cheese...I had the first bite and was surprised he did not want to get up and walk out! This place is overpriced and really has no idea what real Italian food is...I think Chef Ramsey would puke on this one!

Recommends

SunKist

Joined 3 years ago

Great place and food!. Lombardi's Italian Restaurant is one of my favorites and I always love bringing friends who are out of town here! The staff is friendly and the restaurant overall has a nice ambiance.

A couple of my favorite dishes are the Tortellini Gorgonzola, Pizza Margherita, Lombardi's Garlic Bread, and the Pear Salad, just to name a few.

They also have a great happy hour menu for drinks and appetizers that is very reasonable!

Recommends

tlangton

Joined 3 years ago

Lombardi's is great!. I agree with vanhalin. I've been going to lombardi's for years too and it's the best restaurant around for a good family italian dinner.

the penne siciliana is my favorite dish. Their lasagna and lamb are great too. if you want loads of garlic and a great wait staff then this is the place to go. This may sound over the top but I'm a bit grumpy about some of the less favorable reviews because I doubt they even ate at the restaurant.

The staff know us when we come in the door, they remember our "special" orders and know what our kids want to drink before they ask.

noplace is perfect but for the taste, the price and the service I'll pick lombardi's over other italian options every time.

Recommends

svanhalin

Joined 3 years ago

Still the very best Italian Food in Issaquah. Ok, I have been reading these reviews and I have never written one before and I just had to in this case. I can't believe these reviewers! I have been a patron of Lombardi's since 1989 -- before the Issaquah restaurant ever opened. I now live on the Eastside and I am a regular at Lombardi's Issaquah (and have been since the day it opened -- a happy day for me!). I have two girls and their absolute favorite place to eat (and we eat out a fair amount due to our busy schedules) is Lombardi's. The staff are super friendly -- they know us by face and name. The food is always awesome -- my girls love the Pizza Margherita and the calamari appetizer is a must have every time. We chow on the bread and roasted garlic (oh my gosh! it is soooo good) and we love the Penne Siciliana, the Chicken Marsala – the absolute best anywhere in the area!! - and the seasonal specials are always to die for. The Scampi Diavolo is unbelievable -- the spicier the better! Anyway, we get there as often as we can -- and it is a favorite of my extended family as well. And, I spent my 40th birthday party there and my friends loved it as well!

Doesn't Recommend

bartdacat

Joined 5 years ago

Great setting, great service, horrible food.. When we set foot in the restaurant, I really expected an amazing experience. As far as the professionalism and friendliness of the service, I was not disappointed. The setting was very pleasant as well, and I guess that's why I was fooled. We ordered appetizers, drinks, and our entrees. I was so terribly disappointed in the quality of the food, I had to wonder why people had recommended this place to me so often. Were their tastes really that bad?

If you have a craving for really good Italian food, then stay away from this turkey at all costs. If you want something on par with a Denny's version of Italian food, targetted at the lowest common denominator of tastes, then this is your place.

Doesn't Recommend

QualityOverQuantity

Joined 4 years ago

Horrible, COLD, Italian Food. We went here on a Sunday afternoon for lunch and were horribly disappointed. After being seated, my first impression was "This looks like it belongs on Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares." First impressions aside, we placed orders for a calamari appetizer, italian sausage penne, and a prawn pizza. Two baskets of bread later our lukewarm calamari showed up and was just OK. After they cleared our appetizer dish out of the way we watched an elderly couple get served, finish eating, AND pay before we got our dishes. Both entrees were barely warm; the pasta wasn't cooked thoroughly, tasted worse than canned sauce, and barely had any sausage; the pizza was so rubbery my jaw was sore after eating half of it and the basil on the pizza looked old and wilted. All in all, the service was friendly, but slow, it was the food that has scared us away for good.

Doesn't Recommend

cutebirdie

Joined 7 years ago

Did You Know?. ....if the food is palatable, the wait staff friendly, the place clean, and prices reasonable, most customers will return.

I had a mediocre experience. Our waitress was cordial, the food tasted pre-processed, and the prices misled me into believing I was going to get a quality lunch.

Having said that, I usually give restaurants another chance, often assuming it was a bad night for the chef or that the waitress was overworked and underpaid (which is often the case). HOWEVER, after speaking to my friend who is in the food service industry, I will never return to this snobbish place. She had gone there as a vendor to hopefully pick up this place as a future client. The manager/owner folded up her business card and threw it in the trash right in front of her. If this place is owned or run by such an arrogant person, I'd rather spend my hard earned money at McDonald's whose customer service surpasses places like this.

Doesn't Recommend

np1979

Joined 5 years ago

Disappointing. This was my first experience eating at Lombardi?s in Issaquah, and needless to say it will also be my last. I went in with a group of 5 and all of us feel the same. The food I ordered was extremely bland on the verge of tasteless. One member in my party claimed the ravioli were undercooked almost to the point of being crunchy. The server that served us seemed unfriendly and almost put out that he was serving us, and this from very little interaction. I feel that when I go to a restaurant and everyone who went with me can agree the best part of the meal was the beverage and the free bread that the restaurant is not worth a repeat visit.

Doesn't Recommend

DaneAddison

Joined 5 years ago

Response to a Review. As the General Manager at Lombardi's in Issaquah I felt it important to respond to the most recent review, dated October 25, 2008. Often times businesses do not respond to reviews of this type and, in some cases it is a mistake.

Menus at restaurants are typically designed with a specific recipe and presentation in mind and, in corporate situations, often times the kitchen and the service staff have no control over those presentations or recipes. I do acknowledge that service staff does have control over the message that is communicated to guests and the way in which that message is presented. In this particular case, did the message get passed along appropriately? - no - did our service staff take a guest-first approach? - in some respects yes, but in the way in which the guest viewed it - no and that is our mistake.

The guest acknowleged having visited a total of 7 times and it appears that the first six left a positive impression - it is unfortunate that this most recent visit created a situation where the guest has decided not to return and, again....our mistake so, on behalf of the entire staff, I would apologize for that.

I suppose it is pretty cliche to say that we all have bad days....and servers and kitchen staff and managers are not exempt from that - nor are guests I suspect.

We are not unlike any other small business in these scary economic times - striving to do the best we can, provide the best possible service, value and product - every day is a learning experience ts reviews and comments are opportunities for our management team to work with the service staff to get better each and every day in hopes that we will provide all of the things we are all working so hard to provide.

Thank you for your critique - we will work on it and here's hoping we will have the chance to show you the progress we've made.