Beware of Bada Boom Pasta Room in Old Town Scottsdale... A True Disappointment and Customer Service Nightmare!

Here's my story...

My friend and I visited Bada Boom Pasta Room in Scottsdale at the recommendation of a co-worker who said the food was great and recommended we buy a gift certificate on restaurant.com. We purchased the gift certificate and headed out for the evening.

My friend called to make a reservation as this was recommended both on their website and on restaurant.com. When she called she was told by a rather rude employee they "didn't take reservations, but only for this week". We were wary of not having a reservation, but headed out nonetheless.

When we arrived, we waited at the hostess stand for 5 minutes with employees walking by us just looking at us but no one ever walking over. By this time, several other groups had arrived behind us and were also still waiting. Finally a less-than-friendly hostess acknowledged us and brought us to a seat in the lounge.

After being seated, we waited more than 15 minutes before even being acknowledged by our server. When our server finally came over, she seemed bored and annoyed to even be having to serve us. I asked one question about an appetizer reccomendation to which her response was sarcastic and uninformed. We had, of course, had more than enough time to decide on our wine, appetizer and entrees and ordered them all at the same time, fearing we'd be abandoned for another quarter of an hour. Our appetizer, Formaggio Al Forno, arrived a good time later, it was mediocre at best- burned melted cheese covered in an imense amount of crushed red peppers. Our entrees then arrived, which, were truly quite good- not amazing, but decent. I ordered the Margherita pizza and my friend ordered the Tuscan Linguini. We ordered cheesecake for dessert, which was also acceptable, but nothing to write home about. We had been seated for about an hour at this point and had only been graced by our server's presence twice- once to order drinks, appetizer, and entress and once to order dessert (and ask for our check at the same time-- again in fear we wouldn't see her for another eternity).

When our dessert and check arrived, I gave the server the gift certificate for $25 along with my credit card to cover the remaining $35. When she returned, she had run my credit card for the full $60 bill and handed me the gift certificate back and curtly informed me that they no longer accepted restaurant.com gift certificates and that I would have to contact restaruant.com to get my money back. We had purchased the gift certificate on the same day we tried to use it. We were stunned that not only was she unapologetic and defensive but also that she'd had the audacity to run my credit card for the full amount without first explaining.

I asked politely to speak with the manager which was a collosal mistake. I'm not the type of person who does this lightly, but I was quite upset. It only served to disappoint and upset me further. the manager came over with a scoul on his face (apparently part of the required uniform for all employees at Bada Boom Pasta room)and informed us he wouldn't take the gift certificate because they had cancelled their contract with restaruant.com because it wasn't profitable for them. When I informed him I'd just purchased the certificate today, he said that since they'd already cancelled their contract with restaruant.com several days ago, basically it was my problem to deal with. I politely explained that my business had come to them because of restaruant.com and that being treated in this way made me hesitant to return for future visits. With that, the manager said that it wasn't his problem and walked away before I could respond.

All in all, the food was decent, but the abysmal customer service experience ensured we would never return. I don't consider myself to have extremely high standards for customer service, but this was simply unacceptable at every level.

Prospective customers beware- if you expect any level of acceptable customer service, Bada Boom Pasta Room is not the place for you.