(I had this in the wrong place and just simply relocated it to the proper location)

This past weekend I had my second taste of Bertucci’s Brick Oven Pizzeria. The first time I was in was about a year and a half ago at the Mount Laurel, NJ location. The other time was this past weekend in Huntington Valley, Pa. Unless a friend or family member is having a celebration there I will not be returning. Most of my disappointment comes form the quality of food and the great service (actually the lack of good customer service).

Layout:

Mount Laurel had a nice size waiting room across form the Brick oven. The seating area was a maze of different rooms. Some rooms had a Fireplace in them while other rooms just had pictures on the wall. From what I saw all the rooms had tables and not booths. Also there were about six tables in the smaller rooms and in the largest room had about twelve tables. The lights were kept at a low, non-offensive level. Due to the designs of the dining areas, the number of tables in each, and the light level I felt that it was a very intimate atmosphere for dining.

The Huntingdon Valley location was quite different. I was only there for take-out but I took a peek into the dining areas form the lobby. This restaurant is broken into three sections: a lobby and two dinning areas, a large one and a small one. The small dining area had about eight hard wood tables with padded wooden chairs. Except for the one large brick wall the rest of the room was floor to ceiling windows. The main dining room was a large 25’ X 100’ room. There were a combination of tables and booths. The Brick ovens were on the inside wall. A large fireplace was against the wall that is opposite the lobby. The outer wall was nothing but floor to ceiling windows. The lights are dim but there is a lot of light entering form the windows.

The Menu:

The menu is quite extensive with about 75 different items. The menu is broken down into the following sections and sub sections:

Appetizers- the usual populars ones form almost every restaurant, Calzoni, Soups, and
Salads

Brick oven Pizza- where you can either order standard menu pizzas, several Neapolitan
Pizzas, and you can create your own.

Dinners- includes fish, pork and pastas

Lunch- Express Lunch Pasta, Menucci, and Panini Sandwiches


Service:

As I stated before I am not really thrilled with the customer service with Bertucci’s. Both experiences had bad service. The first was with the sit down service and the other was with take-out service.

Mount Laurel, NJ.
The first time, when I ate at the Mount Laurel location, things started off well. Our party was a total of five, me and my wife (us), and her sister, brother-in-law and their 2-year-old daughter (they). We got seated after about waiting for 20 minutes. Not bad because they told us that they have waited up to an hour for lunch here. They were also bragging about how great service and the food is.
We sat down and the waitress came out within a couple of minutes and took our order. One of the things we ordered was a salad for all of us. Ten minutes go by and no salad at the table. Twenty minutes later the salad still had not arrived. It took about five minutes more to get the waitress and complain about the missing salad. Ten minutes later she come out with a huge bowl of salad. The bowl was huge but the salad in it was only enough for one person. It now takes us ten minutes to get her back to the table to complain. We were told that since it is a bottomless salad that it comes out that way. We then point to several other tables that had full bowls of salad. With a nasty attitude she offered to bring another bowl of salad out. She did and again it was filled with a little bit of salad. At this point, before we could complain again, the food was brought out and shoved at us. Some of the food was cold and some of it was over cooked. We asked the waitress to heat the food up and she did. Each time the meal came back it had to go back to be reheated. It took about three times to for them to get it right. Each time we called the waitress over she got worse with her attitude. We eventually got the manager and he gave us a  discount on the meal. My wife and left upset with it while her sister and Brother-in-law made excuses for the place.

Huntingdon Valley, Pa.:

This time we were supposed to go out for a Birthday dinner. Because the child of the Birthday people got sick they decided to order out, they picked Bertucci’s. This time it was take-out service. We called, placed our order, and were told that it would be ready in twenty minutes. Three of us decided to get the food. We left at the twenty-minute mark and arrived ten minutes later. Upon arriving ten minutes late we found out that half of the meal was not ready. They also failed to write down two things that we ordered. When we told them about their mistake the server got angry with us. Begrudgingly she wrote the remainder of the order and we waited an additional twenty minutes. While waiting the take-out server shot us nasty looks the whole time while the waitress brushed by us without an “excuse me”.

The food:
($7.00 to as high as $18.00)

Both times when I had their food I had something from the pasta menu. The first time it was just plain spaghetti with sauce, the second time I had Rigatoni Polpette (rigatoni with meatballs). The only things that I liked, form either meal was the salad form the first meal and the meatballs from the second meal. The pasta, from the first visit, and the rigatoni, from the second time, both tasted very flowery (from what I hear it means the pasta was over cooked) and the sauce had a watery flavor. Because of the flowery taste I could not finish either meal. My wife had pasta the second time and it too was flowery. The sauce on it was flavorless. Her first meal was a tasteless chicken dish. We never did get a reaction from the people we ate with, if you were wondering.

Final Thoughts:

I think I said that everyone has a different liking for exactly the same food, in a different review. I personally don’t like the food at Bertucci’s. I don’t want to eat it again. As far as the service goes is another story; I will never return to a place where service was awful two times in a row. I don’t know anyone who likes a waiter or waitress with an attitude. When we go to a restaurant we are the customers, we deserve respect (but you can’t disrespect the server either). When I have the same issues form two locations what is going to make me want to try a third time? The answer is nothing.
If you like Bertucci’s all the power to you but if you don’t please share with me. I just want to make sure I am just not a fussy eater. Thank you.


July 28, 2003 update
My wife and I got together this past weekend with two couples. Both couples had the same experiences at other Bertucci's locations. I just thought you would like to know.

Recommended: No