Buca di Beppo Italian Restaurant

I was not happy or satisfied by their rep he had an arrogant and rude attitude. We were celebrating our grandchildren returning home from the Caribbean after they lived there for 4 yrs. Their rep blamed our upset stomachs on a virus man oh man is he ever wrong. Who wants to eat there anyway?

Cool old fashioned italian restaurant.
Had a not so great dining experience on June 13^th–
Decided to delete my initial review because I got a call from management deeply apologizing for our dining experience and wanted to make it right.
So in return decided to give them a chance
Stay tune for my bucca di beppo review. Hopefully it’s a great one !

Service is good. Like the food all in all and enjoy getting to walk through the kitchen.

Had dinner here tonight with the family. It was interesting that they walk you through the kitchen to seat you. We enjoyed our dinner. The bread served was soft and fresh. My favorite is the garden salad. Lot’s of good flavors. It is family style, which worked for the 5 of us. We ordered a small salad (they say serves 2 – 3, it was plenty for all of us. We ordered the spicy chicken which definitely brought the heat. You can also order it spicier. I would be afraid. We also had the baked ziti, which was okay. Both were small orders and we took home leftovers of both pastas. We also had the cheesecake for dessert and the chocolate chip canolli’s. The cheesecake was really creamy with no crust. I miss the crust.

This place is NOT for the semi hungry. You need to be starving if you want to eat here!
If you want individual plates, get sides and if you want to share, get SMALL.
These plates are incredibly large and you WILL NOT leave hungry. EVER.

I ate at Bucca many times and had good experiences. Yesterday, I ordered large portion of spaghetti with meatballs on the side and it was delicious. This is the first time I ordered to go. The food was ready in about 20 min. Good experiences so far.

Jeez idk even really know what to say about this place. ppl really seem to love it but I just thought it was awful. The service was okay but the food just completely grosses me out. It’s suuuper heavy and overbearing. I ordered the chicken that has the prosciutto and it was just a salty mess with rubbery textured chicken. The shrimp pasta was lacking a whole lot of shrimp and flavor. The calamari was just ok but the sauce was gross. I’ll have to pass next time.

Old fashion Italian restaurant but for a hefty price. We came four today and had the trio platter for $ 27 and then a salad and two entrees. Bill came out to like $ 155 plus tax. So like $ 45 a person. Not cheap and not expected for this type of food. Definitely better off at Stonfire.
Service was fine, clean place that has valet. But for that type of dough you’re expecting something better even in this ever increasing economic times that the Left has created. I had my holiday party here six years ago and since then everything seems to have exploded. I told my wife, she’s going to have to start to grow vegetables and cook at home for us moving forward. We may even adopt some chickens and cows to ensure we get plenty of protein.
Please help us! We need a reasonable way of living even in the big city.

On our way home, my Sweety & I were pointing out restaurants laughing, «there’s Blank restaurant. We should have gone there.» Even IHOP got a «yep, even that would have been better!»
I’ve eaten at other Buca’s easily over 100 times. Ugh, I wish we could leave a good review but it really wasn’t something we’d recommend.
Maybe we came on an off day, but we ended up with a $ 50 lunch of burnt food & even the replaced food didn’t really taste good at all. This just wasn’t the same Buca experience we’ve had at their other locations.
The servers and the manager were very accommodating and friendly. Friendly service was about the only good thing here.
The antipasto salad is usually my fav– here, it was mostly lettuce covered in oil. Very different than other Bucas. The chicken parm was bland and I got jabbed by a bone in it– not even a small one!

You guys seriously need to hire more competent people at this location.
My wife and I tried calling in an order and we had to go through 5 people for you guys to figure out how to input the order in your little machine.
It wasn’t that complicated, we asked for a specific kind of pasta with a certain kind of sauce and 1 kind of vegetable. How hard is that? If you cannot accommodate your customers with common sense and decent customer service, please shut down!!!

MUST READ! This will be my LAST visit at this location. The food is definitely just OK. It’s mediocre & there is absolutely nothing special about the food.
We ordered ample food & I do love that it is family style.
Service: I’m HUGE on service. Kelly was our server for the night. She was excellent, very accommodating & very attentive. We will call her Wonder Waitress! Tonight’s occasion was to celebrate my best friend’s birthday & Buca Di Beppo messed up… BIG TIME!
I bought a special designed cake. It was a sailor moon cake because that’s her favorite. Buca has a «cake system» (& it’s in quotes because tonight proved to be a total fail).
Cake system: When you bring a cake in, they give you a raffle ticket & put the other half on the cake. That is supposed to make it flow easier & prevent mistakes. However, this system fails when incompetent workers can’t match the tickets.
After dinner /​right before dessert, we get the manager come to our table & she states, «I have good news & bad news.» So our entire table is thinking uh oh… How the following is good news, beats us. Another server (not Kelly!) gave our cake to ANOTHER TABLE!!! AND CUT IT!!! Excuse me?!! So you’re thinking where’s the good news? Our whole table is OUTRAGED. How does this happen? What’s the point of the ticket system?
Manager attempted to give us other desserts but tell me, when your specially designed cake & not just any Gelson’s or Porto’s cake is given to another table, cut AND served, wouldn’t you be pissed? She apologized profusely but here’s what pissed me off EVEN more… Her approach.
As a manager, you are held to a certain standard. I was SO pissed that I told her I was writing a Unilocal review & that I was just never coming to this location ever again… She comes back & tells me, «I will give you $ 50 not to write a Unilocal review.» Are you kidding me??? The manager. The MANAGER told me this.
I immediately responded with «I am a law school student & I know my rights. It’s called freedom of speech & you can’t tell me what or what not to post.» She was so rude at this point. She pointed at me, her tone was no longer apologetic. She was now in a pissed tone because of this Unilocal review.
When she saw I wouldn’t budge, she kinda threw vouchers on our table, argued some more & walked away. Yes, we used the vouchers towards our meal, but unbelievable.
NEVER try to bribe a person due to a Unilocal review because of how it will reflect your business. She’s been the manager for 8 years… She should know better. I am SO unimpressed with this franchise.
Kelly, poor thing, unaware of what had happened, did everything she possibly could to turn this situation around. She’s definitely a great employee. She still served us dessert but the mood was def a sour one at this point. It is safe to say, neither of us will be returning to this Buca again.
What a mess!

I would have to say this is my favorite Italian Chain restaurant, still not enough to be a huge fan, but it was ok.
It gets really full here and it’s pretty dark and noisy, but I get the whole family vibe.
We had the chicken parmegiana, pasta, salad and garlic bread and while it was all tasty, the quality is still not fantastic.
The large was plenty for the three of us, food came out quickly and service was fine.
In all, ok but not worth rushing back to.

I absolutely LOVE Buca and can’t even fathom why places like Olive Garden exists when there’s Buca. I’ve been coming here for ages.
Calamari — nice and crispy. Every bite is flavorful and has a really nice crunch.
Lasagna — by far my favorite lasagna anywhere. Better than my mom’s — but you better not tell her I said that. Garlicky and slow cooked to perfection. My tummy does a little happy dance every time I order this.
Fettuccine Alfredo — I always add chicken. I like that it’s not as saucy as other places (nudge nudge Olive Garden). I think there’s a really good pasta to sauce ratio.
Spicy chicken rigatoni — another one of my favorites. Depending on who the chef is, it could be a lot spicy or just a little spicy.
San Remo — love this! Honestly I’m not a fan of sun dried tomatoes but I love it in the San Remo. It’s a nicely seasoned pasta dish with chicken, peas and of course the sun dried tomatoes. I highly recommend it.
Wait staff — everyone has been great and on top of things.
So why not 5 stars? Well, my one and only gripe is the hostesses. When guests come in they should be greeted right away. Most of the time I walk in, hostesses are chatting amongst themselves and I have to wait to be acknowledged. When the phone rings, you will be completely ignored. My recent visit, I said, «Party of two please.» Gia (I think that was her name) refused to seat me until both of us were there, but the other person was in the restroom. More and more people came in and they too were annoyed that they weren’t being acknowledged because one hostess was answering the phone, facing the wall and the other one kept walking in and out of the kitchen. Management really should have one person dedicated to answering the phones that is not the hostess. It shows a bad presidence to incoming guests that are being ignored. Overall, I really think management should talk to the hostesses here because they do come off as ditsy and rude which is not how any establishment wants to be represented to each and every guests. So, minus the whole hostess issue, the food is great.

Came here with a group to celebrate a birthday!
The staff were friendly but our server was horrible:/
A girl from another table was helping us more than our server!
I am not sure how many tables he had been in charge of but he forgot all about our wine orders and we wanted refills on beer. Unfortunately we got our food before our drinks and just asked for water instead since we had to all drive home.
Love the place and the food but I guess we lucked out on our waiter.

First time coming here with my boyfriend last night. We came before their dinner rush so we were seated right away. As they walk you to your booth/​table you’ll get a mini tour of their kitchen. which looked very clean and the chefs & staff were friendly. They sat us in one of their booths which was nice. Our server Lance, was very attentive, friendly and he explained the menu well since it was our first time there. Their portions here are huge! Their small bowl of pasta says serves 2 people. I think it could serve 4! For a second my boyfriend ordered the large size. We ordered shrimp florentine pasta and their prosciutto stuffed chicken. both tasted delicious. Overall, our experience was great. Definitely coming back here.

Buca di Beppo is consistent on food. If you’ve never been give it a whirl.
At this location parking is valet or self park for $ 3. I feel like valet is a no brainer in that situation :).
I must say the hostesses need help. First, I told them I was there, I had a reservation. They said give me a couple minutes. 20 minutes later still waiting. Hmm. Then I asked them what was up and they said oh some of your party is sitting already right? I said nope! They said ok let me sit you. Then the guy grabs menus, stacks them, and walks away. Oy. Then I ask if we’ve been forgotten and the hostess says no, and then finally we get seated. This is why I deducted 2 stars btw. Please pull it together at the front!
Once seated all was great. They have great sangria, your wine can be served as a glass, a glass and a half or a bottle. They can start you with garlic or garlic cheese bread-​go for the cheese one! Also waiter put my kids pizza order in first so it came out with the salad.
We had the apple Gorgonzola salad, amazing with apples, Gorgonzola (ahem) and walnuts and cranberries. The small which the menu says serves two served 6 of us as a starter salad, just FYI for sizing. We also had calamari, nothing special but good. For our main courses we had the eggplant and chicken parm, spaghetti marinara, broccoli and chicken Alfredo (they call it something else, fettuccine Alfredo with chicken, broccoli and peppers), meatballs, pepperoni pizza. Everything was so good! Also we got all small portions and it was perfect for our group of 11.
We were celebrating birthdays and we were able to bring our own cake and they put it on a stand and come out with the candle and sing their birthday song.
Great group place! Like I said try at least once.

When you say «large portions», I am totally in!!! The staff here are super nice and very attentive. My family and I came here with another family and we got the following:
Garden Salad: Good, I love their pepperoncini’s
Large pepperoni pizza: No joke when you order large
Chicken Masala: I like Cheesecake Factory more but this was decent.
Spaghetti and Meat sauce — My daughter’s favorite
Broccoli Romano — We ordered one with the garlic, chili flakes and parmesan cheese for the adults and one plain for the kids.
It was all good, lots of left overs so our kids has lunch for the next two days :) Every now and then I would see coupons for Buca in the Sunday Times so I totally take advantage of it.

Well just to let you all know that a very well known actor owns these chain of Restaurants. As I entered there where pictures of famous people all over this establishment. I was greeted right away and their was no waiting.OK.
I was seated in the bar area where’s there’s only about 5 booths. I would recommend that you sit in the main dinning room. My server was one of the bartenders and he was nice and very attentive during my visit. Good Job.
The protons sizes are very big, make sure you read the menu items. You can order for 2 or for 4. Remember Italian’s love to eat.
I ordered the penne pasta with shrimp and it was cooked just right. No over do on the shrimp, and most of all the pasta was nice and soft.
I was surprised that they allow the guests to enter the kitchen, Yea I had to say hi to the staff, and I did.
The one employee who was making the cannolis. I told her send me a dozen and she smiled.
Overall had a great time.
I recommend you valet your car. Pay the $ 3.00,let them park your car.
2015 Unilocal Challenge.095/100

Returned to this Buca for Father’s Day again. This time, not as good as previous visit.
We continue to have issues with other diners at this location. The family in the next booth have what sounds and feels like four or five sugared up little wild banshees yelling, kicking, and making various animal noises. Super irritating. Creepy looking parents of the year never tell the wildlings to calm down, not once. Ugh!
Even the folks in the booth on the other side of us keep turning around to see what the hell is going on. I’m not asking these little fuckers to act like we are dinning at a Michelin 3-​star restaurant, but please! Knock it the fuck off!
Our waiter (who ends up my hero) brings me a shot of Marker’s Mark but not my beer chaser. Please don’t make daddy wait for his medicine. Says he’ll be right back… and I waited… and waited… I’m going to strangle those kids… and then beer finally arrives.
Hey Mr. waiter, the Adams Family over here is driving us all nuts, can you move us? «Sure thing Sir, follow me!» Things got WAY BETTER after that.
Food–
The Fried Calamari was good but they spike the marinara with a bunch of red pepper flakes and ruin it. Burned the fuck out of my mouth. Pepperoni pizza was not cooked enough. Chicken piccata although cooked through was not browned and looked pale and unappetizing. Shrimp Florentine was pretty good. Overall the food was not as good as I remember.
Service was good and the drinks kept coming, so we ended on a good note. A note to parents with wild children, just stay home until your kids can behave in a restaurant. Capeesh?

Located on Ventura Blvd. they offer valet parking and street meter parking as well.
Buca is a great place for large parties as they serve their dishes family size. As soon as you walk in you will notice the décor. A lot of reviews have mentioned it’s very claustrophobic, but I disagree. Random photos all over the walls: nude men and women and a lot of «back side» photos lol.
It didn’t take long for our party to be seated. When we were told to follow the hostess she took us through the kitchen to get to the dining area. I thought that was really cool because I’ve never been inside a restaurant kitchen before. I noticed that there’s a table inside the kitchen where you can dine while experiencing what goes on inside! I thought that was very «Italian». Very cool.
As soon as we got seated our waitress Christina came right away to greet us. She was very sweet and patient with us because we were a bit indecisive of what to order. I appreciate that she offered my little one Apple juice and even asked me if I wanted her to dilute it. Little things I appreciate always.
We ordered 2 large pastas and there were only 3 adults! 1 spaghetti with meat sauce and 1 Alfredo with shrimp. The pictures I posted do no justice! These pastas are HUGE. We have leftover for days! As far as the taste goes, it was mediocre. I make better at home. Maybe next time we will try a speciality dish with more flavor instead of the «traditional». I noticed other patrons enjoying pizza that was also huge. That will be on my list for next time.