Carol W.
Yelp
Details, details...I'm a details person, and sadly today's visit was a clear indication of Bertucci's hoping their customers don't notice the changes.
Firstly, I want to say that my server Stephanie was awesome. She could tell that I wasn't pleased with my experience but tried her best to improve my visit by offering to remake my meal and to bring other salad dressings for me to try.
The first time I walked into a Bertucci's was in 1989. I was with a teacher who accompanied me to a school event, and it was dinner time. She took me here for pizza, but I was more interested in the chicken and broccoli Alfredo. Being a first-generation Chinese American with immigrant parents, I rarely got a chance to dine at Western restaurants! So, this meal was very exciting and a real treat for me.
The dish was amazing and became my immediate go to for when eating out with friends. When I went off to college, a friend who was studying at Harvard would take me to the Harvard Square location. We loved the rolls!
Flash forward to 2023, the rolls are half the size, and you don't even get butter anymore. The insalata that comes with your lunch entree doesn't contain a single tomato, and the "new and improved" Italian dressing is a beige colored goop with "cheese" in it? Thank goodness it still has at least one olive! My chicken, broccoli, and ziti, which I asked to be made Alfredo style, lacked any umami. When I'm craving a cream sauce, I want it to taste rich and full of flavor. What a major disappointment today.
I could have dined at the Greenhouse Cafe in Brighton, which makes an amazing chicken and broccoli Alfredo, but I was craving the rolls and original yellow-ish Italian-style salad dressing which is not the same anymore, sadly! Also, I didn't feel like driving and looking for parking in Oak Square.
I only ate half of my order and took the rest to go as an after school snack for my daughter. I was given a tin foil to go box which was slightly annoying b/c then I'd have to find another container at home to reheat the leftovers in a microwave. What about using something that is paper based, which is cheaper than a plastic container, so that heating up leftovers is easy? Everything about this experience was not customer friendly. I could sense the restaurants every chance to save a few pennies.
Another thing that really bothered me was that I walked straight into the dining area but a lady who was behind me got served her take-out first. I'm not sure if that was the manager or not, but I've worked FOH before in many restaurants and felt slighted in this way. How that take-out patron got acknowledged before me, a dine-in guest, is beyond me!
Last but not least, I used to think the pizza was good here, but over the years, it has started to morph into tasting like the pizza you get from the frozen section at the super market. I came once for the Tuesday special, buy one get one free. The pizzas looked smaller than usual and lacked cheese and sauce. Even my six year-old daughter refuse to eat them as she doesn't like the super market frozen aisle pizzas! I attempted to keep some frozen ones at home for quick meals, but she wouldn't eat them, so we are not far off in feeling that the Bertucci's pizzas taste like the frozen ones.
Two stars - one for the service and one for the rolls! And I'm sad to say that I won't be returning. What happened to this chain? They should raise the prices to keep it the same. Not downgrade quality. Your old customers will see it and be disappointed. So, you only want new customers???