Chris A.
Yelp
First of all, let's get the obvious out of the way.
This restaurant obviously used to be a strip club. I can't say that's really a con, but it's definitely strange. Located in an area of WF that pings hot on crime maps, it has all the markings of a former nudie bar. There are no windows, and the inside is a dim cavern that is actually decently decorated. However, the ceiling betrays its possibly sordid past; the remnants of lighting where the main stage used to be, combined with nightclub spotlights and a huge amount of exhaust vents to suck up bar smoke, were a dead giveaway. In addition, the main dining area still had up to eight small security cameras in the ceiling.
We were sat in the last booth in a line of alcoves that used to feature lap dances instead of middle-of-the-road Italian fare. Each of these had a spot in the ceiling where a camera used to be to discourage "extra services". No obvious reason why these were removed and the rest were not.
Now, for the food: being out of regular Coke wasn't a good sign, but not a deal breaker. We ordered garlic bread with cheese, which here is a weird halfway point between burnt toast and flatbread, topped with no garlic and bland mozzarella. My wife and her friend both ordered fettuccine alfredo; one with chicken, one without. It was actually a bechamel sauce; the alfredo either had no cheese in the sauce, or a minuscule amount. The chicken was dry and unimpressive. I ordered the "Spaghetti Works": an aggressively large amount of spaghetti with marinara, frozen meatballs from a bag, mushrooms most likely from a can, and Italian sausage that, based on the aftertaste, seemingly had an Everlasting Gobstopper in its flavor profile. Perhaps there's a deleted scene in Willy Wonka where they visit the pig stalls.
The positives are mostly the service; we were seated quickly, though I imagine that wasn't too difficult in a dining room more sparsely occupied with customers than a Scientology reading room in Kabul. Our waitress was attentive and polite. She was perfectly fine. The food was served quickly, and thankfully, so was the bill. It's cheap. The three of us ate for forty bucks. It was priced accurately. Take from that what you will.
PS: all plates were oddly decorated with a smear of hot sauce. At first, we thought they were just dirty, but apparently the kitchen likes to autograph their plates with some kind of picante, like a bit of graffiti that says, "Here, Mistakes were made".
