Romeo's Italian Grill & Bar

If this place were anywhere else except on Barton Springs Road in Austin TX, the doors would be closed.

The decor is tired. The booth we sat in had a tear right down the middle of the seat with no attempt at repair and the seat back rocked back and forth whenever I or the overly animated hipster in the booth behind me moved. I could go on, so let me just say dim lighting helped.

Our server was friendly, though a bit slow. One of those 'hey I'm cool, can't you tell' types.

While waiting for our appetizers (shrimp stuffed mushrooms for me, shimp 'mari for her), we were brought bread and olive oil with dried herbs. I liked the bread and herbs, but the oil was bitter. I think it would have done them so much better to simply steep the herbs in the oil in advance to improve the flavor.

Appetizers arrived. Her shrimp were tasty - Gulf Shrimp in an Italian breading. The shrimp in my mushrooms were the little salad shrimp with little flavor, smothered in cheese and pomodore sauce. It was tasty, but not exciting.

Then, after about a thirty minute wait, or entrees arrived. She had the Chicken Scallopinne and I had the Vegetarian Lasagne. Her Scallopinne was flavorless. The chicken looked like the stripe painted microwaved variety, and the sauce was so weak as to be pretty much non existent. My lasagna was tasty enough, but was fairly drowned in pomodore when I had the impression it was going to be a white sauce. Probably a misconception on my part.

Overall, it wasn't an awful experience, but I've had microwave Italian food as tasty as some of this. If not for the fairly constant stream of foot traffic on Barton Springs, they'd likely have to close.

At first glance... the parking situation looked out of control. My friend was determined to not pay for valet. So.. we drove around the surrounding blocks only to find nothing open. Finally she broke down and decided to valet. Um hi, valet is free here. Lol

The patio is cute, but we ended up getting a table inside due to the desire for air conditioning. We were seated right away and our server was super nice and attentive. I got this raspberry/champagne martini... When I discovered that... I was like... Done. It's basically a mixture of my favorite things in a glass.

I noticed that during the week they have some good happy hour specials that would be worth going to. There's also live music sometimes.. I'm not sure how often though.

I got the lasagna... which was good but I barely made a dent in it due to the fact that there was fresh bread out that I couldn't help but eat too much of : / So... it was all about to go containers.

It would be a cute place for a date, do the patio if possible. And maybe a bottle of wine. :)

Repello Muggletum! This was my first introduction to the Barton Springs and South Austin area and it made a great impression on me. I was surprised to finally get around to writing a review to see a surprising number of other Yelpers had such bad experiences here. I suppose nobody is "on" every day - but Romeo's was on and poppin' (as the children these days say) when I ate here.

Parking is not immaculate, clean, and well thought-out like the genius of having to park in a parking garage to get your Pinkberry like you need to do in Los Angeles. Parking issues are what makes things in this area ... things in this area, no? It is part of the charm. My car was not spraypainted, jacked, broken into, or anything else. So we survived the parking - yay.

As you approach the sort of older barn-like (maybe?) facade, you can tell it is going to be a wee bit different than your brand new Olive Garden constructed in your Walmart shopping center in your brand new Agrestic gated community. As you walk in you notice in the Keanu Reeves way, "whoa - it is dark." Yes it is. It is dark. Not so dark you need to use your iPhone to read the menu. But don't expect to tan yourself on heat lamps here. So it is a little intimate but it is not odd or off-putting to come here with just-friends or your family or your homely secretary and/or paralegal.

The waitstaff can be hit or miss. I am not going to be too rough on them personally since it always seems like they are working too many tables in a section and would benefit from a little more help.

Live music: awesome. Even when it is bad. It is still awesome. Because the only live music I am used to in Houston is cruddy mariachi bands at tex-mex places that make Taco Bell look downright gourmet.

Food: it costs a little more than Olive Garden and it is appropriately better than the mass-produced garbage you get at OG. I usually go with the pizza, because I like to order "za" in the Tenacious D Pick of Destiny inspired method.

And they have plenty of alcohol. Don't you worry about that.

1st time at Romeos for an early "red eyed" brunch on New Year's day morning.
Initial impression good place for music, Apps and drinks, and kind of a beat building.

Service was friendly and attentive but slow for our food.. The rolls and dipping oil were fabulous and good for sopping up the remaining New Year's Eve liquor. The potato hash was more than filling and pretty much kept me full until a late dinner. My dining companions said the chicken alfredo and the frittata was very good. I believe I'll try Romeos for a happy hour foray in the near future...

Had an okay meal in an atmosphere that could use some sprucing up, but the service was a bit off, only because they did the ole' server-switcheroo without notice. Usually, you'll get the "it's been a pleasure serving you, but now hootie and the blowfish will be taking over your service, as it is the end of my shift.". This time, we didn't get the formal introduction, (our table of 5 girls celebrating a couple of birthdays, however, did not mind the switch to a cute boy-type server).

Anyway, I had a coupon for buy-one-get-one-free entree deal and the original server told us no problem, and by the way, if the birthday girl wants a dessert, it's on us! Woo hoo! Good times.

Here comes the bill and the "oh, I"m sorry, we can't give you a free entree with that coupon and the free dessert". Can't honor two promotions at once.
Hmmm, not what our first server said. "Would you like to speak with the manager?" You bet your sweet ass I would. Now, I'm not mad, but surely this is a misunderstanding. The manager proceeds to tell me that they can either give us the dessert ($6) or the entree ($15) but not both. Fine, I said, we'll pay for the dessert. He said, "nah, we'll let your first server pay for it, since she told you it would be okay." I said, no, no, no, we'll pay for it.
Then he adds "you know how some people are, they come in here and try to get everything for free."

He ended up giving us both for free but not without giving his two cents' as well...I won't be rushing back to eat here. Especially since my coupon was for one time only. :-)

My experience at Romeo's this weekend was quite a roller coaster event. To sum things up very nicely:

-We were guests for a wedding rehearsal dinner
-We pull up in the rain and walk into a severely crowded front room
-Romeo's did not know about our party of 45+
-Half the group is giving each other WTF looks - oh no
-Rumor has it the girl who took the reservation was fired
-Instead of having 3-4 options from the menu, we were able to choose anything we pleased

Ok now the food review begins. I have to give Romeo's props for doing the right thing and accommodating our group. Yes, they screwed up but as a guest I never saw the sweat from our servers or heard the "back room discussions" I'm sure were going on.

The bread given to start the meal took about an hour, but was quite tasty. My poor garden salad maybe has 3 drops of dressing. I looked at it sadly and wished there was more to it then the 6 cubes of tomatoes and 4 croutons.

For dinner I opted to try the seared ahi tuna. 2 hours after we arrive, dinner is served. The tuna was decent - but in desperate need of seasoning. The real kicker was the pasta fritta at the bottom. It was completely, utterly soaked in oil. I'm not talking about your average freehand pour, but maybe half a cup of oil. I lifted the hard plate-molded pasta under my tuna and saw spinach leaves. Well, it would had been nice to place those under the tuna so I could enjoy eating them, but not after they were saturated in a gallon of grease. I asked the others around me how their food was and the answer given was a majority shoulder shrug that equaled "ehhh it's ok."

The spiked coffee was a nice end to the meal - but I was sadly disappointed in everything and still hungry walking out the door. I do have to give our servers props for being very kind and helpful with our group. Too bad the food just wasn't up to par.

I will say it right away, I had a great waiter, so I may be biased.

The day I went it was freezing outside, so I assumed they wouldn't have outdoor seating (wrong). They still had seating in a big white tent with huge heaters all around. It ended up being miserably hot; we had to continuously rotate our seats so the person closest to the heater could recover (It was actually pretty fun. Not very classy, but I'm not a classy guy).

The food was, well, pasta. I'm of the opinion that it's hard to screw up pasta, and that it is equally hard to make pasta outstanding.

I liked the establishment, it felt clean and professional. That's pretty much how I choose my Italian restaurants, especially after my Olive Garden experience. ew.

After the roomie and I randomly went to the UT baseball game (they won, who cares) we were looking for something else to do. After getting a good buzz going from sneaking in a flask and buying $4 sodas (ridic) to make our rum & cokes we wanted to keep the good times vibe going. Enter Romeo's into the mix.

With complimentary valet, really you have no option. Showed up on what seemed to be a busy evening for a Tuesday, the inside is MUCH bigger than I thought it would be. Tons of seating, inviting bar with live music going on. It made me wish I was on a date. The inside has a romantic feel, which I like. However, we walk out to the patio to find my roomie's group of friends sitting in a secluded corner.

The dinner rolls were blah. But the artichoke dip was delish, but when have I ever had bad artichoke dip? Got the house merlot, but it wasn't much of a house price being almost $7. The drink menu was neverending and consisted of a nice, heavy menu. However I thought it strange their food menu was on paper and, crumpled somewhat with water stains and everything else that gets collected on tables. After viewing the menu and coming to the conclusion that spending $13 or more on a meal at 10pm just wasn't in the cards. Let's face it, you're gonna be paying for the real estate price here, not gourmet food. Its all about location. Even Valero across the street had jacked their gas prices up too. 20 cents more expensive than right around the corner from where I live.

But I do LOVE the location, and the ambience of this Italian restaurant. I love me some patio seating outside on gorgeous Austin evenings. They were very accomodating since our group kept growing and we just kept grabbing more and more chairs.

I even left my car and walked down the street to Barton Springs Saloon. When I came back just before midnight the valet was nowhere to be seen. Luckily my keys were at the bar, they didn't mind that I was the last one to claim my poor lonely hoopty. Come here with a group or on date, there's something for everyone.

Oh, nostalgia! Soften, like the cannoli of yesteryear.

I don't consider myself cheap, but prices were significantly higher than expected, and the cannoli dessert I remembered so fondly from NINETEEN FRICKIN' NINETY-EIGHT wasn't so great anymore.

I wish I hadn't gone, so I could keep remembering it like it was. Service was fine, but I'm just not sold.

Romeo, Romeo, how I wish I could love the. I wanted to enjoy a big plate of lasagna, it came out hot and ready and I was oh so hungry. Alas my stomach was not to be satiated. For there was no cheese in thy lasagna. Yes, you read correctly I got lasagna without cheese. I have had meatless lasagna before, I have had pesto lasagna, but never have I ever had lasagna without cheese. In fact I think that it can't even be really called lasagna without cheese. Have you ever had lasagna without cheese?

I know I went on a long time about lasagna, but I am talking about one of my all time favorite foods. My experience with the wait staff wasn't much better this evening in fact I pretty much had to wave him down to get him to refill our drinks. Yes it was Saturday but it was like 930 and there was only 1 other table in the same room we were in. So while you being an Austin classic in a great location gives you some credibility your food does not.