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Collina's Italian Cafe

MY REVIEW: Over the last year the only strong points are what goes wrong. Previous visits with rubbery pasta (lasagna), very thin toppings (pizza),poor service gave them top billing on my least favorite place to go. However, my wife wanted to go one more time, they were close and definitely "come as you are." This night they were packed. We were seated with a great view of the way past the cashier to the kitchen. We place our order, then minutes later the kitchen informs him they are out of ravioli. I consider not eating but my wife insisted I order something so we get the waiter back and I order a small pizza. Five minutes later the waiter asks if my wife wnats to eat now or wait for my order. She asked to wait for mine. Fifteen minutes later my pizza arrives followed by my wife's spaghetti. Her spaghetti was stone cold, the kitchen staff had prepared hers earlier and just let it sit. The waiter brought in back and got her a hot order (microwaved?. I took two bites of my pizza and it tasted and felt odd. First, I counted five slices of pepperoni, maybe a half ounce of Italian sausage, and a layer of cheese maybe paper thick. I then looked at the edge. The interior of the crust was raw dough. The crowning moment came with the check. My ravioli I never received was still on the bill. The owners need to hire competent staff (management), improve the quality of the food, learn not to run out of entree's,and possibly check out Star Pizza or Pink's to see what a real pizza has on top. On the plus side the waiters and waitress try very hard to please but most people will end up blaming them for the management's mistakes.

NAME: Heights Foode
SUBMITTED: 10/1/2012   LAST VISIT WAS: 9/2012
FREQUENCY: Visited 4-6 times

MY REVIEW: Great italian food for cheap! And the BYOB aspect brings me back. Only $1.00 per person corking fee. I love that! They have yummy lasagna, fettucini, manicotti and some of the best pizza in town. They have the best house salad and their rosemary bread is amazing!

NAME: ms
SUBMITTED: 6/8/2012   LAST VISIT WAS: 1/2012
FREQUENCY: Visited 4-6 times

MY REVIEW: I love this place! On a busy Friday night we had a great appetizer (Fried Calamari) and a large pizza. The wine was fairly priced and very good. We could have brought our own wine if we wanted, but we did not plan ahead. Service was efficient and just as attentive as I like, not too bothersome yet not ignoring us either. I would definitely eat here again.

NAME: iLoveCollinas
SUBMITTED: 10/16/2011   LAST VISIT WAS: 10/14/2011
FREQUENCY: Visited 2-3 times

MY REVIEW: Environment: Very casual, very authentic Italian pizzeria feel reminds me a lot of a place I visited in Florence. Super clean. Red checkered table cloths!

Service: Good. I'm a iced tea drinker, nay I'm an iced tea guzzler; my glass was never empty.

Food: The two pizzas we had were the best I have ever had in Houston. The margarhita was tradional great flavors that tied together well. The Greca was favored out of the two but they are apples and oranges.

Price: Two 12 inch pizzas, two iced teas, bread basket- $40

NAME: JoeBlow
SUBMITTED: 10/4/2011   LAST VISIT WAS: 10/4/2011
FREQUENCY: Visited 2-3 times

MY REVIEW: We used to get Collinas pretty consistently but that was when you could count on their pizzas being consistent. That consistency seems to be long gone, I've had pizzas undercooked,overcooked, and overly greasy with tough dough like today. I don't know how they could quit caring about such an important thing as serving the best pizza in the area. Oh well at least there are more and more pizza places showing up all the time. S*tar Pizza, how about coming out west?!

NAME: disappointed in collinas
SUBMITTED: 9/21/2011   LAST VISIT WAS: 9/21/2011
FREQUENCY: Visited 4-6 times

MY REVIEW: We ordered for delivery using their online feature. This order was for the entire office staff and I didn't want to confuse anyone trying to talk out the entire order. Not to mention, the president of our company was here so we were already going nuts trying to make everything perfect. All we ever ordered for him was pizza and subs. We've never eaten here before and figured it would be a nice change of pace. When we were first told about this restaurant(from an employee who dropped off the flyer) we were told there would be no delivery charge. We went online to see the delivery area and it does include our building. The restaurant called us when they received our order and told us we were out of there area by 1 street and there would be a $5 delivery charge though they are around the corner from our office. We normally don't do delivery charges because it ends up going to the restaurant and we like to tip the drivers well for their service. This was extremly frustrating but we had to order because we didn't want to change the entire office order again. Second, no where on their menu does it state that bread comes with just about everything, nor did it state it online. So, we ordered 2 things of bread. The delivery guy gets here and looks like he's going to a baseball game with what looks liek an Aggies shirt on (no offense, Love the AGGIES). He never even took his sunglasses off. He then informs us that we didn't have to order the bread. I will give him credit for being here 15 minutes before expected though. Once he left and we passed out all the food we soon realized there was no eating utensils! We called the restaurant back and they said they don't deliver silverware with their food and they only have one driver so he couldn't come back. I have never done a review before, but this is the worst service I have ever had. The bad part about all this is that we will have to order food every day for 2 weeks out of every month. This restaurant was supposed to become one of the regulars to put into our rotation. We are throwing away their menus now.

NAME: ANGRY STAFF
SUBMITTED: 5/25/2011   LAST VISIT WAS: 05/2011
FREQUENCY: Visited once

MY REVIEW: We ordered dinner for delivery and had to eventually give up and go pick it up. The chicken was so tough that it was challenging with a steak knife to cut it. The pasta had so little sauce on it that we had to open a jar from the kitchen pantry.

NAME: Frustrated!
SUBMITTED: 4/15/2011   LAST VISIT WAS: 4/14/2011
FREQUENCY: Visited once

MY REVIEW: On behalf of my sister's,friends and I, want to say "THANK YOU"

March 8, 2011,at 3:00pm - 5:30pm, eight of us celebrated my mom's 84th birthday at Collina's. The service was A Plus and everyone of us enjoyed one's selection of food. They supplied plates, knife and forks for cake. Thank you, Again.

NAME: Maria
SUBMITTED: 3/10/2011   LAST VISIT WAS: mARCH 8, 2011
FREQUENCY: Visited 4-6 times

MY REVIEW: Wow! I was really shocked to read all the bad reviews of this restaurant. My friend and I ate there for the first time on the recommendation of another friend. We arrived around 6 p.m. and the place was half empty. However, it was jam-packed by the time we left. We both ordered a personal sized seafood pizza which had shrimp and lump crabmeat on it. It did not have any sauce but we both felt it would have detracted from the delicious seafood so we were OK with that. It was also sprinkled with fresh basil which was very good.

They had a certain brand of wine on special for $2.50 a glass. I had the shiraz and my friend had the chardonney and we were both pleased. My tab came to $14.61 which I thought was very reasonable.

There was plenty of waitstaff on this occassion. I would definitely go back there and can only think that maybe management has gotten their act together since the other reviews were made.

NAME: Jamie
SUBMITTED: 10/24/2010   LAST VISIT WAS: 10/23/2010
FREQUENCY: Visited once

MY REVIEW: He was unable to find my order and we then went over my concern about my credit card being charged, and why it had not been charged yet (because they enter these in by hand once they receive the online order and don't have an online payment system) and then whether or not I was in their delivery area, which come to find out, I am not, by a few streets, although he could not tell me an exact street name that was the cut-off point for the delivery area.

He actually offered to deliver my order this once even though we weren't in the delivery area, but I declined because it had already been almost 2 hours and I didn't wish to wait another 45 minutes to an hour for a delivery.

A restaurant that is going to take online orders should have a system in place that notifies the potential customer that once their order has been placed, the restaurant has received it. Not some kind of a crap shoot situation like Collina's has in place. The only good thing I can say is that at least the page I submitted my order through was a secure page.

Unfortunately they didn't gain a new customer tonight, but lost one instead.

NAME: DeliveryLover
SUBMITTED: 9/4/2010   LAST VISIT WAS: 8/2010
FREQUENCY: Visited once

MY REVIEW: We tried this place on good word of mouth reviews.

I asked the server if the Spaghetti and Meatballs were good. He raved about how good it was, and how everything was made from scratch. Apparently this was not the case for their Spaghetti and Meatballs. 9 dollars for a small bowl of pasta with two Sysco food Service meatballs that were obviously boiled with the pasta, and an unremarkable marinara sauce. It was hilarious to pass this off as a home made dish.

I had other people that dined with me that had Pizzas that they liked, but in my book, an Italian place should be able to at least come up with a home made spaghetti and meatballs.

Service was semi attentive. After we got our food, he came back once and never refilled our drinks or anything after that.

I may or may not go back.

NAME: 07EscaladeEXT
SUBMITTED: 8/2/2010   LAST VISIT WAS: August 2010
FREQUENCY: Visited once

MY REVIEW: We went to Collina's because it was close and not to expensive. It is not our usual first choice for Italian because of the total lack of ambiance, but fortunately this time there was only about half dozen kids screaming and running around. We ordered the Rustica pizza, which was great, the service was semi-good, and the prices reasonable. We do recommend it for the food and basically it's a good neighborhood restaurant if you are in the area.

NAME: ladams
SUBMITTED: 7/4/2010   LAST VISIT WAS: 07/2010
FREQUENCY: Visited 4-6 times

MY REVIEW: Collina's is steadily going down hill. Start off with it took fifteen minutes to get the wine opened. It took another twenty to before we could place an order. We used to order pizzas until the toppings/sauce became non-existent. For a peronal entree I usually ordered lasagna but the last three times it tended to be chewy (similar to over microwaving?). This time I decided to try the ravioli. My order came and I took one bite - lukewarm. The sauce was cool and the plate was cold. I sent it back expecting it to be microwaved. Apparently, it took them ten minutes to replace one ravioli because it was stone cold. In comparison, my companions pasta was steaming hot when served. Also, how hard is it to have matching wine glasses? Manager??? What's a manager. I heard that the restaurant changed hands a while back. About the same time they seemed to have a complete staff turnover.

NAME: Disappointed in the Heights
SUBMITTED: 4/25/2010   LAST VISIT WAS: 04/10
FREQUENCY: Visited 4-6 times

MY REVIEW: fast, and tasty. I stop for lunch here often, and always enjoy the food. The service is friendly, and the margarita pizza.... Amazing! parking is a bit rough, though. If you're in a time crunch, try carry out or delivery. yum

NAME: hungry in the heights
SUBMITTED: 3/26/2010   LAST VISIT WAS: 03-25-10
FREQUENCY: Everybody here knows my name...

MY REVIEW: Food is consistently good - the service is consistently slow....not a good place to go if you're on a tight lunch schedule.

On our last visit, our server came by three times - to take our order, to drop off our food, and to drop off our check. Today, we barely got that. Server seemed to be in a foul mood and seemed bothered with us.

So enjoy the food....but don't expect too much service or time wise

NAME: morgan
SUBMITTED: 3/23/2010   LAST VISIT WAS: 03/2010
FREQUENCY: Visited 4-6 times

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