Grande Bella Cucina

Went here for my 3^rd year wedding anniversary and had an unfortunate experience. The poor waitress was all on her own so while we were seated promptly and our service was fast, the food was subpar. My husband and I ordered Eggplant rollitini and it was smothered with waaaay too much mozzarella. Also, and at the end of our meal we had to wait 20 minutes to get our check! When we did, there was a mysterious $ 7 open food charge! Some anniversary gift Grandes… thanks for that.
I don’t think I will ever go back to Grandes. They used to be good, but now they was just stingy. They don’t want to pay for enough waiters and they charge you if they don’t think you’ve spent enough WITHOUT stating a minimum.

Homemade gnocchi was terrible, not light and fluffy nor did it have a nice bite to it. Caprese pizza was sub par, it lacked the juicy, flavorful tomatoes I was expecting. House salads were soft and soggy, bread basket was lame. Linguine with white clam sauce was very heavy, the sauce was thick and gummy, the bite I tried was gritty and sandy. Calamari was average, chewy, tough and definitely frozen. Prices were high and I won’t be returning.

We just moved here so we are trying to find a go to pizza place. This will not make the cut. The fact it too an hour and a half to get the pizza was the first big strike. The pizza was blah and when we reheated it the next day it was awful. We couldn’t put our finger on if it was the sauce or crust that was odd tasting but it was disappointing either way. At least the kiddo liked their mozzarella sticks.

Awful food and service. We came and ordered the $ 20 4 course meal. Appetizers took 45 minutes and the order was wrong and overcooked. I ordered haddock stuffed with crab as an entrée and my companion got the ten once steak. Both were minimal portions, drowned in sauce and overcooked. For dessert they were out of everything except vanilla cake and we were there a total of 2 hours waiting on the meal. At the end the waitress apologized for all the issues but offered no compensation on the bill. Avoid this dump at all costs!!!

I had the «homemade» manicotti and it was flooded in sauce… overkill to say the least… the filling was somewhat ok but my Grandmother made homemade manicotti… that was absolutely not homemade. Also… their antipasto was horrible. the meat looked like it was from the cooler section at your local grocer, and the dressing was all oil. Oh and it was overpriced. never again…

Unfortunately I had to leave without finishing my meal. I ordered the chicken Marsala lunch special which doesn’t come with pasta. I asked to change my meal and the waitress got very disrespectful. The manager came to speak with me, but I was so turned off by the waitresses rudeness that I decided to leave. Local feel and crowd. Cheap prices.

Well? here goes.
We are from the area and certainly no strangers to this establishment.
While back in town attending a family graduation ceremony at the Arena, we chose Grande’s South for our dinner venue.
Although parking has improved a bit, (those in the know will know exactly what I’m talking about) that is (I’m sad to report) the only thing worth noting.
Reservations at 8:30 on a Friday night.
Arrived on time.
Party of 4.
They had a booth already prepared for us but when I asked for a table instead of a booth you would’ve thought I asked them to go wash my car.
I do have to add, with the exception of one table with two people, the place was absolutely empty.
This includes the bar. Nobody, no one, zero, zip.
Did I mention it was Friday evening?!
1^st: ordered drinks, out of Blue Moon???
Since when folks?!
To be fair, they had my 2^nd choice.
A Corona with quite possibly the driest wedge of lime I’ve ever had the displeasure of seeing sticking out from the top. Someone had to touch this and they couldn’t see this? Really?!
2^nd: the obligatory bread.
This was some sort of dried cheesish style bread, which was a far cry from what we used to have here back-​in-​the-​day.
Fresh, warm, Italian style loaf with choices of select dipping oils.
What happened to Grandes?
The rest of the meals were fine and my pizza was spot on.
It’s the little things I guess, but they do make a difference, at least to us.
Sadly, we won’t be back until we see an improvement from other Unilocalers.
Something happened here over the last 4 years and we truly hope the owners do what they need to do, which we think is rather obvious.

There is no such thing as a medium pizza, the one we got was huge.

We went as a family on Mother’s Day and were disappointed by the food. Our server was good enough and she did keep our drinks filled. The atmosephere was pleasant. But the food… it wasn’t that great. The bacon wrapped horseradish honey shrimp were overcooked and rubbery. Not to mention, I believe they forgot the horseradish all together. The shrimp were drenched in the honey. Definitely less would have been more in this situation and that was just the appetizer. The salad was delicious and fresh. The main course, crab stuffed haddock with hollandaise had good flavor but the fish was overcooked/​dry and the crab filling was basic at best and again they way overdid the sauce on the entrée. The mashed potatoes were either hungryjack brand with some garlic added or the potatoes were cooked 2 hours prior and just sat under heat. They were so dry. Not a creamy, fluffy, buttery potato as you might expect. This is the review of just one meal out of ten that were ordered. I feel we should have had a better meal for the amount of money spent. We will not be visiting Grande’s on Vestal Ave again.

One of the best Italian restaurants in this area! the food is good… the owner knows how to make a guest feel comfortable and the ambience is terrific.

A couple co-​workers and I went there for lunch. The waitress that seated us was frazzled and had to open another section to seat us. A few of us went with the lunch buffet which was convenient and just okay. Two others in our party decided to order from the menu. By the time we were half way through with our buffet plates, another waitress came by to get our drink orders and the food orders for those not wanting the buffet. We had come and gone to the buffet 2 – 3 times before the others received their meals, one of which was received after everyone had finished eating. It was another 10 minutes that we had to wait for our check. I’m willing to give a place the benfit of the doubt when they’re busy, but overall the food was just okay, and the service was pretty poor. We crossed it off our lunch list and won’t be returning.

Went here for Valentine’s Day with my boyfriend expecting a great experience. The food was good, but the service was subpar. Our dinner reservations were at 7:15 and we didn’t end up leaving until 9 PM with only 2 courses. We were sat down at 7:15 and weren’t given waters or drink orders until at least 15 minutes later. When we were given our salads, we still didn’t have utensils or napkins, not even bread plates to eat the bread! Our main dishes were good, but I will only ever get take out from here again. I understand Valentine’s day is a busy night, but management should account for this. The waitress even made excuses towards us, pointing out how many tables she had. Again, understandable, but a simple «I’m very sorry» would’ve sufficed rather than making excuses towards the customer.
Overall, good food but poor experience.

In the spirit of trying to start on a positive note, the salad was fine. And I have very good memories of great food from here.
But we haven’t been here in over year, and we were frankly appalled at the change. I mean, even the bread was bad — we found ourselves eating part of a piece that was exceptionally flavorless trying to figure it out. The texture was wrong and the flavor was flat. And the realized that it was their pizza dough. They are actually trying to make a bread out of their pizza dough. It makes a great pizza dough, but a terrible bread.
I got pepperoni and cheese rolls as an appetizer and they were actually inedible. They were store bought — lets just think about that for a minute. You are an italian restaurant with a pizza kitchen and you don’t make these in house? They were store-​freeze pizza rolls pulled out a fryer. And whatever meat was in them was not pepperoni. My husbands shrimp bbq was so covered in bbq sauce that we had a hard time finding the shrimp.
Our main dishes (steak & shrimp scampi and eggplant parm) were covered in grease. Just layered in it. And the eggplant parm was bitter (but at least the cheese on it was ok.)
Even the desert was horrible. I can accept restaurants serving pre-​made cakes from Big Local Restaurant supplier, but please make sure they are not cold and dried out when you are serving them.
The whole dinner was a terrible disappointment, and we won’t be going back there again.

I went with a co-​worker on a weekday evening. The place was empty but we somehow got terrible service nonetheless. The waitress was just awful. It took her 20 mins to even acknowledge we exist. When we asked her questions about the menu, she didn’t know and then didn’t want to go ask the chef. When alerted to a possible food allergy, she put the item on my plate and asked me to try it too see if I am allergic. I don’t think that is ever a good idea.
Overall, the place has so much potential if not for the terrible service and lack of knowledgable staff.

Our server was nice and service was decently fast, but the food was awful! I had the Pasta del Orto (pasta with various vegetables) and everything was cooked to Death! The carrots were mushy and white, and everything tasted simultaneously like nothing and horrid canned artichokes. Not worth the money at all.

their pizza is a 5. at least for the style they do anyways. good sauce and cheese on a not too thin NY style crust. the wings are decent, but beware of the hot wings. most places i can handle their hot but the ones i was served here were really hard to eat! the last couple times i got garlic knots here they weren’t too impressive, but i’ve had really good ones here before. the price is fair for slices but there’s better deals around.
as for the actual restaurant part, i’ve only been to dinner here once and it was years ago so i don’t remember too much. i went recently for the buffet and it was a let down. the pizza they brought out was fine but the knots were really dry. i grabbed some mac salad from the salad bar that was pretty good. i must have went at a bad time. i went just after lunch hour and the place was dead but there was still plenty of food out that aside from the pizza had to have been sitting there since they put it out at 11. they had ribs, ziti, chicken parm, some other kind of chicken, and fettuccine alfredo. i did not eat the fet alfredo because it looked like all the sauce had dried up and it looked really gross. the chicken parm was also not very good. the other chicken was ok, it had some sort of marinade but parts of it were cold and other parts warm. same with the ribs, the only ones warm were the ones on the bottom of the pan. the waitress kept up on filling my drink and taking plates from the table but when she brought out new food she should have stirred the old food so it stayed evenly heated. i probably won’t be back for the buffet but i’d still go for a dinner sometime. the place looks beautiful on the inside so it’d be a nice place for a date (if i could get one!), but food wise little venice is better, except for the pizza, grandes is one of the best pizzas in town

Excellent experience with a friend of mine. Our server was superb and the food came out reasonably fast and hot. I elected to go with the $ 20 price fix menu. Generally that means noticeably smaller portion sizes but not here. I got the Chicken Alfredo (very good), Bruschetta app (different, w/​melted cheese topping, but good), house salad (acceptably large), and a tasty slice of carrot cake for desert… Prices are very reasonable, although probably a bit high end for the low to lower middle class surrounding neighborhood. I also liked the lay out a lot. Nice bar and upper area of sectioned off booths. Neat ceiling design, etc. I heard John Boehner ate here during a stop through Bingo several months ago… I’ll try not to hold that against them :-)
My only concern was their lack of business on a comfortably Saturday evening in July. We got there a little late (8pm-​ish), but there were still very few people dining. Overall however a A– to A experience and highly recommended!

I went to Grande’s Bella Cucina with my sister, her family and our parent’s for my Mom’s birthday. It is a nice place. The lighting is subdued and the ceiling has stars and clouds. They also have large comfortable restrooms with handicapped access. Our waitress was a gem! She really went out of her way for us.
We started with bottomless baskets of garlic knots. I asked the waitress for a small cup of dipping sauce, which she brought right away. Then one of my nephews decided he had a boo-​boo on his finger and I asked the waitress if they had a band-​aid in their first aid kit. She said they didn’t, but she brought him an ice cube in a napkin and then a band-​aid from her own purse. For dinner Dad had the Lasagna Bolognese, Mom and Sis shared the homemade Ravioli with Vodka sauce, I had the homemade Manicotti, BIL had the Pasta Del Orto Penne (with Grape tomatoes, carrots, onions, roasted peppers, yellow squash, asparagus, baby spinach, northern white beans), and the boys had pizzas. The portions were generous. We thought the pizzas would be small, personal, child sized pizza’s, but they were at least 12 inches each and cut into six pieces. (Proper New York style thin crust pizzas.) The boys each ate two pieces of their pizzas and we took the rest home. Sis thought the ravioli tasted frozen, not freezer burnt, but it had the denser texture cheese gets from being frozen, but she liked the Vodka sauce. My Manicotti was creamy and delicious. BIL ordered a glass of Red Zinfandel but it was a bit strong for his entrée so he ordered a glass of white instead, and I finished his red. It was very oaky, with a lot of tannin, but sweet as well.
For dessert I had picked up a birthday cake from a bakery. The waitress presented the cake (with lit candles on it) for us, and cut and served the cake for us. We ordered coffee, tea, and milk with our cake.
Altogether a pleasant dining experience with good food and good service.

I came here on a Sunday night with my boyfriend as the third stop on our Italy 607 Tour. We were greeted at the front door right away and taken to a booth by the windows. Our waitress was super nice and attentive and went out of her way to check the rum selection for us, and brought us two very good mixed drinks from the bar. Next she brought us complimentary GARLIC KNOTS and man are they fantastic! I swear there had to have been a clove of garlic smeared on each one of them! They were hard to resist as we waited for our appetizer. We ordered the calamari and banana peppers which come NOT fried, which is a welcome reprieve from most other places. The calamari didn’t have much flavor itself (I think the actual meat is usually quite bland), but the peppers and sauce it was in was great. I ordered the Gnocchi with Tomato and Fresh Mozzarella as my entrée and it came with either a soup or salad. The salad was great, I got ranch dressing and the greens were fresh. The gnocchi was superb! Best I have had in a long time! You could taste the quality of the tomatoes which made a HUGe difference. We split the tiramisu as a dessert and I loved that as well. It was SOAKED in espresso, so much so that it spilled out when you put your fork in it! So yummy. As far as scoring goes, I gave this place an ⁸⁷⁄₁₀₀!

We went here for dinner graduation night with a reservation at 8:30. We were not greeted for about ten minutes. I had lasagna and one of my daughters had fresh ravioli. Both were not hot and went back.