Ciao Baby

Went here for a wine tasting charity event and it was great. Food was fantastic and I highly recommend the ciao baby red wine. Even the pizza was great.

I have such mixed emotions about this place.
I’ve had two bad experiences here and two good. The first time I went it was a Tuesday during happy hour. They have cool daily specials and decent happy hour. They advertise a late happy hour but the second time I went they said they were closing the restaurant early for the night.
I went again tonight but the visibly drunk bartender (after ignoring us to take care of his buddy as if we weren’t already seated prior) told me the kitchen may be closed, but that I should run out and ask the hostess to see if I can get food. What? His buddy had the nerve to tell me to «take care of my bartender» on his way out. Needless to say, I left.
It just sucks because I actually really liked the food here and was considering having them cater my engagement dinner. I wish the service didn’t suck.

This resturant was fantastic. Food was delicious. And our service was nothing short but attentive. It seemed to be that they miggt have been short staff tonight. The waitress that we had seemed like she had a lot going on but she was the sweetest. Mike came in and helped her out. It seemed like he might have been a manager of somw sort. It was so nice to see everyone working together as a team. Everyone was so nice, we will DEFINITELY be back again!

Beautiful restaurant, outstanding food and service! Highly recommended to anyone for a night out or to have a party there! My daughter’s 1^st communion was there today… we were nothing but happy with everything. Thank you to Ciao Baby for a great day !

We decided to have our ‘mom’s only’ Mother’s Day brunch at Ciao Baby this year. We arrived promptly on time for our 1:15pm seating and were ready to hit the buffet and, of course, the $ 5 drink options. Despite our on-​time arrival, we patiently waited until 1:54 to be seated. Originally impatient and getting fed up, we were ready to walk out (I mean almost 45 minutes past our reservation time-​what gives??)
Right before the breaking point, both the manager and owner approached us (prior to being seated). We were given a round of mimosas on the house while waiting as well as another round of drinks once we were (finally) seated. We were instantly assured that we could have our table for as long as we’d like and we would miss out on nothing. Instead of having to visit the buffet, platters of delicious food were brought directly to our table, including dessert. We were also able to take home anything we did not eat, which totaled to 6 tin to-​go dishes. The waitstaff was incredibly attentive and the owner approached us numerous times throughout our brunch to make sure we were enjoying ourselves and to ask if there was anything we needed!
All in all-​our traditional Mother’s Day Brunch couldn’t have been better and we had a beautiful day. Thank you to the amazing staff at Ciao Baby for helping out, specifically the managers and owner on duty!

The waiter service was great. Appetizer platter with the rice bowl that was created was on point! They only feedback I have is I asked for my skirt steak well done. It was medium rare. So I had to wait another 5 – 10 min for my food. While everyone was almost done eating. This place was nice but to expensive for what it is in my opinion.

Went on a Saturday in March 2016 with 6 other friends for a birthday dinner celebration. We had a 8:00 PM reservation and got there at 7:30 to meet and have a drink at the bar. I let the hostess and manager (who was standing next to her) know that were there (at 7:45) but not to rush since were having a drink. I asked for a round table if possible. The manager scowled at me. I didn’t think much of it but mentioned to my friends when I got back to the bar. Little did I know that was just the start. We eventually sat at about 8:45 but I have no issue with the late seating given my request for a round table.
We ordered clams casino and mussels for an appetizer for the table. The food came out four minutes after we ordered it. My friend and I looked at each other and said, that was too fast. Both dishes were cold to the touch so clearly these were not made fresh and were simply «heated up» but not very well. We sent them both back for more fire. When you’re in the restaurant business, there’s simply no excuse for not cooking to order and serving cold seafood food.
We ordered a bottle of wine and the waitress opened and began to pour without allowing someone the opportunity to taste it. I asked her to stop pouring so I could sample it and she was confused. I explained that I wanted to sample the wine before she continued to pour to ensure quality and that that was customary. She thanked me for explanation but that in her years [over a decade] at her [prior national chain] restaurant she never served wine from a bottle. When we ordered the second bottle, she attempted to mix the wine from the two different bottles. I explained why that was not good etiquette. She clearly had received no training which is the restaurants fault.
For dinner we ordered several «family style» dishes to share that were approximately $ 50 each and were advertised as «for the table». One was a seafood and pasta dish and the other was skirt steak. This time the food was hot, however, the portions were what most restaurants would serve as a single portion which was very disappointing for the price. The linguine that was served with the seafood was overcooked. There was only three shrimp in the seafood dish. Overall the food was disappointing.
As one of the servers was delivering dinner, he knocked over a full bottle of wine which shot all over friend drenching her blouse and pants. The staff was apologetic, but they didn’t stop us from cleaning the floor and table either, which I thought was weird, but really just highlights the staff is not trained well. No one from management came over to see how we were making out until much later. They didn’t offer to pay for ruined the clothes or dry cleaning. The server walked away with the bottle, that was now half empty only to show up with it cleaned off a minute later (still half empty). She put it on the table, to which I promptly picked it up and handed it back to her letting her know we would take a fresh full bottle.
To review:
Pissy Management
Cold food
Some food not well prepared
Overpriced or just small portions for family style dishes
Poorly trained staff
The one star rating is for the servers that at least tried, even if they didn’t know what they were doing. Overall, I was most disappointed in the greeting we got from the manager and the fact that management didn’t handle the issues that came up well. All this equals one star and 7 people that walked away saying never again. There’s much better restaurants in the area.

This review was deleted:
Went to Ciao Baby to celebrate my daughter’s birthday. Table of 13. Got the stomach gurgles the next day. The day after i was puking my guts out… As were 10 other guests. Ciao, Ciao Baby.
Let me fill in some details. I’ve been to Ciao Baby a few times. Their claim to fame schtick is that they serve enormous portions. When I say enormous, I mean it. They are HUGE. For those who prefer quantity over quality, this is your place. Their rice ball is the size of a soccer ball. This is the epitome of «family style.» Pure gluttony.
Our birthday meal consisted of a couple of rice balls (HUGE), salad (uninspiring), fried calamari (breaded, fried rubber bands), Momma Nona’s meat platter (this is what i think did us in for the food poisoning… or maybe tainted meat in the rice balls), some kind of chicken dish smothered with goopy sauce on what seemed to be about 10 lbs of bland mashed potatoes. Tomato sauce was super acidic and salty.
Dessert was as gluttonous as the meal. Huge… HUGE… slices of stale, bland cakes. I liked the idea of the cannoli sundae (vanilla ice cream with cannoli cream). It tasted better going down than it did coming back up.
As I mentioned in my first review 11 out of 13 guests at my table, all family, wound up with food poisoning — VIOLENT food poisoning — over the next two days.
Na-​na-​na-​na, na-​na-​na-​na, hey-​hey, good-​bye.
Ciao, Ciao Baby.
Let’s see if this one gets deleted.
—–
Update 04-​04-​2016, Unilocal Message from Ciao Baby:
Please provide full name and the day you ate at the store if you did not provide that Unilocal deletes the reviews.
—–
Update 04-​04-​2016, my reply:
I’m not comfortable providing you with that information.
—–
Next update, 04-​04-​2016, Ciao Baby’s reply:
Ok that’s why your review is taken down. Unilocal requires if owners ask for the information after writing a negative review that you must provide it. I will let Unilocal know .
—-
Further update, 04-​04-​2016, my reply:
I’d like to see that policy. Thanks.
—-
Query: Is that really Unilocal’s policy on negative reviews? Seems to be intimidation.
—
Further update from Ciao Baby on 04-​04-​2016:
I don’t have access to remove your review. Unilocal does. They don’t allow people to post and not identify themselves it will be removed again. Thanks
—–
Query: Why not just respond and say something like, «We are sorry about your experience. We will redouble our efforts on keeping our restaurant clean, blah, blah, blah…»?
–
This is Unilocal’s stated reason for my first review, I guess it was too short:
Hi John,
We wanted to let you know that we’ve removed your review of Ciao Baby. Your review was brought to our attention by the Unilocal community, and we found that it fell outside our Content Guidelines because it did not provide enough detail about your customer experience.
The best reviews provide context, detail and perhaps even a helpful tip or two. Feel free to post a new review with more information about your experience with this business. To learn more, check out our Content Guidelines at
.
Thanks for understanding, and we’ll see you on Unilocal

Second time here. Went with brother, sister, and niece to introduce to them this amazing place. The price is worth it in my opinion.
We began with breads and olive oil dip with shaved sharp cheddar. We immediately went for their famous calamari served on a huge long plate. This is a must not miss for anyone visiting.
For my entrée, I re-​ordered marinated skirt steak that I had an amazing experience trying out a few months ago. Sumptuous to the very last molecule the 2^nd time around. Sister ordered crêpe manicoti bolognese, St. Luca bass for brother, and mango salmon for niece. All three had a great experience with their entrees.
Multichannel TV screens are a wall-​to-​wall experience at this joint.
Hosting and waitering were equally amazing. Ambience is absolutely excellent, but beware, this is a fun and noisy family atmosphere. Do not come if you are a quiet and boring soul.
I’m just sorry that this jjoint got recent negative reviews after an overly huge guest overflow may have diminished the quality of food preparation. They should have anticipated an immensely huge holiday customer turnout because of previous excellent experience.
Anyway, kudos to this great place for the second time around, and hopefully more to come.

My tableside review.
The place is clean and the seating is comfortable. The waiter was tentative but I feel like there is a lack of ambiance. Tv’s everywhere. I could see it in the bar area, but right above the tables is a bit much.
The wedge salad was ok. It was fresh and the bacon crisp. The portion was huge and could have easily been enough for two to three people.
The calamari was decent. Lots of legs which was nice. Not oily or rubbery at all. The sauce that came with it was cold though which was sort of a turnoff.
The chicken parm… I was pretty sure I was the toughest thing at the table until the chicken parm arrived. I almost wanted to check for a Spalding stamp on the bottom of it. Most of it is being taken home for the dog. And no spaghetti. How is an Italian themed restaurant out of spaghetti??? We opted for linguini which was really firm and not so great either I’m afraid. The sauce on it was also a little odd.
Was our first time here but we will most likely not be returning to this location.

Thanks to the entire Ciao Baby Staff! My Birthday — a little mix up with pick up .
When we found the mistake and called … Within 20 min I had my orig order, my mistake pick up., complimentary desert for my birthday AND a gift card for future use. My 4 kids are jumping up n down to have all this pasta in the house ;)
My husband and I love this place and can only recommend it highly to anyone looking for amazing food and exemplary service.

The food was amazing and the waitress was awesome. The only suggestion I would make is to change the music. It was 50’s Diana Ross type songs, which is fine but kind of took away from the Italian dining experience and made me feel like I was eating at a diner. Other than that, the place is really cute. Will definitely be back.

Tonight was the 7^th year in a row me and my now fiancé have come to Ciao Baby for our Valentine’s Day dinner. It has become a tradition for us and so we were excited and looking forward to coming back this year!
However, upon being seated we had three different people approach is all informing us they would be serving us for the night. We should have known from this point on that the night was going to be one big disorganized mess.
30 minutes after being seated, we still had not received a bread basket. We then signaled over our waiter and requested that we please get some. He then informed us that ‘the kitchen is backed up and if any comes out we will get some then’. Really? I understand it’s a holiday and the place is crowded, but isn’t this something you should have been prepared for?
Anyways, this was the least of our problems. Our $ 17 + calamari appetizer came out looking like it was slopped on a plate by some chef that was running behind in the kitchen. We order this appetizer every year and it is specifically called ‘calamari arrabbiata’. I don’t know about you, but where I come from that means spicy. Turns out the 2 cups of sauce on the plate were both regular cups of mediocre marinara sauce. I again signaled over the waiter where I apologized for being a pain and simply explained how neither sauce was spicy. He laughed saying okay and walked away. About 5 minutes later he came back dropped the sauce down on the table quick, not making eye contact with us or saying a single word/​apologizing and rushed onto the next table.
This is where it gets good. We then check the time about a half hour after completing our appetizer only to find that we’d ordered our entrée over an hour ago. The two couples next to us seemed to be complaining of the same issue. One of them, an older man and his wife, which ended up speaking to the manager and walking out after a very unprofessional argument. The other way more patient than my fiancé would have ever been, requested the check several times before eventually receiving it, paying before their main course ever arrived and leaving. We chose to wait patiently as we had already waited over an hour and at this point just wanted our food.
After requesting to speak with the manager, he approached us, gave us some lousy speech about how it’s the holidays and he apologizes, but that tomorrow is Presidents’ Day and we’re off so we should just relax and basically enjoy the wait… Oh wait and he offered us a free glass of wine each on the house like that would make the whole situation better… I’m sorry but having come from a family who owns Italian restaurants this was completely unprofessional and not the way to run a business. Every table around us that had been seated after myself, my fiancé and the two couples next to us already had food on their tables and were enjoying their meals… An almost two hour wait for a simple pasta and meat sauce is completely UNACCEPTABLE. To be honest, it didn’t really seem like the manager truly cared if the service at his restaurant had ruined several couples special night.
Approximately two hours after having arrived at Ciao Baby we finally received our meal which was Nonnas Meat Platter. Another dish my fiancé and I select every year. This time however, the pasta was completely undercooked and hard, sitting in a bowl of tomato sauce/​soup. The sauce was bland and barely hot with hardly any pasta. We took a majority of it to go and then dumped it in the garbage on the way out.
What a waste of our time and money! Unfortunately, after 7 years of tradition, we will never be back! Joey our waiter was absolutely terrible and completely unprofessional.
Word of advice to the manager — Next year you may want to reconsider accepting so many reservations if you are not properly staffed nor prepared to handle the volume of costumers you’ve welcomed into your restaurant for the Holiday. You may also want to revamp your interviewing process and become a little more picky regarding the individuals whom you chose to represent your restaurant and serve your customers, as they have a huge impact on our experience.
To Nicole –Thank you for being attentive and understanding and for being the only waitress tonight that seemed to have their shit together. maybe the managerial role should be handed over to you!

I had an awesome experience here the first time I went back in August 2015. Without a doubt, that first time we went was an absolute 5 star rating. Tonight I went back with my family and was a completely different experience. The service was definitely way too understaffed for a Sunday night. This led to us waiting over an hour for our 2 family style dishes. The atmosphere had much louder music, to the point where we could not hear each other speak. Our waiter was indifferent, being we had to ask him for the bread to be put on our table after a half hour into being there.
Like I mentioned above, the first experience was phenomenal but this time it just did not cut it. We went tonight to possibly consider using Ciao Baby for our rehearsal dinner for our wedding, but after tonight I think we will consider other options. Perhaps it was just an overall bad night for them and I normally do not say much, but it just left an overall bad taste in my mouth.

This was totally not what I expected. Since it was on man v food I pictured a slightly divey pizza joint in a strip mall. The space was way bigger than expected and had good ambience. Nice lighting and music, lots of seating, and a hopping bar area away from the tables.
There were a ton of severs who were very friendly and accommodating. And we brought a toddler so friendliness goes a long way with us.
The food: So after watching the man v food clip I decided we needed to try the rice ball. I knew it would be filling so we ordered that and the mussels appetizer in white sauce. The food came out quickly and the rice ball was amazing! It didn’t really taste greasy and fried like most rice balls I’ve had. It had tons of meat, delicious risotto, and topped with a scoop of really fresh ricotta. I wish there was more red sauce on it but next time I will just ask for more. My bad. It was enormous and my husband and I agreed we could have just ordered that and been completely fine for a meal.
As for the mussels in white sauce… They were really fishy (that’s why my review is only 4 stars and not 5). I tried a couple of them and could not eat them. I have never sent anything back at a restaurant but they were inedible. I told the waitress and she had it removed from our bill which was nice. I felt so bad bc I hate doing that (we have a good tip).
Anyway that said I believe the mussels were a fluke. There were so many things that looked good on the menu/​coming out around us I can’t wait to go back.
They had an excellent beer list and some tasty look wine and sangria as well. Oh focaccia bread basket was really good too!

Not sure why we took so long to visit Ciao Baby, but glad we finally did. Recently sat at the bar for dinner with the Mrs., and had a great time.
Was surprised at how good the house red wine was… and with a very generous pour at just $ 5… more than a few went down smoothly. We had the famous rice ball and fried mozzarella for appetizers — both very good.
Lobster tortellini was my wife’s dinner, while I went for the short rib ragu over shell pasta. We loved both — and the portions were so large we brought plenty home.
We don’t often go out for Italian food, as we cook it at home and have several great delivery places nearby (after all, this is MassaPIZZA), but when we do go out, we’ll certainly visit Caio Baby again!
As others have mentioned, the «front» of the restaurant is actually in the back. Don’t park on Sunrise Highway — there’s a big parking lot behind the restaurant which is adjacent to Verizon Wireless.

It was my first time here and I must say the food was delicious. The restaurant was very clean and cozy. The couple things I hated about last night was, 1) your waiter (s) was very rude. She was said they did things differently by working in pairs of two tell you the truth we hardly seen anyone. When the waiter comes to the table she would have a different odor coming from her breath. She smelled like Alcohol and cigarettes. She was rushing us major of the night. We ended up giving her s descent tip because we know she had to share it with everyone else. On a scale of ¹⁄₁₀ for her service she’s rated 1.5… Restaurant and food was yummmmy, every moment of the food. Will definitely go again.

I love this place. I try and come here only on special occasions As to not be too indulgent. The Food is so delicious and the portions omg.
This restaurant is great for large parties. The servings are family style so the more the merrier. Service was great as usual. It was my buddy’s birthday so we had a few drinks. Our server was always on the ball whenever we needed anything. Great recommendations for our beer flights we got.
Great job guys. The cannoli was amazing!!! Thanks

Ciao Baby «Massapequa Park. Not to say Ciao baby is awful, because it most certainly is not, I just cannot say Ciao baby is a fantastic spot to get quality italian. I think the portions impress people, and while I could eat a dish there over the course of three days, that’s not what I always look for in a meal…
The Calamari trio was quite good and I suggest it.
The «legendary rice balls» were anything but, unless of course they mean a legendary let down after talking a big game.
Personally I got a dish that had next to no sauce and in turn was a bit dry and bland, however other dishes seemed adequate in their own right.
Plates are big enough to share so go in and order a few things the entire table can enjoy together, that’s the draw, union over food… sharing is caring at Ciao baby
Go share, but this place only impresses you if you’re easily impressed.
We had rather stinky service but maybe he was having a bad day or something.

I have loved ciao baby since I first went to the one that used to be in garden city\westbury. The entertainment was good, the food came plenty and the atmosphere was inviting. I went tonight to try some of the new craft beers they had. We had a Blind bat porter. Pours a dark dark brown thick head. Rich earthy coffee flavor. High carbonation. Crisp sharp finish.
The food was also delicious! The lobster tortellini was perfect and sauce was light but still rich with flavor. Same for the chicken
Scarpariello. This is one of my go to meals. I rarely eat it anymore because of certain dietary restrictions. Tonight was an exception! The chicken was seasoned and tender, and the peppers and sausage were cooked with just the right amount of browning. I will be back for more!
Service was also amazing !