Ralph’s Italian Eatery and Bar

So what’s in a name? I really don’t understand the name change from Pompei to Ralph’s. The menu has most of the same items, but the pizza offerings have changed a bit. They seem to be focusing more on thin crust pizza instead of «Pompei Style» square-​cut Sicilian pizza that they are famous for. At the time of this review, they are closed Mondays and Tuesdays and only open for dinner on weekdays.
It was unbelievably sad to be one of two tables occupied on a Thursday evening right after 7pm. I don’t know why more people aren’t flocking here: it has nice ambiance, decent food, fair prices, and looks to be quite clean.
On the evening we went, pasta dishes were 2 for the price of 1, which is a steal since most of the pasta dishes are $ 10-​$ 13. Keep in mind the neither the greeter nor server mentioned the special, but they have a calendar of specials both on the website and on a sheet of paper when you pass between the outside door and the second door leading into the restaurant. We ended up having our favorite: a «half pan» of Pompei style pizza with eggplant on top. It was large enough for two people to eat at the restaurant and still have 3 – 4 lunch-​sized portions for the couple of days (their pizza tastes great reheated) for $ 17. Also had some complimentary bread and butter (the bread basket also had a couple of pieces of tomato bread in it, yum!)
I hope business picks up, we really like you and we’ll be back!!!

Real Italian food, incredible service, friendly people! My new favorite Italian restaurant and pizzeria!

Was hopeful under the new name of Ralph’s things would be different, unfortunately everything was the same. Very poor servers and bad food.

I didn’t want to say anything but…, What there 6 months ago. Food was cold, and garlic bread on Wonder White Bread WFT. It’s apparent that the owner is CHEAP and thinks just because he uses the Pompeii name he can make crap. Ill never eat there again

I asked if the Chef would make Rigatoni Vita Mia for me tonight and he said yes. So on your next visit, if your interested in this dish, ask for it, they may add it to the permanent menu.

I don’t even know where to begin with how terrible this location is. I’ve been to the Taylor street location and all of the Oak Brook locations and this is by far the WORST! The service, the food and the prices definitely are not the Pompei that I am used to. To have walked into this place on a Friday night and it be dead was the first clue.

Sad to say I was very disappointed, great location but food was very bland. Salad and entrée came out of kitchen almost at same time. The place was empty and meal was served within 5 minutes of ordering. Pasta was over cooked.

So sad, I want this place to be good. Had carry out tonight and called immeditely to address the following issues;
1. cold food
2. small, obviously wrong portion
3. pizza made incorrect
4. bland, over all poor quality. (no meat in rice dish listed as made with meat)
No manager ever came to phone. That says alot.
It’s so weird how bad this place is in comparison to the other locations, why don’t they just get some help from them?

Had ¼ sheet of their pizza and when my husband brought it home, I thought «Where is the rest of it?» Ordered extra sausage, and was dissapointed. The two meatballs were dry and the sauce tasted like Ragu. We should have gotten pizza from Beggars or Fox’s and will NOT be getting food from this place again. Save your $$$$$$

Food was not very good at all. Drinks were very poorly made. Didn’t care for the open style cafeteria set up either. Server was nice. Would NOT return and it’s a shame because we need more good restaurants in the Southwest suburbs.

I love the Talor st and Oakbrook location. This place was empty on a monday night with a half-​off pizza deal on monday. This was my third or fourth attempt here. They finally have the dough down right, almost the same as Taylor st/​Oakbrook. The glasses are still dirty, Ive personally addressed this to the manager that the glassware and silverware are not getting clean enough. This is an air-​conditioned place with no outside seating… so why would you let your staff wear shorts or ¾ lenth pants… I dont want to see the guys hairy legs.
This time when seated the busboy asked if we wanted water, I said not in those dirty glasses but poured the other glasses in my party not mine.
Ordered Iced tea… IN A CLEAN GLASS please, I dont care if you have to personally wipe the glass.
Ordered a salad and a ½ tray pizza… food was fine… wait time on the pizza a little long with noone in the place… a little skimpy on the cheese, but was OK
Waitress was friendly and was joking around with us… was terrified after I said I’ll be doing a Unilocal review.
Manager did come up and check on us … kinda a smartass… hows things… eh ok… well its only going to get better.
SANITATION. they get a big zero… I could see the dirty/​foggy/​hazy bar glasses even hanging in the bar. Hairy legs… gross
FOOD. average… temp ok, portion ok
WAITRESS… ok
MANAGER… needs people skills, and a warmer sense of welcome
HOSTESS… what a waste of labor dollars… most of the staff hanging out and screwing off instead of polishing glasses.
I bet this location will be closed in the next 6 – 12 months unless things change here.
PS the table close to us had dirty silverware… whew mine was clean.

Dirty kitchen. I found somebody’s shirt tag in my caesar salad. The kitchen manager/​owner (Rico) came out, looked at it, and said…“ah, that’s not that big of a deal… it’s basically a piece of paper.” No apology, no attempt to rectify, etc. He’s done the same thing when the wait staff took 30 minutes to get us menus. This place needs new management.

Unfortunately there is more to a restaurant than food or we would just get take out food. We go to restaurants for the experience as well and our last experience here was disappointing.
We arrived and the hostess walked us by numerous empty tables at the front to seat us on the «stage» next to a table with a toddler. I could see that this child was not happy, I should have immediately asked for a new table. Unfortunately I took a wait and see attitude and right after we ordered, the child started having a series of loud meltdowns which included drinks and food being overturned. I quietly went back to the hostess stand and asked for a new table, this was not the restaurant’s fault and we were immediately given one of the empty front tables.
The problem is that because we had ordered from a server at the back, he apparently had «dibs» on us but forgot. The manager had come over after we changed tables to assure us the child was not their fault, which was a. obvious and b. an odd thing to rush over and tell us. After sitting for 25 minutes, my husband flagged down the manager as we could not catch the server’s eye.
The manager drug the waiter over when he should have solved the problem and given us a new server. We reminded him of our order and got our soup and salad and then our strudel and pasta dishes. There were no refills, no check backs, the waiter had again forgotten us. We managed to flag him down to ask about dessert, all we wanted was coffee and two cookies. He brought us menus and abandoned us again. 25 minutes later, my husband again got the manager who once more had no problem solving skills. Isn’t everyone supposed to be on the same team?
The waiter showed up and said, would you like dessert? I said, 25 minutes ago we did now can we please have the check. We left and I sent an email to Pompei Little Italy explaining how I thought the situation should have been handled. That was a week ago and I have heard nothing from them. I am surprised about the lack of follow up.
The food here is a 4
The manager is a 1
The server was a 2
The follow up from the restaurant is a 0
I would skip this restaurant or get the food to go and avoid the disorganized business model they are following here. What a disappointment.

Service was very S L O W, Many of forgot items from the bar. You would think a 18% tip auto charge to our bill she would of not forgot so many items. the Peppers and sausage was very salty and was returned to the kitchen, my pasta and meat balls were avg. and a little salty as well. the Pompei Root beer was good. the mixed drinks were not Constance. I had better.

I tried this location after finding a groupon deal. I previously visited the one in oak brook.
I enjoyed this location just as much if not more. I had the small works pizza strudel & my friend had the Baked Mostaccioli. Both dishes were fresh, delicious & more than ample portions.
The waitress was great too. I informed her that I had a groupon before we ordered, she told me that we would worry about that later. She still provided great service.
I did visit this location on a Monday afternoon & I definitely enjoyed my lunch there. This location is closer to my home & I definitely will be returning.

Okay, when I heard that Pompei had made it’s way to Orland I was excited… have always had a great meal at the Oakbrook and Taylor Street location… so I was VERY DISAPPOINTED the first time I tried the new location!
Late last fall, I decided to order my favorite Marie’s Salad and a slice of the Heart Healthy Strudel as takeout. So the names are the same, the menu is the same — to bad the quality isn’t the same. The salad was like something you get at a gas station… packed into a little plastic container, brown lettuce with about an inch of water in the bottom of the container. I thought meh, it’s Sunday night probably packaged earlier that day not the best but no biggy.
Second time, I decided to order delivery — this time ordered by favorite salad and herbed chicken ravioli. Too bad when my order arrived I only got the salad… this time, the lettuce was crisp and green… too bad there was only lettuce (no blue cheese no prosciutto) At least when I called, they gave me a credit.
Third time (you think I’d learn by now) went with my parents and we decided to dine in… at least my meal was decent, my poor mom had to send her dinner back 3 times, first time it came out it was the wrong dinner, second time, the wrong salad the third time, she ordered eggplant and was given chicken parm… not only was the food not up to par but the service was horrible… over 2 ½ hours for 3 salads and a sandwich.
So what made us try it a fourth time??? My niece loves Pompei pizza, so we thought why not… arrived and was told that it was at least a 30 min wait — there were no less than a dozen open tables and only a party of 2 ahead of us (we were a party of 3). We asked the hostess if we could order our pizza so that when we were seated we wouldn’t have to wait that long. We were told «no we don’t do that» but we could order a pizza to go. We explained that we were going to order some salads and maybe a couple of entrees and she again said we could get the pizza to go or could eat at the the pizza bar — we asked could we get more than pizza at the bar and she told us no, only pizza. She then proceeded to tell us that the dining room was full service only. So apparently pizza isn’t appropriate to eat in their restaurant! By this time, the manager came over and told us that «I guess you could pre-​order the pizza» but we needed to order it at the pizza bar. So I approached the girl at the pizza bar to place my order… the girl at the counter was clueless — -«We don’t do that, if you want to get your pizza to go you can take it to your table»…REALLY??? Is this a new concept??? NEVERMIND — -we will take our business elsewhere!!!
It’s unfortunate that this place is banking on the reputation of a great restaurant — if I want the real Pompei experience, I will find my way to Oakbrook or Taylor Street!!!

I work close to home so my wife and I get to go out for lunch fairly often. If I have a lot going on at work, we stick near home but the less work I have the farther we can stray. This restaurant was semi close but brand new to us so a good combination. And it’s Italian, how wrong could you go?
Not wrong at all as it turns out. We were seated right away, had terrific service and were able to enjoy a leisurely lunch in a nice looking space. We split the Caesar salad to start. Hail Caesar! This is my favorite kind of salad and this one was worthy of the Emperor. After that we split a Strudel which sounded odd to me until the waitress said, oh it’s like a Calzon. Ours had sausage, pepperoni, mushroom, green pepper and onion in it. We finished up with coffee and lemon knot cookies, just a touch of sweet at the end.
I am glad that I had never frequented the other establishments so I wasn’t at all shocked and dismayed that there was, TABLE SERVICE. Imagine that in a restaurant. Obviously they have worked out the bugs from when they first opened as we had a flawless experience.
The food was great and the best part was that my wife wasn’t very hungry so I got the Lion’s share of it all. Roar.

I can’t remember when I have been to somewhere so awful.
TO START: Garlic Bread and Bruschetta:
We ordered garlic bread to start and out came 3 slices of toasted bread — YES, regular «Wonder-​like» bread! I asked the waiter if that was the garlic bread and he replied yes. I commented that they can’t possibly serve that to people without people complaining and he said some did. He sent a manager over, who was very nice and told us that this Pompei was franchised and not corporate owned so they did the bread different. Yes, different than every other restaurant to ever serve garlic bread – and not a good different. She asked if we wanted it on Italian Bread instead. YES! It was actually pretty good this time and I wondered why in the world they didn’t always serve like that?
–Also 3 small pieces of bruschetta was the size of that order – there were 4 of us and they were too small to cut in ½. Very stingy on the sizing.
MAIN: I had a lemon chicken dish that had coagulated sauce on the top that looked like it was just pulled out of the fridge from last night and microwaved for my dining pleasure. The pasta it was on was so saturated with water and sauce that it swelled too soft to enjoy.
To be fair my friends had the pizza streudel that they said was pretty good. The other person in our party had a pasta salad that was overcooked, overchopped, and underseasoned.
Service was spotty – it started out good and quickly went downhill as waiters seemed overwhelmed with their tables.
Hate to be so negative, but they have a long way to go if they want to stay in business.

We were so happy to be getting a Pompei so close by and what a major disappointment. The portions were small as compared to their other restaurants, it is not counter ordering like Little Italy and Oakbrook Pompei Restaurants so I was very disappointed as I was not expecting wait service.
Also disappointing is that people waiting for a table are standing only inches aways from several of the tables (only seperated by a banister). People waiting stand from the door to the back of the restaurant where the Hostess Desk is located. Poor design, uncomfortable dining with people watching so close to your table.
Why did they change a good thing?

Scattered, poor service + decent food + overall underwhelming = three stars.
It’s only fair to mention that the place had only been open about a week when we ate there. I know there are always things to iron out in a restaurant’s opening days. But this is a restaurant with city outposts; you’d think the management would make sure their old pros are on hand to keep things running smoothly.
We visited for my brother-in-law’s birthday with about nine people, so it was a larger group but not enormous — and the table was certainly big enough that they seem to be prepared for larger groups.
We got two small bread baskets, which were devoured, then another small one (gone in a flash), and then finally a big one … which we no longer needed more than a piece or two from.
Salads and entrees came out haphazardly; I think two of us wanted ours with our meals, one as a pre-​entrée course, but this was never asked about. The waitress completely misunderstood grandma and she never got her pasta (gnocchi was misheard as «no») and my husband’s «pizza strudel» took almost the entirety of the meal to come out — it’s not mentioned anywhere on the menu nor by the waitress that they take longer to bake. The Sicilian-​style pizza was good but they really overestimate how many people it will feed.
My Mediterranean salad — green beans, cannellini beans, tomatoes, onions, peppers, olives and feta — was quite good but just drowning in dressing and hard to cut into smaller chunks (can YOU put an entire golf-​ball sized cherry tomato in your mouth? never mind, I don’t want to know).
We may try again with take out, but I can’t imagine this being a regular dining stop with the fam — too bad, since it’s super close to them.