Buca di Beppo Italian Restaurant

We have picked up to go for family events like tonight, Father’s Day. We have our ‘go to’ dishes. The chicken limon, the spicy chicken rigatoni, and the shrimp primavera. We also had the Gorgonzola salad. 15 of us had plenty to eat with enough for tomorrow’s lunch! Yum!

Even though there is a TON of space in the lot behind this location, they force you to valet. Garbage. 0 Stars.

Fast service, clean restrooms and kitchen. Waitress was wonderful. As far as the food. It came hot and well cooked

Food is great, service is absolutely terrible. Only ordering to go from now on. We have given this restaurant many chances, but every time we find ourselves with slow service, ignored by our waiters, asking them many times just for one thing. Replace your waiters and we might come back.

We had a pizza, spaghetti with meet sauce. Spaghetti was below average, no taste, and we ordered the noodles aldente but came soft. Pizza was delicious.

Spent $ 150 on a to-​go order. The spaghetti and meatballs had so little sauce on it that we had to add jar sauce to give it flavor. Also love the miserly 2 small pieces of bread that was suppose to be enough for 10 people?!? Sorry Buca, total fail. An Italian restaurant that can’t make spaghetti and meatballs properly should be embarrassed.

This is going to be short.
I used to spend every week in sawtelle and we would go to the west side Bucca. I finally came to the south Torrance location for a birthday group, it had been 17 years since I had been back in Bucca, and nothing had changed except that the quality in most of our dishes had went down. The caprese tomatoes were not ideally for authenticity, the Marsala was too salty and the gnocchi was horrible.
I’ve been to south, mid, & north Italia and I’m not going to compare because Bucca would be a 1 star at best, but it’s a place I simply leave to prom parties.

Overpriced, a large pasta dish is about $ 30 bucks. Way too much for pasta and sauce. The margarita pizza barely had any cheese and was also expensive. Ordered two glasses of wine (screw top), was $ 25 bucks and tasted like a $ 5 bottle. Also, the bathrooms smelled like a sewer. I don’t know what kind of plumbing problems they’re having, but it reeks in this place. Really lost my appetite because of this. Hope they fix it soon, something is seriously wrong.

One of the best eggplant parmigiana around. It really is exceptional.
The bad part of this restaurant is parking. There is nowhere to park except for cash only valet in a sketchy concrete area behind the building. I don’t ever carry cash so I need to park several blocks away in order to go.
This Bucca also has poor service compared to other locations. They don’t automatically serve bread and they tend to ignore smaller tables.
I’d recommend just getting the eggplant parmigiana for takeout.

I asked my husband to go and buy me a tiramisu there. It was 9:15 pm and the website says they close at 10 pm. Before he even talk they told him the restaurant was close ! So rude ! We are not going there anymore !

Buca Di Beppo is THE perfect place to celebrate a birthday. It has it all ~ atmosphere, delicious Italian food in huge portions, and terrific staff.
The wine and drink selection is excellent. The freshly baked bread with olive oil and balsamic vinegar were very good. Our Caesar salad was light and gigantic with just the right amount of shaved Parmesan and crispy croutons.
Whenever we come to Buca, we plan on enjoying the leftover for a couple days. On this occasion, celebrating my wife’s birthday, we feasted. Our daughter ordered a custom pasta which had her favorite ingredients. My wife and I went for their incredible lemon chicken which had a delicious lemon caper beurre blanc over incredibly juicy, tender chicken breasts. Next came their «small» manicotti with 8 tubes of delicately filled ricotta, excellent Italian sausage and a nicely done spaghetti and meat sauce.
Larry was our server, and one of the BEST we have ever experienced at any restaurant. He was polite, professional, but most of all very warm, engaging and attentive. Larry made us feel as if we were at his home having dinner. When he found out we were celebrating my wife’s birthday, he was over the top in helping make this a delicious and memorable occasion.
His astute attention to detail was astounding:
— he kept our leftover salad chilled until we took it home
— he gave my wife a complimentary glass of wine
— he used a double pan to keep our lemon chicken from leaking through
— he used two covers for dishes that were very full
— he let my wife pick out a dessert and carefully packed it so it looked great when we got home
We hope to have Larry again on future visits. He helped us enjoy a perfect birthday dinner.
Delicious food, terrific service, and plenty of leftovers. Who could ask for more?

We came to celebrate my sister’s birthday. It’s at least 20 dollars a plate but considering a plate feeds 3, it’s really not all bad. We ended up ordering 3 things and covered our party of 5 well. We were satisfied, but not full.
They do a complimentary collage picture now to remember the night, and you can buy the individual shots is you’re so inclined.
Overall, we liked it

The 2016 Unilocal 500, Review #042:
love Bucky Duh Beepo!
I don’t drink
I don’t eat red meat (I dream of Buca making turkey meatballs)
I am allergic to shrimp…
I don’t do mushrooms
I hate eggplant
So what I
for is the peanut butter and jelly sandwich… just kidding.
Oh and I dislike ordering things like spaghetti, which can be made ay home easily.
What is left? Well my my favorite restaurant raviolis, first and foremost.
They are repeatedly flawless with an amazing sauce.
Service was OK a bit questionable at first because, I am used to Cali’s laid-​back approach and Lillian was more hyper and callus like people where I grew up (NYC area) were. I adjusted my comprehension and she was great.
As always there is always enough to take home and never any room for dessert.
Through all of this, customers deal with noise. More noise than your average restaurant by far.
They say that Italian families are loud at home. I have Italian in me and I don’t recall being that way. The décor is crazy at all locations. «It is like you are in someone’s house» they once told me (in Tampa). Umm… Unless you live in the Hard Rock Café (at least their obsessive compulsive décor follows a rigid theme), I can’t see it. I also really cant see an Italian family with a Pope head on the table but, that is just me.
The music is usually the best part of Buca. True Ginzo music, like I heard in the house growing up. This was a major part of the experience. Not at thia location. It was horrible. I can see NOT scheduling a return trip to this Buca di Muzak.
Paid parking… put your helmet on. The downhill run in this section picks up significant speed. The parking is bullshit. I paid to park and the valet/​lot attendant was gone before we got out there. From here on out I don’t pay to park if I can’t leave my keys or I get the feeling that the attendants will gone. Let’s break this down. There isn’t much around this place. No major night life… It is not like you have the lights of Broadway shining onto the night sky. So I am simply renting a space of concrete that seemed to have been paved during the Lincoln administration. I paid in order to pay more money to eat.
Ok I got it now.
NOTE: There isn’t a brightly lit parking structure. Just a dark and uneven back lot. The way I see it they should be paying me to come eat there via no lot fees.
THIS is the kind of frustrated you get when you read an old recipe and realize that it calls for a 6 oz. can of tuna and all tuna now comes in 5 oz. cans. No one remembers the cost going up or down. That is because it hasn’t.
Greedy companies make more profit the same way the parking lot fee fuels someone’s pockets.
PLEASE NOTE: This is where the managers will write you a cute note to put a band-​aiS on things… they wish to have you return for another experience. They will request that you call them. You can get a free meal or a gift certificate this way but, at this point I say don’t bother.
I would have written this in Italian but, it is my belief that there are more Italians involved with Spaghettios than here.
Next time, I will keep on driving into the Fat Burger lot.

This review will be about the food and that’s it since it was take-​out.
Ordered:
Chicken Marsala: It has some nice sweet sauce to it with plenty of mushrooms. Only 3 pieces of chicken. That’s it just 3? Yes for the price which was $ 27. Yikes $ 9 for each chicken.
Pepperoni Pizza:
Grease pit. It was already soggy when we got it home. With all that grease I can fill my car and it can probably get me to Ralph’s down the street from me. The pepperoni was okay.
One thing was they gave out a free pizza for Valentine’s Day which was just cheese, tomato sauce, and basil.
They maybe an Italian type restaurant and feel but they fail at cooking it. I don’t know what the Fettuccine Alfredo would of tasted like since I wanted to order that but didn’t, but hopefully better.
If you going to order their pizza, go down a half mile or so and get it from Jack’s Pizza.

As always Buca, you never seem to dissappoint! Food was delicious and plentiful. Definitely no complaints there. But this review is based solely on the service we received at this location…
My boyfriend and I came in one night around 8pm, 2 hours till closing. Clearly everyone’s ready to go. Didn’t pay much attention to us as we walked in. Huddled up in groups talking about what they were doing that night/​weekend. I officially knew what it felt like to be «chopped liver».
To top it off our waiter, rett or brett? Whatever the heck his name was, he is a damn fool! I was trying to think of the best word to describe him, and fool is it. Very rude, inconsiderate, loud and obnoxious. Dumb fool. I hope he’s in school or works here part time, because service industry is not for you boo.
Gah, buca I feel terrible for leaving such a mean review but you can thank rett the fool for this. Sorry.

Our experience last night at this Buca is a vivid example of how important management is to customer experience.
We’ve been eating at various locations in this chain since it debuted in SoCal decades ago. The Valencia, Pasadena and Santa Monica Bucas, for example, are wonderful if you like the BdiB concept, which I do. What’s so great about them? Fun theme, natch, clean (!), great service, parking convenience, and well made delicious food. And all three have been that way consistently. In fact, amazingly for this culinary wasteland that is Santa Clarita, the Valencia Buca is the best of the three, every single time I’ve eaten there, dozens of times since it opened.
That is what makes the experience at the Redondo Buca so disappointing and in fact, infuriating. For whatever reason, enjoying just as affluent a clientele as in the three I cite above, this restaurant displays the opposite of all those stellar traits. It is dirty, cramped, harried, stressful and depressing.
It all started when I made the mistake of booking a large table for a birthday celebration and attempted to confirm the online reservation with whoever answered the phone. She seemed a bit annoyed and brusque and rushed me off the line. OK, it’s the holidays — no biggie. Then I called to arrange (I hoped) to have a cake or individual special dessert for the celebree. That was when I had one of the strangest and most confounding conversations on this topic I have ever encountered with a guy who simply could not understand what I meant by a birthday cake. Not a ferner either, mind you.
Getting there is a hassle, finding the entrance to the parking lot is a challenge if you haven’t been there previously, then navigating some rather hostile concrete steps, dancing to the side of the debris with which they are festooned, we entered what looked like the delivery door and were seated just adjacent to the parking lot. Not very festive.
Our table was extremely cramped. The waitress was not only indifferent, she was downright surly and seemed genuinely annoyed when asked any question, as if it was an imposition or a criticism. The food (and even though we were seasoned Buc’ers) was far too much and redundant, and took its sweet time arriving. At the Valencia Buca, if you order too many dishes that are virtually identical, a wait person politely suggests that you can get smaller portions or substitute something else and avoid duplication wherever possible. Not so here.
Certain things just never came, like orders of milk for the children in the party. A trip to the restrooms, especially the men’s room, was like descending into the stygian water closets at the Marseille train station, rather disgusting. Knowing that the waiters also used this facility would be enough to make me push back my plate.
Every single thing, save the broccoli, was bland and almost tasteless. Even the pizza, which actually looked good, gave one the sense of what it would be like to chew on red cardboard.
The guy who took my «birthday» order over the phone apparently failed to note (as he had promised) that this was a celebration, so we had to alert them to it at the last minute and wait even longer for their idea of an appropriate dessert for the occasion: a past-​its-​prime cheesecake and Tira mi su. Neither had nor would have supported even a single candle.
The waitress dropped off the bill wordlessly and didn’t cycle back until far past the normal dwell-​time. Then my valet brought around my car and failed to give me change from the bill I handed him, until I said he might as well keep it. No visible reaction from him, either, including even a nod of thank you.
We were going to say something to one of the people «running» the place last night, but someone reminded me that I could Unilocal and probably send a far more resonant message. So, here it is, for what it is worth. How someone (s) can interfere with a great and largely successful business model is a testament to the importance of hands-​on, experienced oversight with the right attitude.
None of that was in evidence here.

The atmosphere is very Italian-​American, like in the films that feature little Italy. They has some of that classic American touch in their dishes that include American sausages or chicken based pastas. We always order their Margherita pizzas, salads, and large pasta dishes, and I have to say that the food here at Buca Di Beppo is as good as the dishes that you will find in Italy!
It’s a family restaurant that gets pretty crowded during dinner time. I would make reservations ahead of time to avoid bad customer service with the front host. If you’re going with a friend, my suggestion would be to order very light. Their portions are meant to be shared amongst a group of 5 or more.
In short, Buca di Beppo is very simple bare bones Italian food as it should be. Totally delicious and keeps me coming back for more!

I will usually give places a second, even 3^rd chance… I got a call from my wife that her family wanted to have dinner before some of them went away for the holidays… they were asking for Italian, and someone mentioned BDP… She said we can skip, but me being a team player and trying to be the good husband said «sure, why not, can try it again… it isn’t going to be like last time with all the graduation stuff»
We had a group reservation for 6pm on a Sunday night. Due to the string of events leading up to the dinner, we arrived about 540ish (was easier to come straight here as opposed to going home, unloading kids, coming back). We got to the hostess and checked in, She did say «yes your table is ready, do you want to just wait here (the lobby)?» I said we can sit at the table, and order the kids dinner (we knew if everyone showed at 6, and ordered right away, food isnt there until 630, so it wasnt fair to just make the kids wait)
We waited about 5 minutes for the hostess to seat us at a table that was already ready (the place was maybe ½ full, if that)…Ordered the kids meal and a drink each and waited for the family to show up. Everyone orders and does their thing… We dont really see the waitress all that much, she was nice, polite, attentive, just didnt reacall seeing her much. At about 625, I really couldnt take it too much, even though the place was empty, all the tables in the area were crowded and cramped together, and as usual there is birthday screaming. I took the baby out and walked around.
After waling for a few min, came back to see the salads are being served, followed by the food. Everyone seemed to like the food, I walked again, and had to changed the baby, forgetting about the changing station that was up to my chest. The bathroom was a mess and has a broken stall. Took the little guy outside, even though it was raining, since it was a little more peaceful.
The staff were moving around fast asusual, and I heard the common «I need to get by you»…At 715, I got a message from my wife that our other child was ready to go. I was trying to get our diaper pack and jackets since I was standing behind a chair, I must have heard 6 – 7 time «need to get by you», and it wasnt multiple people… give me like two minutes to get my crap together so i can leave.
As we are walking out, I take my older one to the bathroom and as I am leaving, someone asks me did you have a good night, and I lost my shit… I asked about who installed the changing table and if any of them had kids. I got blank stares… so I said, when you close, go in the bathroom and pretend to change a baby, cause that is a joke.
And we walked out…
Now going back to just before I got up to walk around, my wife aunt said how she loved it there so much and I casually said «I don’t…» She laughed and thought I was kidding…
I tried it agiain… but I am sorry, this is not the place for me. I get the concept, and i know some people like it, but the naoise and the staff just aren’t for me…

I only come here for large group events like birthdays and family gatherings for the family style servings. Overall, the food is mediocre but its great for family style meals. The pizzas and eggplant parmesan are the best dishes here, in my opinion. My least favorite are the pasta dishes (ie spaghetti). It’s a fun, loud environment for big groups. There’s valet parking here, but you can easily find street parking.

Sorry, it’s never my first choice.
So we were invited to attend an event here (the only time I go) and I’ve been to a few of their locations. This one is one of the worst I’ve been to. First, good luck finding the skinny entry lane from the street. Once you squeeze your vehicle through, you see their parking. They have mandatory valet for $ 3.00. They move you car about 20 feet away so it’s clearly just a revenue strategy, not a convenience for you. The valet service also set up signs on all other parking areas «Absolutely No Buca di Beppo Parking or be Towed». Yes, it’s not the other businesses setting them up, it’s Buca. A weird ploy IMO to force you to give them the $ 3.00. If you can’t tell yet, it irks me. I parked in at the market parking for free down the alleyway, but be careful the driveway walking back is VERY uneven and in POOR condition. The ladies heals could easily get caught and twist an ankle. So on to the review…
LOCATION and AMBIANCE (Rating 1) Hate the parking (see above), the parking lot is in POOR condition, the entrance is odd with a large stair case down with short IMO stairs. If you have any mobility issues don’t even think about it. While I was there there was an older lady who fell down the stairs. No Bueno! The interior is typical Buca with pictures everywhere, vibrant colors but dark and old feeling. This particular location is split up very oddly. We sat in the Pope room. This is just weird and freaky if you ask me. They have the Pope’s head in a glass case on the center of the table which spins (lazy Susan). It’s super freaky and I have no idea who thought of this, but it’s the first thing that would go if I was running the place. The pictures on the wall of Catholic Nun comic strips with mustaches etc, are extremely offensive as well. I was raised Catholic and while some of the nuns may have had mustaches, it’s just not right to go there, right? The Pope room is also very hot. We asked for them to turn on the air, but it really didn’t do much good.
SERVICE (Rating 3.5) Our waitress worked her tail off as we were a large party. There was no way a single waitress could have been expected to handle all of our needs with other tables assigned to her as well. It was a slow meal and patience was extended. There were 16 of us, there was plenty of bread brought out and one small dish of oil and vinegar. Really? We finally got them to bring the bottles. When almost everyone was finished eating, they waitress brought out one more plate that we supposedly ordered. We had enough for 8 more people to eat left over already. She proceeded to push for a moment with «But you ordered it». Finally she backed off and returned it. I get that if it’s ordered it’s ours, but bringing it at the end of the meal was an obvious oversight on their part and because we were not guided well with regards to how much would be left over ordering what we did just makes it worse. So there was as redeeming act by the waitress. At the end of the meal she offered to extend a small percentage discount to the bill. It was very nice of her and I will say she was a very nice person it seemed which is why the service rating is as high as it is. She was just way overworked IMO.
FOOD IN ORDER OF WHAT I LIKED
CHICKEN CARBONARA (Rating 4) I really like the flavor of this. The prosciutto makes seasoning it unnecessary. The peas are there, but no many. the garlic is pronounced and well balanced with the dish and the alfredo sauce is not as heavy as some which I liked as well. The only thing I would have changed is using a Penne pasta instead of the spaghetti noodles. You might want to ask for this if you decide to order it.
CHOPPED ANITPASTA SALD (Rating 3.75) This is a nice salad that has a unique flavor. It they used a better quality lettuce, this could be a great salad! Here’s whats in it. (pepperoni, red onions, pepperoncini peppers, cucumbers, Roma tomatoes, Kalamata and green olives, provolone, feta and Gorgonzola with mixed lettuce in our signature Italian vinaigrette)
CHICKEN SALTIMBOCCA (Rating 3.5) This is pretty good. The chicken was a little overcooked, or sat for a while under a heat lamp while the rest of our food was being prepared, but the prosciutto and sage with artichoke hearts, lemon, capers and butter sauce does nicely for me. Work on the chicken and this would get a higher rating.
MOZZARELLA CAPRESE (Rating 2.5) I usually love this dish. The mozzarella seemed to me like a lower end cheese. It was not as rich in flavor as I expect. The tomatoes were red, but hard and tasteless.
BRUCHETTA (Rating 2) The Parmesan Crostini bread was very good. The bowl (a huge martini glass looking thing, pretty cool) was filled with chopped tomatoes. The menu said it would have fresh mozzarella, red onions, basil infused olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Where those items were, no one knows… I couldn’t find them.