Papa Bambinos

Came in for lunch… Not very busy but the food is amazing… Had the lunch buffet that consisted of several different salads … Pizza… And amazing baked chicken and some other traditional Italian dishes… I can’t image why this place isn’t packed every minute these guys are open… Staff was great and super friendly

What HORRIBLE customer service. We spend lots of money at this place because it is the only place close by. So after spending $ 70.+ I ask for a cup of ice and they make a big deal when I ask for a soda cup and we were offering to pay for it, but they couldn’t figure out the cost. The unprofessional lady at the counter says «Well, this is a business and we can’t give away things for free.» I reminded her that I offered to pay and corrected her by telling her that 7 – 11 does it all the time to which she replied «Well, then take your business to 7−11». Her and that rude owner have no concept of customer service and it’s not like their food is that good anyways, like I said, it is really the only place close by to work. Skip this place and go somewhere with quality customer service.

$ 8.95 lunch pizza is sooo big… Wasn’t expecting it to be this big… lol! Server is super friendly too…
. The bathroom though needs some serious cleaning. That was the only downfall for me.

The best budget Italian food in San Diego. If you are not ready to pay for 5 start dining this is the place. Try the lunch buffet. I suggest you come during lunch hours to do that. You will not be able to show up at 5 minutes to 2 pm and say why is your buffet Old or Cold? Seriously some of these reviews leave me shaking my head. Just some sycophants that call San Diego home and chances are a competing business.
I get Pizza from Papa Bambinos and I am a regular. I am heading there to get a pie right now. You have tried the rest, NOW TRY THE BEST

Best Pizza in SD! I used to go to this place all the time when they were located off San Marcos BLVD. Then all of a sudden they disappeared and were replaced by a Del Taco :/​. So it came as a great surprise to me when I stumbled accross their new location off sycamore. Their new location is much smaller but the food is still as good as I remember. Their pizza crust is that perfect combination of crunchy, chewy, and flaky. So DELICIOUS! I can’t wait to go back and try their eggplant parm (one of my favs from the last location). Great food, great service, and very reasonable prices. This place is truly a hidden gem!

I really want to love this place, and the pizza is pretty good, but the food is NEVER ready when they say it will be. We never learn… always call and they are so nice, and tell us it will be ready in 25 minutes. Try more like 45 – 50 minutes. We end up waiting because we’re starving and want pizza, but they really need to step it up with their timing. And don’t get me wrong, the restaurant is empty and there aren’t a ton of tickets being processed, you can see from the counter!

This place is usually pretty good, what the hell happened??? Me and my coworkers have been going here for awhile for the lunch buffet. We usually arrive at about 1145ish. This time we got there and while we were parking notice the lady rush to the back. We got inside and there was nothing for the buffet ready. I see the cook and the cashier rushing in the back, ignoring us. I finally ask them when they will have buffet ready and they replied «15mins»… we waited, they didn’t ask if we wanted drinks or anything… So I asked again, they still said 15mins! WTF, we decided to leave and since we spent so much time at this place we ended up just eating at TOMs across the parking lot…

I hate to give one star reviews because this is a mom and pop place but the customer service was so bad and they did not care so I had to write this.
I read on line that they had a $ 6 buffet so I took the kids. We sat down and the kids went to go serve a plate. (Note to self ALWAYS GO LOOK AT THE FOOD WHEN YOU GO TO A BUFFET) The kids came back with dry hard pizza and old dry pasta on their plates.
I went to get a plate and noticed the salad in the paninis was wilted with brown edges. The Pizza was hard, cold and old (at least an hour). The pasta on the warmer was hard and dried out. The chicken was dried out, the potatoes was dried out. I think the only thing that was good to eat was the croutons at the end of the salad bar.
The big surprise came when I went to pay and she was trying to charge $ 10 per kid. I flipped my lid and said are you kidding me. I told her that I read on line that your buffet was $ 6. She said it was an old post. I told her I didn’t even eat anything because it was all dry and hard. She said well you should have told me something. I was very upset and told her this is your restaurant it is your job to have presentable food not me. I shouldn’t have to tell you how to prepare your food. I told her I was not paying $ 10 for that garbage she had on the buffet. She gave me a couple of dollars off but not enough to justify the nasty, hard, dried out food she was serving.
All the other one star reviews are true. You cannot throw your money away here. It is a joke. I would be embarrassed to have people come into my restaurant and I serve food like this to them. I called her when I got home and she still gave me attitude about her crappy food.
DO NOT eat at this restaurant unless you like dried out, cold, & old Italian food.
I am sorry but an owner of a restaurant should not treat it’s customers as if we are a burden to them they should take our concerns seriously and try to do the right thing.
Shame on you Papa Bambinos.

I try to only post when things are really excellent or really terrible. This place was worse than really terrible.
Went in for «lunch» last week with my Mom. The lady that was working on the front was very nice, and apparently the only person working there.
We ordered a Cesar Salad and Shrimp Scampi with mushrooms. The Cesar Salad had NO cheese, NO croutons, and the dressing tasted way too heavy on the anchovies. It was terrible, to say the least.
Next comes out our Shrimp Scampi. I have never seen a Scampi look or taste like this. On one side was the shrimp, which looked like frozen shrimp, covered with some garlic onions and canned mushrooms. I took a half a bite of the shrimp and couldn’t eat anymore. The second half of the plate was spaghetti with marinara sauce. What the hell kind of shrimp Scampi is that?
It gets worse though. Since I like spaghetti I figured I would stick to eating that. Well, three bites in and I found a hair. Last straw. Had to get out quick, never to return.
The only good thing I have to say is the garlic bread was decent. Only decent. But they are generous with it.

A great place to get some great Italian food for take out in south Vista. Papa Bambino’s is located just a couple miles south of I-​15.
Me and the wife have gone to Bambino’s about 10 times. We have got their
spaghetti, mannicotti, and vegetarian pizza. We also love their iceberg side salad and garlic bread. Going to have to give their garlic bread an average rating. Food has been great everytime.
Their dining room is clean and inviting in all aspects, but small without feeling crowded. About 7 tables. Looks like seating for 35 tops. Staff is always friendly. Prices are reasonable. Parking is never a problem 7 days a week at anytime of the day.
Bambino’s is easy to find. Traffic patterns allow for a quick in and out anytime of the day.
If your eating in, then I have to mention that there is a buffet option. I glanced over it and it looked
delicious!
Website provides pictures of their buffet and food along with their menu.
They previously were located in San Marcos on Rancho Sante Fe Road. The place was torn down and a Del Taco was built.

If I could give this review 0 stars I would. I called in to order a pizza for takeout. They guy working there (the owner) said the pizza would be ready in 25 minutes. So I arrived to Pick up my pizza 30 minutes later thinking my pizza was ready. It wasn’t, not even close!!! He told me to wait another 15 minutes which I did patiently. As I did I noticed he was just sliding my pizza in the oven, their was only one family eating in the restaurant. BUT that’s not even the worst part, the worst was when his wife showed up. She walked in the restaurant, she literally dropped her keys and her bag on the counter and started mixing the salad for the salad bar with her bare hands. She didn’t even wash her hands, Disgusting!!! After my pizza was finally ready, he still charged me full prize. As I walked out with my pizza, I told myself I would never come back again. Worst pizza restaurant experience ever!!! OVER PRICED and DISGUSTING!!!

Great people, great food, and delivery? Yes please! Awesome place… and we will be eating here again fo sho

I don’t know what these people are thinking… Based on the reviews we tried takeout and was very disappointed! Cheese Ravioli was frozen, meatballs smelled old, sauce was out of a can… the best part of the meal was the bread!
Reviews must be all family members or something… it wasn’t cheap either.
Sorry to be such a bummer…

Honestly, I only love this place because they deliver… even though it takes 30 minutes longer than it should. I work front desk at a motel, and I don’t have the luxury of choosing much besides pizza. Papa Bambinos has pretty decent sandwiches, and they are sizeable enough to split! The salads are wet & sad, we usually take one bite and toss them out.
TL;DR order food [sandwiches!] way before you’re hungry.

My husband and I went here on a Saturday evening. There was nobody else there! It was mega-​creepy being the only customers. Oh well, we figured it would be OK. I’m extremely friendly and lovely and sweet to everyone – whether I’m uncomfortable or not!
The woman got us water. My water had something black at the bottom of it. Blarf. It took her awhile to get the new water out. I ordered manicotti and my husband ordered tortellini with alfredo sauce.
By this time, customers were coming in to pick up pizzas.
A salad came with our order, which again, took a really long time to get to us. What a bummer. The tomato. Oh my God. It was like biting into an apple. I can’t believe how hard it was! And they knew it because they sliced it into chunks. The ranch was good, I guess I could give them that.
After a really long wait, the food came. I tasted my manicotti and it was bland. I took a bite of his tortellini. It looked like they poured milk over it. It was the hugest embarrassment of alfredo sauce there ever was in the world. He added about ¼ cup of black pepper to it to give it some type of flavor.
Getting the check and paying was another long ordeal. We couldn’t wait to get out. We still smiled and acted nice the whole time. The lady seemed friendly, too, but this place was horrible.
The only delicious thing was the garlic bread, which very well could have been one of those loaves of Pepperidge Farm frozen garlic bread. Every frozen pasta meal I have eaten in my life has tasted better than this place.
Maybe the pizza is «where it’s at», but we just can’t bring ourselves to find out. We were extra sad because we don’t eat starchy stuff, except for on special occasions. It was the crappiest feeling to know that we wasted a «cheat» meal on tortellini + milk.

We were resistant to try this place — but now I don’t know why. We thoroughly enjoyed our meal tonight! Try the chicken saltimboca — it will not disappoint!

I like to ditto on pretty much everything Steven M said on his review. The $ 6.95 lunch buffet looked fantastic but I had already ordered their special deal $ 5.99 pepp 14″ pizza with additional toppings. The pizza was as good as any of my N county favs like Big Bobs and Paradise but for much less. I mean you can’t beat that even with Domino’s or Pizza hut.
The dining room is very welcoming, comfortable and clean as you can see with the photos I took. And they had some nice tables and chairs outside, not the usual hard iron chairs that hurt your tooshie. One thing you should know is that all their pasta is made in house fresh by chef Bambino and NOT frozen like some of the places you see on TV Kitchen nightmares and Restaurant Impossible.
And what I like most about this places is that it’s casual not pretentious or uptight Italian cuisine with quality food that won’t make you feel like you just wasted your money on over rated or mediocre food.

Perfect place to go to for your lunch break. I got a 14 inch pepperoni pizza for 6 bucks and it wasn’t the kind that was already premade which means you still have to wait a couple of minutes for it but it’s still worth it cause the pizza was delish! You can also opt for their lunch buffet which is also just 6 bucks and they have a variety of salads, pasta and pizza. The people were also warm and welcoming =)). Definitely worth a try!

Stumbled onto this place when driving down Sycamore in Vista. The $ 5 Pizza sign caught my eye and I was in the mood for some non-​chain pizza!
Very small place with about 6 – 7 tables but the menu is pretty large and the family that owns it were all there and very nice/​friendly.
I ended up ordering a 14 inch cheese pizza for $ 5 and a mortadella sandwich on their homemade bread. The owner even let me try the bread before I decided. It was great!
Pizza was great — though I like my pizza very thin crust and this one was a little thicker than I prefer. The mortadella sandwich was HUGE and so good. I think it was only like $ 6 too. For $ 11 plus tax my hubby and I had dinner and lunch for the next day!
He said they are opening up a buffet very soon. We’ll definitely go back to try that!

Awesome an new Lunch spot opens close to my office. They are planing on having a Pasta/​Pizza Buffet and Salad bar open soon. We ordered the 14″ pizza special for $ 5.99, such a deal. Not a bad Pie, medium crust with light sauce and the cheese was good. I prefer thin crust NY style myself. This place offers lots of sandwiches and pasta dishes and all the pricing looks reasonable. I cant wait to try more dishes… yum