Pepe Bocca

Had a 7:30pm reservation on a Saturday night for 5. On the way in, a group of 4 on their way out commented to watch out because they hadn’t gotten their food after 1.5 hours. Ordered pretty quickly, but poor attention for the rest of our time there. Small menu, which is fine, but they had run out of one of their entrees and bottles of wine by the time we ordered. Our food took an hour to arrive with no checking in by our waitress or other staff. Meanwhile, the open kitchen and dining area was saturated with smoke, burning our eyes and leaving our clothes smelling of campfire. Food was okay, not anything special or inspiring. Pasta in one of the dishes was mushy. Over the course of waiting for our food we observed many other disgruntled tables. Disappointing because I had high hopes for this local establishment that has a good history as a specialty food store.

The table service format is not working. The kitchen crew is incapable of delivering food in an acceptable time, and the wait staff (bless their hearts) are left to triage the situation. My wife and I visited the place nearly a dozen times in 2016-2017. It was our favorite place for counter ordered sandwiches and prosciutto. I brought my wife's family to the restaurant early 2018 to discover that the restaurant format changed to table service. We waited over 100 minutes for our first entrees, and just wanted to leave at the 80 minute mark. We felt guilted into staying because our entrees were being prepared at that point. Our waiter was verbally arguing with the lead kitchen staff at this point saying that the diners were miserable. The kitchen lead retorted to the effect of "I come from an Italian heritage, my grandparents are from Italy, and I won't compromise on quality food". The waiters, who I knew from our prior visits, were genuinely sorry and comped us a sorbet. On the whole, it was the most miserable dining experience in memory. Dining isn't just good food; it has to be a whole package. I really hope Pepe Bocca can turn things around.

The best pizza, the best bread. The owners are welcoming and kind, devoted to their craft, and make a point of using the highest quality ingredients, including freshly milled organic flour made specially for Pepe Bocca. And they recently renovated and started serving alcohol, including an exceptional selection of Italian wines. Did I mention I love this place and go here all the time?

Worse place in the area. Avoid at all cost. TL; DR Expensive food, and not even good, bad service. Took 1.5 hours to get the food. We asked for When we finally got the food, it was just not good. The gnocchi was uncooked, and did not fit the description and the pizza sauce was too watery. We asked for Parmesan cheese, which we should have gotten even without asking, and we gave up after asking two times. The food is super expensive for the amount and quality. The only good thing was the bread that they brought while we were waiting.

Food is decent, but the dinner took far too long just for two entrees. We sat down at around 7 pm, ordered within 5 minutes, and then waited. And waited. Food didn't arrive until past 8 pm, probably about 8:15 or 8:20 pm. I ordered the lasagna and received an eggplant parmigiana, but shrugged and ate it rather than wait another hour for my lasagna. It was very tasty, but not worth waiting over an hour for. The two chefs and sole waiter were clearly overwhelmed by the full house on Friday night and unable to meet demand in an efficient and organized way. When we finished our meals, we asked for the check, but no check came. I asked again, same result. Finally, I asked for the check a third time and it arrived. In total, that took another 15 minutes. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that night was the exception rather than the rule.

Won’t ever go back. We researched a good Italian restaurant. Reviews are great. Place is quaint with farm tables set with big wine glasses, so we made reservations for my husbands birthday dinner while visiting my daughter at college. The night became a complete disaster as soon as we sat down. My husband ordered a bottle of wine and the bread came. Both were delicious. Then we waited and waited and waited. My son noticed a couple got up and left. A family next to us got up and left. Each one saying they waited two hours and still didn’t have their food. The waitress was frustrated. The cook was outside the back door and no one was cooking.! I would have gladly gone in the kitchen and cooked my own dinner at this point. We had to ask where our dinner was and the waitress said we were next. What came was my daughters gnocchi’s: cold. My husbands lasagna: Luke warm. My trout was hot with no side vegetables as advertised. It was served in the pan it was cooked in. My sons exact same trout dish came beautifully served on a platter. However, The trout was hardly cooked and the vegetables thrown over it were raw!!! Total disaster !!! We explained the cold food and poorly cooked fish and still paid full price on the whole bill. It took almost two hours from time we sat down to get food. Except for our family conversation this was a Ruined evening. Never returning!!