Francesco's Ny Pizzeria - Sarasota

I actually went there for the first time on my birthday! Delicious food humble little place. No wonder Jerry Springer used to travel all the way from Longboat Key to eat at your spot. I Absolutely loved the veal parmesan with vodka sauce I think you call it Aurora sauce or something. Yummy!!!

We love Francescos food and the convience it is close to our home, but tonight I was let down and will be taking my business else where. We could not order online as their system is always down stating they aren’t accepting online orders so had to call it in. When I arrived my order was more expensive than what I looked up on their website. They were not willing to make it right and adjust the pricing just said they haven’t had time to update their menu online and go by the pricing in the restaurant. It was a $12 difference which is equivalent to a whole other pizza…this really sucks but I don’t feel valued as a customer when it isn’t my fault you didn’t have time to update your own website

Wednesday, February 28th 6:00pm Order 8VO 00125 Server: Mike Service for: 2 Frequency: First Time Customers Timer Used: IPhone Stopwatch Cleanliness: Store was clean. We went online to find this restaurant. The website seemed out of date, but the prices were decent compared to other places. Went to the facebook page and didn't find anything posted past September 2023. We called to verify if they were still in business. We read the reviews and found a mixture of good and bad. We read through the 13 Health Violations it gained 3 weeks before (Feb 8th) but didn't find anything that was out of the norm nor did we see any big red flags so we thought we'd try it out. We were greeted at the door by a tall redhead who opened the door for us but then walked to the back immediately saying nothing else. There was no instruction for seating or inquiry as to why we were there so we had to ask a cook if we can just sit anywhere. He instructed us to take a 2 top table since he had a group of 5 coming in. In the front section, 3 2 top tables out of the 10 total tables were taken, I think there were 3 or 4 4 toppers. At 6pm on a Wednesday night, there were a total of 5 people in the front, may have been more in the back section. One left shortly after our arrival. Within 4 minutes of being seated. Mike introduced himself as our server and we instructed him that we were first time customers. He took our order which included a shared salad for 2. He brought complimentary Bread with Oil/Vinegar/Herbs on a plate with our drinks within 1 min. 9 minutes post order, we had to remind Mike about our salad. It was an easy salad to make, mixed lettuce, Tomatoes, Croutons. We ordered the Italian Dressing with it. Mike offered to bring more bread out but that never happened. Shared Salad for 2: Size: Small The shared salad was too small for 2 and was priced at $8.99. Not what I thought it was worth for what we got. Quality: Everything in the salad was fresh. Taste: Salad was fine, but the Italian Dressing was very sweet and looked like gravy. It was missing that Italian twang it should have, we found it to be bland. 6 minutes later our food came out which of course interfered with the late salad delivery but I am glad it wasn't just put under a light until we were ready. Food Order 1: Lasagna Size: Decent Appearance: 8 out of 10 Quality: 7 out of 10 Taste: 9 out of 10 The lasagna had a lot of watery sauce around it. It was sitting in juices to the top of the elongated dish. It wasn't able to stay together since it was swimming in juices. Would’ve been a lot easier to eat with a spoon. It was very soupy. The ingredients tasted very good though. I missed being able to take a bite of a relatively firm Lasagna with all of the layers combined. Food Order 2: Tortellini Panna E. Prosciutto Size: Decent Appearance: 9 out of 10 Quality: 8 out of 10 Taste: 8 out of 10 Pasta was spot on. Good texture and proper firmness. Prosciutto seemed like it was just regular ham (and I think it was). Not impressive at all. Taste overall was good but real Prosciutto would have made a huge difference. Plating and Presentation Issue: Lasagna Dish and plate it sits in aren’t well matched and the top plate rolls around making it hard to cut food, but I didn't need to do much cutting since the Lasagna was so soupy. Service Issues: Mike forgot about us. 17 minutes into dining with no follow up/check up. With almost empty drinks, the tall redhead saved the day and got drink refills for us. Finals: 22 minutes into dinner our server Mike showed up to ask how things were. Unfortunately, we were not impressed and I could see he was frustrated about that. He apologized and felt bad about it and seemed a bit embarrassed. Check was brought 2 minutes later and picked up for processing at 26 minutes. All was right on the ticket but $47.05 for what we got wasn't worth it. Now for the BIG QUESTION: Will we be back? No. Unfortunately, for the price, we cannot. While I don't expect perfection, there were just too many issues for us to return.

Got right in... great service. I wish I remembered her name... pretty red head, sooooo wonderful... and my manicotti was DELICIOUS!!! Wish they had Caesar salad but loved the place very much!!

I fall in love every time my man brings me here, food always fresh and hot and made with love, and I mean lots of love and on top of that, they even bring it out with perfection