I really wish I had read all these other negative reviews before I planned my 17th Birthday dinner at this restaurant last night.
I went to Bella Venezia about a month prior to last night and had a good time, had a nice pizza and an overall pleasant experience (which is why I thought I would plan to have all my friends from work over for my birthday there last night). I was told over the phone to drop off my cake early so that the restaurant could 'decorate the plate with flowers and make it look really pretty' and so the cake was brought in nice and early that day so the restaurant would have time to decorate it ect.
When I and all the other 11 guests arrived, we were in a table that was really long and thin (nobody could really talk to each other) and was right up near the corner of the restaurant. After 10 minutes, everyone was fanning themselves as it was so hot. I had to ask for a more menus to be handed out as only 4 were given to all 12 of us too. An air conditioner above also started dripping water onto one the seats as well and so that seat was vacant the whole night (which meant two people had to sit separately). Right from the get-go the place felt really dodgey (not like the nice restaurant I hoped it would be/had told others it would be) with it being so hot and the aircon dripping and plain tiled floors (like kitchen tiles) and plan wooden chairs/table.
The staff though, like SO many others have said in their reviews, were all so disinterested in ensuring anyone had a good time. Water was asked for so many times and I had one of my guests get so frustrated that it was lukewarm again that they had to ask specifically for it to be cold. The whole night I felt like I was putting in so much effort to make the restaurant seem good and, to be completely honest, it was just embarrassing for me to have brought everyone here where everything was so disappointing. The waitresses never stopped by and asked if we wanted drinks, I initiated every time for the sake of my guests. Each time drinks were ordered it took a full 15+ minutes (only soft drinks were ordered the whole night), and I overheard my guests questioning wether the drinks were even forgotten about.
The food was ordered and arrived in about 45mins, and everyone seemed to enjoy their meals except 2 guests (vegetarian) who ordered $9 salads which came ONLY with lettuce (1 slice of tomato, no onion ect). After a guest complained and they were remade, they came back with onion but no tomato this time and about 50mLs of oil which had been poured over them and had all gone to the bottom of the bowl. They got a refund at the end, which was just plain embarrassing (again, yay).
When it was time for the cake, they brought it out on the same round plate as the pizzas came out on. The cake was left on the tin-foiled base that it comes on and there were no decorations whatsoever. When our waitress passed it to me to place it down on the table, she told us that we couldn't have candles as it was a safety hazard and then left. We had to find a waitress again to get us a knife as it wasn't given with the cake (which took around 5 minutes to bring over as well) as I just sat there with a candleless, decorationless (believe it or not, I thought that they'd stay true to their word and put some kind of effort into making my cake presentable like I was told over the phone) straight-out-the-box cake without a knife (that cost $3.5 per head- which ends up being very expensive all up- to be 'presented' on the evening). After the knife was brought, less than 10 minutes later, a cake was brought out to another table that had sparklers lit on the top of it so I doubt that there was any real 'safety hazard' as I had just been informed of as well.
Every single guest had left within 2 hours of the night. I was so embarrassed by Bella Venezia. I wish I had realised that my good experience there in the past wasn't 'the normal' according to other reviews. I actually cried at the end of the night as I was that embarrassed to have brought my friends to this restaurant.