Corleones Restaurante & Bar

This place is amazing.  Don't let the location or neighbors in the strip mall fool you.  This is a world class italian restaurant.  Great local beer and wine lists, huge menu, and reasonable prices make it a winner.  This is quite literally my all time favorite restaurant, and I only get to the state once in awhile on business.  Give it a shot.  I recommend the baked penne marinara with meatballs, but have them throw alfredo sauce in with it as well.  Fantastic.  This is also where I found the first beer I actually liked, a local beer ,called bed head red.  Unfortunately, its been taken off the menu now.

It's a darker, more intimate/upscale looking place inside, but I've worn jeans before and never got a sideways look.

Their gnocchi Capone dish is one of the best things anywhere and the ambiance is nice (in complete contrast to the rustic appearance of their old place).  The only down side is the sticker shock that may crop up when straying from the lunch/pasta menu.

Take this review with the grain of salt that it was on New Year's Eve, a particularly busy night and also probably prone to workers calling in.  

We had a party of 10 for dinner, and were very clearly told that our reservation time needed to be prompt and that there was a two hour limit.  For a 5:30 reservation, no problem, we can handle that.  Everyone was there and hung out at the bar.  Pretty tight quarters to start with, and every single server and bartender who had to pass us gave our party a dirty look and an eye roll.  It's not really our fault that they set up the pianist in the way of their traffic flow, and we did our best to get small.  Not a huge deal, but slightly irritating.

We were finally seated at 6:40. Took forever for appetizers to come out, took another forever for bread to come out after that, and even longer for the food to finally come out.  Had to ask for small plates for the bread multiple times, and  for water refills multiple times.  And every one of these requests was met with an eye roll.  Any of these huge deals?  Nope.  But, when entrees are running $25-40 each, you expect a pretty high bar of service. And there were enough of these shortcomings strung together to really damper the experience.  

That said the food was completely delicious.  Everyone enjoyed the calamari appetizer, the "Gotti" was popular at our table and fantastic, and the steak and seabass were great.  It's refreshing to see a menu where you're really torn between several entrees.

By the time we wrapped up our meal (9pm) the place was full of people who had been waiting because the reservations were running behind and the service and food had been so slow to come out.  Again, take this with the perspective that it was New Year's Eve, but it wasn't a great showing.  It looked like a lot of folks chose to leave rather than wait.

Tend to believe that overall rankings for restaurants are a combination of food, price, service, and ambiance.  Corleone's does great by food and ambiance, but it is overpriced and the service was substandard for regular prices, let alone high-end fare.