Lombardi's Italian Restaurant

This place has all the charm of an old Denny's.  Have you seen Restaurants Impossible?  This is it.  Tired and run down.  They need a facelift and help in the kitchen.  The $21 Linguini del la mare was reminiscent of Chef Boyar di.  It had lots of seafood but the sauce was horrible.  What do they put in it to make it greasy?  On top of the bill they automatically added an 18% gratuity for 2 people.  For the price of dinner at a nice place they made sure we won't be back.

I lived in Ballard for 20 years and was sad to see the Lombardi's there turn into a Starbucks.

But this Lombardi's is not the one I remember.  

This location looks/feels like a Denny's or Perkins.   And OMG that Frank Sinatra they play...I wanted to kill myself after about 15 minutes.   What a tired, tired atmosphere.

I had quite possibly the WORST calamari of my life here.   It was AWFUL.    It resembled greasy-spoon deep fried clam strips (which can be yummy when it's called for) but this was so awful I don't even know where to begin.  They were over-breaded, freezer burnt and fried horribly.  They were chewy and as soon as the heat dissipated they went soggy and tasted stale.   Good God I can't believe they put that on a plate and served it.

My Italian salad was ok.  The grape tomatoes were especially good.  The quality of the gorgonzola was pretty poor.   The salad was literally DRENCHED in dressing and served in this randomly huge bowl thing.   I should also mention that the greens smelled/tasted of seafood.  That didn't bother me as I love seafood, but I would have been mad as heck if I didn't like fish or was a vegetarian.  

The only high-point of our lunch was the hostess/server who was prompt and professional (albeit a bit loud).  She worked her bum off despite being the ONLY person working the front.  

I won't be back.  This place was really awful.

I liked coming here every once and awhile for a girl's night, but the past several times have yielded frustrating results.  The food is just fine, typically I stick with pizza and other snack-able things and it works.  However, the service has a consistent habit of being in the neighborhood of mediocre to horrible.  Last time I cruised in for a happy hour I waited for 45 minutes to even get the bartender to come over and fill an order for a drink, and that was the theme for the rest of the time there.  I am a super patient customer, but I never think it is right to feel that you have put someone out simply because you asked for something.  To top that off, the server kept walking right past our table, look at us, and just move on.  I can comfortably say that I won't be back.