Customer Review: Annabelle's Italian Restaurant in Old Town Sacramento

This is a customer review of Annabelle's Pizza and Pasta, an Italian restaurant located at 200 J street in Sacramento's historic Old Town district. According to the Annabelle's website, the restaurant is open 7 days per week from 11am to 6pm, and also has locations in San Francisco, Oakland, and Napa. Contact phone number for Annabelle's is listed on their website as: (916)448-6239.

My family and I visited Annabelle's on March 26th, 2010. Having recently moved to Northern California, this was our daughter's first trip home from college to our new home, and after we picked her up at the airport we decided to take the kids down to Sacramento's historic Old Town district. After parking in the parking garage, we walked out into Old Town, and were almost immediately approached by an Annabelle's employee handing out advertisements for the lunch buffet.

After walking up and down J Street and seeing a few shops, we decided to go ahead and try Annabelle's for lunch. The flyer we'd been handed advertised a $5.99 lunch buffet, featuring pizza, pasta, and salad. With 4 kids, we figured this buffet would offer something to appease everyone in our group, so we set out to find Annabelle's. We walked inside the door, and down the staircase that leads to the restaurant. The kids were a little bit leery because as we descended the stairway it became clear that the entire area to the right looked like an unfinished basement. At the bottom of the stairs we turned left, into the restaurant.

The restaurant itself is quite small. We ordered the buffet for everyone in our family, and with drinks costing an additional $1.50 each, our total bill came to $45. We were handed 6 plates. As we approached the actual food display, it was obvious that we'd made a mistake in going to Annabelle's. It was peak lunch hour, and the buffet table featured one small pizza, 3 pans of pasta dishes, and a mediocre salad bar.

We got our food and as we went back to our table, a huge group of teenagers came in. It appeared as though several schools were visiting museums in Sacramento's Old Town that day, and the restaurant started filling up fast. The entire back portion of the restaurant was closed, with a sign saying "reserved", so it quickly became really cramped in the dining room. The teens and additional patrons were getting grouchy about the lack of food at the buffet, and we decided to try to just hurry and get out.

The food was nothing I would ever go back for. The pizza was good, but not great (and there was hardly any of it). The macaroni and cheese was cold and had no flavor. The Ziti was in a very watery tomato sauce and was not very warm. The spaghetti was room temperature and really spicy. I didn't bother with the salad.

When a few people in our group wanted to go up and get pizza when more was finally brought out, my oldest daughter went to the register to ask for clean plates. The lady working actually argued with her and wanted her to pay again before giving her more plates! My daughter insisted on clean plates, and the lady finally gave her a couple. I was under the impression that it is illegal for restaurants to not require clean plates with each subsequent trip to the buffet.

By the time we were finishing our meal I was seriously beginning to worry about food borne illness due to the cool temperatures of the tomato based foods provided at the buffet. As we were leaving, we visited the restrooms, which were so filthy and disgusting that Annabelle's should be shut down by the health department.

I would never recommend Annabelle's to anyone. I would strongly discourage anyone from eating the food in this restaurant, mainly because the kitchen is likely not much cleaner than the restrooms, and it really seems dangerous for the food to be kept at an inadequate temperature. Fortunately, nobody in our family ended up feeling sick after eating at Annabelle's, but I am truly amazed that this place has not been shut down by the health department. Additionally, their website states that if you spend over $30 in their restaurant, that they will validate parking. This was never offered to us, and we had to pay for parking.