I had Spiedini bookmarked for forever, so when we decided to do Valentine's Day dinner close to home, it was a no-brainer.  I emailed to make reservations the weekend before (which I thought might be a little late) - and breathed a sigh of relief when I got an email back saying we were in!  \n\nWe arrived at about 10 minutes prior to our reservation time and there was already a line out the door.  The hostess station was set up so that the hostesses were facing INTO the restaurant, not out to the arriving patrons - which was kind of a pain.  We had to push past all the people that were waiting for tables and enter the restaurant in order to let them know we were there.  There were at least 3 hostesses working the station - and we checked in with two of them. They said it would be a few minutes. We waited, saw a large party that had arrived before us get seated - good!  Everything is moving along!  We just had to wait for three more couples to be seated and we'd be in!  Then a party of two that were a walk-in got seated.  We checked in again at the hostess station to make sure they hadn't forgotten us.  When the hostesses made like they were going to seat another party that had arrived after us - another couple that had been waiting as well stepped in and got pretty testy with them. That couple were immediately seated. A half-hour after our reservation time, we checked in for a third time and were finally granted a table.\n\nThe restaurant was obviously way over-booked - and the wait staff were apologizing left and right for that (even though it wasn't their fault). They alone saved this review from being a one star. We ordered off of the Valentine's Day prix fixe menu and ordered a bottle of really inexpensive but wonderful sparkling wine. The Roasted beet salad was terrific, the grilled salmon solidly done and the berry shortcake for dessert was good too. I'd be willing to give Spiedini another try on a less busy holiday based on the quality of the food alone. The courses came out of the kitchen S.L.O.W.L.Y - which I wouldn't have minded so much if I hadn't planned on getting up at 5:30 the next morning for a trip out of town. \n\nTwo and a half hours after our reservation time, we got up to pay the bill. I was looking forward to raving about this experience - but the anarchic hostess station, the over-booked status of the restaurant and the overwhelmed kitchen unfortunately put a damper on the the whole meal.  Kudos to the wait staff for being so nice and professional under pressure - we tipped them well because we felt so bad for them.