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| - So we ended up here last night for my sisters 17th birthday. This was our first time here after another relative said that the Macaroni Grill was really great.
It was Friday night around 6pm we arrived, a huge long wait, so we knew we'd be waiting for about an hour for 7 people +1 baby (highchair). There were a ton of other large families inside waiting to escape the cold, so we decided to wait outside with the rest of the families since there was no more room inside to sit and wait (we had wished they had heating lamps outside but there wasn't). We didn't mind, were pretty optimistic people when it comes to a 1st time restaurant experience!
We ended up waiting for 1 1/2 hours to be seated. My other sister walked in to ask for the wait time and whoever she talked to said we were only waiting for about 1/2 an hour which was a lie. Others got called and we were basically the only large group left to be seated which we found deterring. We made it inside because it was becoming too cold, it was dead empty, there were also empty tables around, so we couldn't understand why the waiters couldn't push two tables together to make a big one for us.
After being seated at the table around 8pm (mind we arrived around 6pm), the waitress was nice but not very attentive. There was already the given gratuity tip because of our group of over 6 people, so we didn't know if she was just busy with other customers or just didn't care.
Things that were ordered: Carbonara & Ginger Soda (me), Penne Rustica & Coconut Italian Ice (birthday girl), Eggplant Quadtani (mother), Mom's Ricotta Meatballs & Spaghetti (brother), Farfalle w/chicken & garlic sauce (don't remember the name, other sister ordered this). Everyone else ordered sodas or coffee.
Wait time.. we waited almost an hour for our food, they kept loading us up on bread. We didn't order anything that would take that long, all pasta dishes, the restaurant was half empty and the cooks were still there so there was no shortage of staff.
Carbonara & Ginger Soda: Was pretty good, although I'm not sure I like the idea of a poached egg on top (I'm the old fashioned and like it mixed together - just cook it up a bit to make sure the egg isn't raw anymore ;). It needed some salt but the prosciutto made up for it so I avoided adding anymore. But without mixing the dish, the noodles and "sauce" it came with was bland. The Ginger Soda was... interesting. It was good, but you couldn't taste the ginger, mostly the cream, lemon and lime. It kinda tasted like a Fizzy Limeade with cream than a Ginger Soda.
Penne Rustica & Coconut Italian Ice: Birthday girl was upset it came with 3 small shrimps, overall she enjoyed it but wished there was more shrimp for the price you paid for. The Italian Ice was good, a lot of coconut flavoring, she ended up ordering two since she liked it so much.
Eggplant Quadtani: It was alright, nothing to write home about.
Mom's Ricotta Meatballs & Spaghetti: This arrived to my brother cold, we alerted a different waitress who took the dish back to be reheated. When our original waitress came back (after 30min of being MIA from giving us our drinks, another waiter gave us our food) she asked if everything was alright but didn't ask about the missing dish. We kept trying to find another waiter or waitress, but they had suddenly all disappeared - or they were conveniently ignoring our table. 15min later we caught our waitress again and said we were waiting for his dish to be reheated. The waitress apologized and found his dish, when she brought it back the pasta was hot but the meatballs were still cold. We were offered a new Spaghetti dish which we gladly accepted, but it was still charged to our bill while the other wasn't.
Farfalle w/chicken & garlic sauce: Was good, but it had a very raw garlic taste, she wasn't too thrilled over the dish.
When we were nearing 10pm we were ready to leave. It took the waitress almost half an hour to get back my friends credit card and receipts when the place had about 6 other tables for the night. Before we left, we finally let it slip that it was my sisters birthday (maybe if we let it slip earlier maybe we would've gotten better service? I think not...), and the waitress had a deadpan of, "Fml." on her face. The guy who sung the opera to her was pretty good though.
Overall, for the wait we had to endure, and pay a large bill with not even sub-par food, we would've gotten better customer service and food at Olive Garden or even Carraba's. I know we're not supposed to mention other food chains in our reviews on Yelp, but it has to be said. If Macaroni Grill doesn't step up their customer service and food staff, this location might as well close as their other location on Ray.
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