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| - This was my first time to The Old Spaghetti Factory. I'm trying to decide if it will be my last. The food was good. The prices were good. The Minestrone soup was excellent. The service was....interesting, then confusing, then dissappointing. We arrived at 7:45pm and were seated in under 5 minutes despite it being a busy Saturday night. We got a semi private booth which was nice, but because it was next to the bar, there was no lighting. We literally had to use our cell phone flashlights to read the menu. Our server, Charlie, came up within 10 seconds after we sat down and the first thing he said was "What can I get you to drink?" We had just barely started to look at the menu (with our flashlights). I thought it was odd that he didn't welcome us, ask us if we had any questions about the menu, or acknowledge the lack of light even if there was nothing he could do about it. Just odd. Sit down BOOM what do you want to drink? We didn't get a chance to look at the cool beverage menu so we ordered or stand-by Diet Cokes because he was clearly in a hurry. Charlie then asked if we were ready to order. Wow, way too fast. I said "It's our first time" hoping Charlie would understand and introduce the menu, specials, etc. Nope. He said he was going to get a dessert order from the next table and hurried outside to what looked to be like a huge group. We soon realized that this group demanded all of Charlie's time and we were being served in the short 60 second-window he had between patio duties. The desert order must have been huge because we didn't see Charlie for a while. Finally we got our drinks. Charlie was nice, but his attention was obviously taken elsewhere. Since we didn't get order the minute we sat down, it was a while before Charlie came back to take our orders. Then he was back to the big outside group. No bread. My Diet Coke was constantly empty and no water was offered. He kept re-filling, but it took so long to get a re-fill. Finally we got our Bread, Soup AND Appetizer...all at the same time. And then Charlie was gone again. Now I promise this next part I am not joking, it couldn't have been more than 4 or 5 minutes after we got our bread, soups and appetizer - another server brought out our entrees. Seriously, we weren't even halfway through with our soup and hadn't even cut the bread yet. I'd had one bite of the appetizer and they brought out our entrees! Charlie must have wanted us out so bad in order to concentrate on his big party outside. I mean, who does that at dinner? Maybe in a lunch rush, but not for dinner. The server saw our table, and said "Oh is this too soon?" Duh. But we worried if we said yes, that they would just sit the plates under a heat lamp until we were ready. No thanks. So we just went with it. Our smaller, round table literally could not hold everything. We just wanted a nice dinner, but we were rushed through like cattle. I gave up hoping of always have something to drink with my food. We tried to make the best of it, because honestly the food was really good. Not great, but really good. I would rank Old Spaghetti Factory as one rung above food court pasta and one rung below Olive Garden. That's not a bad thing because the prices are very reasonable, especially with a little bowl of soup and a little scoop of ice cream. It's really good food. But oh my, the service. Perhaps our experience would have been different at another time with another server. Perhaps we just got caught in the vortex of a demanding, larger group in the same serving area. Perhaps as soon as Charlie realized we weren't ordering alcohol, and therefore not paying a big bill, he focussed on the groups that were, to ensure bigger tips. I don't know. It's always interesting to watch servers' faces drop when you order a Diet Coke. I watched disappointedly as a couple 2 booths down from us, who came in before us were served by another server who seemed attentive and helpful. I don't think their drinks ever reached the bottom before he refilled them. He offered fresh cracked pepper (which would have been really nice over my fettuccini alfredo), and it was obvious they had time to enjoy their appetizer and soups before their entree was brought out. I guess that's why I'm disappointed, is because I could clearly see what our experience was SUPPOSED to be like, but absolutely was not. We gave Charlie the benefit of the doubt that the big group must be very demanding to treat us like that. We gave him a normal 20% tip, even though the service was worth much less than that, because I don't believe in tipping less than 20% unless it's just a horrid experience. This was not horrid...it was interesting and disappointing. I wrote this note at the top of the receipt "I'm sorry we caught you on a bad night. The food was really good though." Hopefully seeing a normal tip will help Charlie realize I'm not trying to be a jerk, but there was something way off tonight and he could have made it very different.
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