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| - Once upon a time --- in 1993, to be exact -- I moved to Arizona and took a job as a singer/host at the Macaroni Grill in Scottsdale. I mention this to kinda give me bona fides as someone, who knows what the place was once like and what it is now.
Back then, there wasn't much good dining in Arizona and on weekend nights, people would line up and wait for more than an hour to get a seat in the place ... and it was worth it. The food was very good, the prices reasonable, the service excellent.
But that was then.
Macaroni Grill, like many restaurants, got slapped badly in the Great Depression of 2008. The pressure was on everyone to cut costs or die. This restaurant was no different. But in their case, they should have shut their doors and spared all of us their pain.
I can't speak for other locations, but the Goodyear branch has deteriorated into little more than a ruin of its former self and a bad joke. Their famous Bellinis, that frozen drink, which put the restaurant on the map for so many people, are gone ... replaced by a watered-down, non-frozen insult of its former glory. The portions of the food have gotten smaller, but not the prices for them. The menu has lost so many items, they might as well just hand out flyers at the door listing what they have available. For that matter, maybe not: most of what they serve is inedibly oversalted or mushy and I'm guessing the chefs are secretly opening Weight Watchers boxes and dumping the contents into pans on the counter to fool anyone, who might be watching. (Oh Hell, WHY am I insulting Weight Watchers? ... Even they could do better than this!).
There is only one saving grace here and, ironically, it shouldn't be such a big deal: the bread. It's still as good as ever and beats out most of what you find for what poor excuses of bakeries we have here in the Valley. And, to be fair, their desserts are still pretty good, too (i.e., that means, the Tiramisu), though not as good as they were in the past.
Service in this branch is pathetic. It's not the servers' fault. Management, as in so many places, seems to be more concerned with nitpicking and watching what everyone is doing than making sure service is prompt and correct. Food orders are constantly screwed up (I'm not talking about one visit here, folks ... and if it's happening to me more than once when I've hit the place every six months or so, what does that tell you about typical daily performances?). Waiters show up to
check on whether you need refills about as often as doctors get to your appointments on time; those with blood pressure problems most likely will find less salt in their food if they fish something out of the Dead Sea. On the other hand, there's nooooo problem finding a seat in here, even on a Friday night.
Sometimes, when a beloved pet gets old and the quality of its life has degenerated to a point, where it would be best to put it out of its misery, it's hard to put aside your selfish needs to do the right thing. Macaroni Grill: beg for the needle already!
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