My Cousin Vinny's — Restaurant in Niagara Falls

I have to say it was the longest wait to get my order. And I brought my little friend, she is in her 80s. We sat outside. It was a gorgeous evening, but we had plans to go somewhere after first mistake was the lady brought spaghetti instead of penni ,like we ordered, and then we had to wait another 20 minutes or so to get it remade, and then they brought it to us the chicken parm that they took back to the kitchen . I guess they just left sitting while making the penni noodles , By the time we got the pasta, the chicken was cold. I had mentioned it to her, but I didn't have time to wait another 20 minutes since we are already there. For 45 minutes at this point, we had ordered bread that was all gone within 10 minutes of our wait. So the next 30, we just sat there, then I had 3 different people. Serving me from the time I walked in the door. And I have to say, the greeter at the door was the most negative looking person I have ever met in my life. Not a smile, not a greeting, nothing, just throw the menus on the table and walks away not very hospitable. I think as a restaurant entrepreneur, you want, repeat business. You need to do things, right? To lighten up the day, a smile would have been nice. Or just good afternoon, I also am a store owner. Not it niagara , but I do come there often i think the taste of the food was nice. A little short on the pasta part, considering that's probably the cheapest thing, it could serve somebody. But otherwise I don't know if I'll give it a second try. I have ordered skip the dishes which was probably a better scenario than going in. It was tasty. And hot, when I received it, considering it was driven to the hotel where I was staying, you'd think it would be hot the food when I ordered it while I sat at a table. The woman compensated me by taking my pop off the bill. I don't know if that really compensated anything considering the whole meal was not very nice and it was a long wait. Nothing worse than eating cold chicken parm when I got there, the lady was running off her feet. So we didn't get the exceptional service that everybody else spoke of I didn't know if I was coming or going with whoever was serving, then all of a sudden, somebody asked, do I want my bill? I didn't even know who he was. It was crazy. I felt bad for my friend because she doesn't get out too often. As she is an older woman, that's not very healthy. It would have been a nicer experience if it was pleasant. To be again with when we walked in, I have to say the flowers were the most beautiful spectacular part of the whole visit. The gardens are gorgeous and the Sun. Shining radiant in the evening. Well, hopefully they can do better next time. When the next person comes, it is very nice to have better presentation when you're coming in the door. A greeting would...

Seating experience: My family and I entered in a happy mood near sunset time, we decided we wanted to sit inside near a window as it was cold outside. The waitress led us through the EMPTY, SPACIOUS, open concept area with nice ambient window seating, to a closed off, lowly lit, disgusting smelling, bar area with old seating. They said this was the seating for 5 people parties, and we couldn’t go to the nicer empty tables since they were reserved in the case a group of 7 people walks in. Okay, sure makes sense… but we couldn’t add a side chair to the similarly sized first class booths in the nicer area? The owner said it was the smell of sea food, and we said we’re uncomfortable with this since we are vegetarian and if we could move to one of the many vacant seats in the nicer area, he said no.

Ordering experience: After we sat down we ordered our pizzas. The menu said the veggie pizza includes olives, my father asked if they could use green olives and they said no, our option was to get the black olives off the pizza for free, then PAY ADDITIONAL $4 to add green olives instead. Luckily our waiter was nice and said he fought for the chefs to listen, but the policy would still apply to my brother who wanted onions instead of bell pepper. The bell peppers would be removed for free, but we need to pay $4 to add onions. Okay, sure fine whatever…

Food experience: Now at this point, if the pizza was even above 5/10, I would not writing this review, and the negative experiences explained above would be tolerable. This was not the case. The cheese was extremely low quality, and after eating my whole family felt sick and very heavy. We ordered 3 12-inch pizzas, $25 each, and could only finish 2. I genuinely wouldn’t be surprised if they microwaved frozen pizzas made last year. It was very low quality for the price, it should be illegal to market this as “Italian food”.

This is the type of food that makes you wonder… you worked hard to be here, you spent time and money to be at NIAGARA FALLS, you thought to treat your family at a nice looking restaurant, and you’re spending your evening getting sick eating plasticy cheese in the dark amongst drunk people? Why are we paying so much to have our minds and stomach regret it?

Last notes: Usually I’m not one to play the race card but as another person reviewed, there are some racist undertones that I kind of felt crazy or delusional to notice. This smelly dark bar area, had 4 tables. Who were the only other people occupied there? Another family of color. The nicer area however, was 95% white folk…

Chain restaurants like Pizza Pizza and Pizza Nova would provide a far better pizza for a fraction of the cost, instead we are paying more for a worse experience. I’d rather...

If bland, overly expensive Italian had a location, it would be My Cousin Vinny’s. Easily outshined by Fazolis and Olive Garden on any given day, this location delivers unsalted pasta, the driest carbonara, blasé Alfredo, and a lackluster chicken parm which were all outshined by the minestrone soup - the one and only good thing that came to our table of 7 diners. However, it was delivered in the largest, most shallow bowl I’ve ever encountered, almost comically on purpose.

Even the red sauce tasted like watered down tomato paste. Woof.

Small app sharing plates were delivered to our table when we were sat, as though we were being given bread or some sort of other complimentary item. Nothing was delivered. So they stayed with us, neatly stacked, through our entire meal. The only thing we shared, I reckon, was our collective disappointment.

However, the service was exceptional. Our waiter was overwhelmingly apologetic and tried to make the best of our meal. Unfortunately we were never met by a manager, even after sending the carbonara back twice and having an issue with a salad that was delivered. Timing was also off between salad and soup apps and the meals, leaving our table overcrowded due to the largest platings in any restaurant. One star off for that.

Stay away from this obvious tourist trap restaurant, who scrapes state visitor traffic through its shared similarities with one of the greatest cinema marvels of the same name. Vincent LaGuardia Gambini would be embarrassed. It does not seem to care about single experiences, as its clientele are probably rotational through tourist traffic. I won’t dive deep about the prices, but $32 CAD for chicken parm - and one of the most expensive items on the menu - is laughable.

They did have live music, so...