East Side Mario's — Restaurant in Ontario

This was our first time visiting this particular East Side Mario's Cornwall restaurant. We came on a Saturday at 4:45 for an early dinner.

Their online menu is mobile phone accessible and very easy to read and understand.

The restaurant is a stand alone lot with plenty of free parking. Unfortunately there is no lighting at the rear of the parking lot, which makes it very hazardous when walking amongst moving cars, especially if you have kids. The sidewalk adjacent to the building is difficult to walk on because the cedar trees next to them haven't been pruned in years and impede the walkway. The building's exterior needs some care because the paint in crumbling off the walls and cracks need to be repaired.

The interior needs some attention to cleanliness; the chandeliers and accessories were filthy and covered with dust. One of our chair's legs was a bit wobbley; more care and attention needs to be paid to there screws of these types of chairs as they do get loose on occasion. We did not visit the bathroom.

The restaurant is licensed to serve alcohol.

Our server was friendly and attentive and very busy; there was a hockey tournament in town.

We were seated in the middle of the restaurant and each time customers came inside a cold wind was felt, which made our visit somewhat uncomfortable; we couldn't relocate because the restaurant was already at capacity and prebooked.

We ordered Italian Wedding Soup and Caesar Salad for our starters. The Italian Wedding Soup is tasty and well seasoned but the pasta was either over cooked or is sitting in the broth too long either way it was too mushy and not al dente as it should be. It would be better to cook the pasta, keep it separate, add it to the bowl and then pour the soup on top. The Caesar Salad tastes ok. It is an average caesar salad with a dressing that is the same as a Renees, store bought dressing. Again, it isnt bad but it didnt wow us.

Our entrees were Build Your Own Pasta, which included Fettuccine noodes, alfredo sauce and we added primavera vegetables. All tasty but nothing spectaular. For the price it should be better quality ingredients. The pasta isnt fresh pasta, the alfredo tastes like a jarred alfredo. The veggies were good but over cooked. All in all, it wasnt bad but didnt knock our socks off and for $20.99 we feel it was a bit pricey.

The spaghetti primavera was very tasty, overall a very good dish.

The portion sizes are generous.

Although we rated this restaurant with 4 stars, we would return knowing...

Recently stopped in on way home from visiting in-laws. Who have been having health issues, so even though it’s covid time, we felt it important to go since they’re in there 90s. So we keep ourselves at home for 2 weeks to make sure we had nothing & then we went to help organize their place for winter. Driving back home i wanted to have dinner in Swiss chalet but since months earlier we had stopped in at Swiss chalet on our way home. That my husband decided we should try something different & we used to love going to east side Mario’s on our way home from visiting my in-laws. But about 10 years ago we went there, i had the spicy Arrabbiata pasta & contracted food poisoning, which is what the hospital told me after several tests. Well, 10 yrs later i go back, i forget to bring my 25$ gift certificate which would probably wouldn’t be accept anyways, that cornwall sent me to say sorry for poisoning u. But it has taken us this long to trust trying them again. Well, i had the same meal except left out the sausage. Being #covid time & having issues with my lungs we were going to eat in our car except nobody was there in the restaurant. Thus we thought it safe to eat at a table. Then in walks two men who sit at the table behind us, they remove their masks and the one starts to cough. So we moved to a table away from them as none of the other tables were being used at that moment. More than 6 feet away. But long comes the waitress & 1st she complains & says there’s nothing to worry about as she’s wearing her mask & so r we. When i explain that the men behind us r not wearing a mask, that plexiglass doesn’t go all the way down or all the way up to their ceiling thus their germs can carry in the air & that we r not 6 feet apart & with me having lung issues i feel more at risk. So she says goes to complain & then finally says okay & drops the issue. Then she brings me my order and there is a hair in it. I point this out to her & she tells me it’s probably my hair. My husband confirms it’s unlikely as i found it & removed it right when it was delivered to the table. So she tells her manager & he comes over to say sorry & offers to give me a new one. I eat the new one. We good home, the next day I’m so, so sick, exactly like last time, even bleeding, except this time with covid I’m unwilling to go to the hospital to have it diagnosis. Never will i eat at east side Mario’s & never if i have to eat there will i eat the spicy arrabbiata pasta as...

🌹 🏳️‍⚧️ 🏳️‍🌈 Rating restaurants is always difficult due to the potential for so many things to go wrong. It has been quite some time since I last dined at East Side Mario's here in Cornwall, so I thought I would give it another try. Gone are the days of the most delicious free salted peanuts in the shell crunching under your feet and half-price munchie night. It was not all bad, though.

🌹 It was a Tuesday evening and busier than I expected. Much noisier, as well. Fortunately, I had my tunes playing in my ear, so I was able to drown out much of the background noise and happy birthday renditions. Honestly, folks, if you are past ten years of age, you really should give up the birthday parties. But I digress. I found the last small table on the bar side and sat down. The waitress was the shining part of the experience that night. I ordered a draft beer and scanned the ample but designed-for-many-people munchie section of the menu. Dining single in restaurants remains an anomaly and a bit difficult. I was not very hungry, so I settled on a Caesar salad and the fried, battered Calamari.

🌹 The food was served quickly. The salad was good and fresh. That is where the good stuff ended. It was, without doubt, the worst Calamari I have ever had. It was completely dried out and tasteless. The waitress offered more lemon to squeeze on it, but nothing could have saved this afterthought in a bowl. Because of the price, I managed to swallow about half of it, drowned in the sauces provided, and two more draft beers helped wash it down. Previous times I had the Calamari at Mario's, it was very good. I would have been ashamed to serve this to someone.

🌹 Regardless, the friendliness of the waitress made my visit bearable, but I would hesitate to order anything on the menu that required care and attention to quality. Mario's is, at best, one very small step above fast food. My search for a good restaurant in Cornwall continues, but in the meantime, I still have...