The Old Spaghetti Factory — Restaurant in Toronto

🦋Situated on the quiet and beautiful street of Esplanade, we are greeted with an outdoor patio (which is great in warmer weather).

As we open the doors and walk inside, the décor brings us back to an old Victorian era church with its stained glass windows and chandeliers. To the right is a beautiful bar with an area for a live band which was about to start playing as we left around 7:30 pm.

🦋The place is filled with families, kids, and many visitors from outside the city. As we walk into the dining area, there are numerous sections perfectly designed to make the BIG restaurant not feel crowded. It seemed to us that adults without kids were in certain sections, and adults with kids were in others. We really liked this. Even though it seemed dark from the lack of natural light and dim lighting, we were seated in the middle where a skylight bringing natural light ran overhead through the middle of the entire restaurant. It was lit up perfectly, and we preferred having the natural light versus other restaurants on the Esplanade, which have no natural light.

When we were seated, the hostess was kind and brought over bread and garlic butter - MMMMM! (Can you tell we love bread and butter 😂?). Our server came over quickly and greeted us with a BIG smile that was permanently glued to his mouth and a personality that was the best we have EVER experienced.

Since it was our first time going as adults (The last time Alex went was at age 6), Blake did an AMAZING job explaining the menu, what we got and how we could alter our order. He made us feel super comfortable and happy to be there.

Obviously, we already talked about the bread, but what was also included was a salad or soup (we chose the salad), a hot tea or coffee, and ice cream. The salad had a choice of dressings, and we chose balsamic vinaigrette. It was light and easy to eat.

We ordered the seafood pasta and changed the noodle to penne (LOVE penne!). The food all came out properly prepared and with perfect timing, allowing it all to settle before the next dish came. It was definitely an experience. The seafood pasta was great. The noodles were cooked al denté (our fav), and the sauce was rich and creamy.

Next, we got the pistachio ice cream, then warm water and lemon, which was a perfect way to end the meal. A nice cool, light refresher after bread, a salad, and pasta.

All in all, our experience here was great, and what brought the whole experience over the top was Blake. We want to credit him with the best service we have ever had. In the end, he even shared how he and his girlfriend were about to go to Italy.

Thanks to Blake and the Old Spaghetti Factory for providing a meaningful and wonderful experience.

This is our experience....

Been here multiple times over the years. Usually when I have family visit I take them here as I know it will be a nice place for them to see. Food is usually okay at best but pretty consistent.

The issue I had this time was the service. Felt incredibly rushed the entire time. The server started us with water. When she dropped the glasses off at the table and laid the bottle of water down she immediately left the table. This is when I noticed the bottle of water for the table had dried lettuce on it! Absolutely disgusting. I don’t know if it was washed or just left there.

She came back again to take our order. Very short and rude with us the entire evening. We finish the bottle of water fast as there were 4 of us at the table. We had our bread finished pretty quick as well. I was hoping she was going to come check on us before the salad came because we needed more water. That never happened. Eventually the salad came out but she dropped the food off at the table so quick and left again there was literally not a second for us to ask for more bread or water. I’m not sure how to explain this but it was like she dropped the plays off while looking away from us not to make any sort of eye contact. I understand it was a Saturday and busy but there has to at least be some level of service here.

Eventually our meals came out. And finally we were able to flag her down to ask for more water. I tired my best to politely point out that the jug of water was dirty when she first dropped it off to the table. So I asked for more water and said “sorry when this came out it was dirty” I’m unsure if she didn’t hear me or was just being evil. But she looked at me and said “what? Do you want more water?” In the most sarcastic tone. Mind you this is about 30-40 minutes into our meal. Like yes at a table of 4 when you bring a jug of water that didn’t even fill 4 glasses of water to begin with, we are going to need another bottle especially 40 minutes into a meal. Then at the very end of the meal she asked what ice cream we would like and if we needed tea or coffee. I said ”yes 4 chocolate ice cream and 1 crème brûlée. We will all have coffe with cream and sugar please.” She brings the ice cream and desert with ONE coffee.

All that to say. Any time I’ve been here no problem. Is it the best food? No. But it is a great quick and easy place to take my family when the come to visit. But after tonight never again. She was incredibly rude the entire time, was not checking up on us for a second. Served a jug of water with dried lettuce on it. So disgusted by the dirty jug but I understand mistakes happen. The real issue her was that...

The reason I can’t give 4-5 stars is simply due to the service. Went last night with my family, of course restaurant was very busy and packed due to holidays as expected. The restaurant itself is unique and the food was very good.

Our waitress unfortunately was rude and dismissive. One of our group members has a severe allergy to dairy- when we let the waitress know and asked if she could please let the chefs know as to be careful with cross contamination to the dish her response was very dismissive, she cut us off and insisted she can’t guarantee they won’t cross contaminate… we then asked what the normal protocol is when there’s a anaphylactic allergy and she responded she wasn’t sure and that was it. We would have preferred and felt a lot better if we felt she took this more seriously and even just checked with the those that handle the food what the policies are.

Secondly, there was a miscommunication issue when one of our group members ordered the chicken parmigiana, she asked what type of side he’d like and started by listing off fries, which he said he’d take thinking this was additional to the spaghetti. When the meals arrived his dish was just the chicken Parmigiana with fries as opposed to the spaghetti he thought it would come with. When this was brought to the expo guy that served us our dishes he said it must’ve been a miscommunication and cleared up that the dish comes with either the spaghetti or the fries, but that it would be no problem that if he had wanted the spaghetti he could bring back out a small kid’s portion in two minutes. We asked if he needed to bring the dish back with the fries and he said no worries he’d just bring the spaghetti out. Once the bills arrived we had been charged an extra 11$ for that spaghetti which was surprising given we were under the impression that it would be a no charge to rectify the error in communication. When brought up to our waitress Sia she actually laughed and said “uh no the expo guy doesn’t get to make that call I’m your waitress not him and I’m not just going to give you a free side”

We actually had no words at this point, the attitude was pretty shocking and made us all feel bad. I think moving forward the restaurant really needs to train the staff better on allergy policies as well as proper etiquette when working in the service industry. Really hoping this was a one off as the rest of the staff seemed to be really courteous when we explained this situation...