East Side Mario's — Restaurant in Waterloo

The East Side Mario's Pit: What They Don't Tell You

Tuesday, December 26, 2023 18:00.

What follows is a true story. Names will be withheld for their own safety, though the events truly did occur in the pit of this restaurant.

It was a day like any other but a boxing day for the history books. A small 10 minute wait was worth it for the unlimited bread, soup and salad that were behind those glorious Eastside Mario doors. I made it to my seat in the pit. The pit for those who don't know is a place of legend. It is said that those who dine in the pit leave as different people. Boys emerge the depths of the pit as men, but it is unknown the journey they take... until today.

HOUR ONE: [THE PIT] After placing orders and receiving the glorious unlimited feast, the couple emerged from the top of the stairs. One couldn't help but notice the man drowning in tears at the table. The woman embraced the crying man although the cause of the tears are still a mystery. Moments prior, a message was delivered from the women, a short but impactful whisper that caused rippled emotion throughout the pit. The ambiance of the night was never quite the same. Shortly after, the man left the pit with his coat on, assumed to be leaving the scene to cope with his new learnings.

HOUR ONE POINT FIVE: [THE PIT] The man returned, still with his coat on. The dynamic of the couple was as if nothing had occurred. The man sat, and the woman embraced him once again, though with different intentions. The couple began "going to town" on each other. Explicit, passionate, disgusting smooching. The pit felt this unwelcomed presence and all that dined were subjected to this public display of affection, or affair???

The man straddled his chair like the saddle on a horse, but he had no intentions of moving anywhere, except further into the woman. The food hadn't come yet, but they were eating good.

HOUR TWO: [THE PIT] After what felt to be FAR too long, the man rose from his chair, dawning his coat once again yet not leaving the building, but instead journeying to the washroom.

HOUR TWO POINT TWO FIVE: [THE PIT] The man finally returned from his pilgrimage, but he returned not as the man that entered. His posture was now slouched, mouth slightly ajar, and eyes sealed shut. The man sat down and held the back of the woman's seat but not in affection, though seemingly as a support from him falling over. The couple continued snogging hard, however the man's demeaner gave the impression that the lights were on and nobody was home.

HOUR TWO POINT FIVE: [PARKING LOT] Upon finishing their meals, the couple left the pit. They may forget the evening in the pit, though it well never forget them. One could not help but notice the couple absolutely macking it in the center of the parking lot, finishing what they had started in the pit just hours ago. The two finally left each others embrace with a final kiss and in a turn of events, they left towards their own separate automobiles. Those dining tonight will never fully know the story of this night; why the man was crying, what really happened in the washroom, or the status of the relationship of these people.

One thing that is known, is that they don't tell you what happens in the pit... But I do.

btw, this is what I ate tonight....

I used to love coming here but not anymore. I understand that taste of the food could slightly change according to each location as we have definetely experienced that, but it also shouldn’t give you food poisoning…

I visited the restaurant like usual with some friends and we all ordered the chicken parmigiana like we always do! However, the taste of the chicken was awful. We thought maybe it was missing salt and tried it add it ourselves. It still did not fix the problem. We were pretty disappointed and just wanted to get our bills and leave. We could barely eat half of the food and did not even want to take the rest home.

Our server was amazing, she was sweet and apologetic when she asked us how the food was while we were making payment, and we were honest with her. We even went as far as to ask her if there was a different crew working than usual but she did not confirm anything. She told us she can get her manager to talk to us and we said sure, we can give some feedback as this is the closest East Side location to us.

We were about ready to head out and the manager came to our table. We told him our concerns and he seemed to just nod his head and not even apologize or ask further questions. We explained that we visit the restaurant once every 2 weeks or so, and it is our favourite due to the all you can eat salad/soup combination. We asked him the same question if its a different crew in the kitchen and he confirmed that they are training new staff. Again, not even an apology or confirming that things could have tasted different than usual. He gave us the impression as if we were looking for a discount but we had already paid and we didn’t care for a price reduction and just wanted to be ensured that this would not be the case next time, maybe acknowledge our bad experience? We complimented our server to him as well and that we truly were just commenting on the taste of our chicken - that was still sitting in front of us!

We all left, some swearing to never visit the location ever again. Needless to say, I was sitting on the toilet not along after and feeling nauseaus. Everyone else in the group all had similar symptoms later at night or towards the next morning. The rest of the them also swore to never go there again.

This was last October and I still remember it when my partner suggests to go to this location. I haven’t been to any East Side Marios locations ever since. Manager response -2/10, the server crew 10/10, and food.. you decide for yourself but prepare to be...

My family and I went to dinner last night and unfortunately had a bad experience.

We were seated quickly, but were not seen for at least 10 minutes after we sat down. My parents got there about 10 minutes after us and that is when our waiter came. He took our drink order, came right back asking if we were ready to order - since my parents had just gotten there we asked if he could come back so we could look at the menu. He was busy running around and did not come back until around 15 minutes later to take our order.

As other tables started to get their food, my dad decided to go talk to the manager and advise his staff was busy and clearly needed help. Another waitress knew exactly what he was talking about and agreed her colleague needed assistance, but the manager refused to even apologize for the wait or any concerns with staffing. I have worked in restaurants before and can say this was not the appropriate response. The manager also did not help bring food out (which is normally what happens when restaurants are busy), he was just walking around chatting people up while his staff scrambled to tend to their customers.

Our food came out shortly after that. My dad's pizza was undercooked and my husbands spaghetti was crunchy. We looked around and saw everybody that had ordered the spaghetti barley ate their meal, many also were not taking any of their leftover spaghetti home (leaving entire bowls).

Our server was busy and unable to visit us while we were eating, leaving drinks empty and us unable to advise on the quality of food. When he did come by, I advised of the concerns with the pasta so that the kitchen could know (not expecting anything free out of this - just wanted them to know about the issue).

Our waiter offered a free dessert, at this time we had been there for two hours and were ready to leave.

On the way out, my dad stopped to talk to the manager and advise him about the poor service (we do not blame our server and still tipped him, we blame the manger for not getting him help when it was clear it was needed). He also mentioned the pasta issue and the manager refused to admit anything could possibly be wrong with the food. He took no accountability for the poor experience and essentially just brushed my dad's complaint away.

We will not be eating here again and will certainly be letting people know of our poor experience.

I feel bad for staff having to deal with such a...