Mario's Osteria — Restaurant in Boca Raton

I was with a group of 10 that arrived at Mario's around 3 pm for an engagement happy hour for one of the women we work with. There was a large table in the bar area, and the first two women that arrived asked that we be seated a table in the bar area for happy hour. The manager, Steve, made them wait for 20 minutes and then told them that they could not be seated until there whole party arrived. They mentioned that people would be coming and going for the happy hour celebration, to which Steve said that once seated, no one else would be able to join the party. To which the women stated that didn't work for us and he replied to go somewhere else. Since the newly engaged friend wanted to be at Mario's, we decided to stay. The manager finally said that we could sit at the large table by the bar, and then once everyone was seated, the server proceeded to tell us that even though the table was in the bar area that it was not part of happy hour and that the only place for happy hour was at the bar itself or the large couch by the bar that was all of 10 feet away from the table. There where two women sitting in the middle of the couch who were nice enough to move over for us. Ten minutes later, a server came over and proceeded to take our order of drinks and 14 appetizers. It took 30 minutes to receive the first drink and another 10 minutes before everyone had their drink. It was another 20 minutes before the first appetizer came out and over the next 20 minutes all of the appetizers finally arrived. Our servers came out a couple times to see if we needed any additional drinks, and then around 5:30 as we were finishing up, we asked for a to go container for the few items of appetizers that were left. The server told us that he could only give us a box for the bread as it was not a happy hour item. When we asked why, he said that Mario's had a policy of not allowing discounted items to be boxed up. When we asked why, he kept repeating a story of having to draw a line in the sand because people would sit for hours drinking and then order an appetizer, take one bite, and then ask to box it up, so the owner decided to not allow discounted food to be boxed up. When we mentioned that this didn't make sense, he became angry and continued with examples that completely didn't make sense and said that it was on the menu and that the other server should have mentioned it to us when we were ordering. After the manager rudely pulled the server away from our group as one of the women was speaking with him, she proceeded to speak with Steve and the owner to discuss this and at first was rudely spoken to Steve. While this policy doesn't make sense to us, especially since other local restaurants understand that a restaurant is a service place and that ordering food even if it is discounted is food and the guest paid for while sitting, drinking, and eating and are happy to box up the remaining for items. On top of the bad service, they added a 20% gratuity to the bill which was not on the subtotal of what we owed, but on the original cost before the happy hour discount. When I worked at restaurants during college and graduate school, we only added a gratuity for large parties on to the actual subtotal that needed to be paid. When we mentioned to both the manager and owner that we would never return, they were completely fine with it. Most of us have worked in restaurants before and know how stressful a serving and bartender job is and actually usually tip really well and give the benefit of the doubt when service not very good, but none of us have ever experienced such disrespect and overall bad service by a restaurant and their staff before. I will definitely NOT return to Mario's ever again and will highly recommend to others to not...

Mario's was suggested by a friend who had been there 1 time before, said it was great. Wish I could agree.

It was a nice place, an upscale pizza/pasta place. Friendly staff and valet services in a crowded mall with few empty spots. - no complaints so far.

Went with my elderly parents (canes and walkers) .... big mistake. It was LOUD, DARK and COLD. Our waitress spoke in whispers so we couldn't hear anything she said.

We got bread from some other server, but no butter, waited about 10 minutes, tried to flag "ANY" staff down, but was unsuccessfull the first few attempts until we grabbed the first staff member that we could (as ours was no where to be found) and flagged them down for butter. The bread was very good.

We ordered, wait was not bad.... portions were big. As soon as the food came out our waitress came by and asked if we needed anything. We hadn't even tried it. I said "we are good" but she returned with a dish for me to put my muscle/clam shells and a spoon for my pasta if i wanted it (i did)

the food was TERRIBLE.

I ordered Seafood Mario. ALL the seafood was very over-cooked and rubbery (shrimp) or mushy (scallops). The pasta was so over-cooked it had the constancy of mush and was gross. I ate all the rubbery shrimp, clams and overcooked / mushy scallops. I couldn't eat the pasta and didn't eat most of the muscles.

Mom had Eggplant Parm. She ate around 4 small bites. Her side pasta was cold, she didn't eat it. She was done.

Dad had Chicken Parm. He said it was terrible but ate about a 1/4th of it. I asked if his pasta was also cold, he said "not too bad" but he said he didn't like the pasta and mentioned the chicken tasted stale. At the end of our "meal" I tried a bite and spit it into my napkin. It was GROSS. It DID taste very stale (I have never had/heard of STALE chicken before - it was vile and left the taste of what i think an old smelly sponge would taste like).

Waitress came by at the end and asked if we wanted to box up all the eggplant, chicken parm and my pasta - no one did. When she asked how it was i told her the truth. She apologized, asked why we didn't tell here (She never came around after we tried it) and she asked if we wanted something instead / else - we didn't. I said "it is ok, we just didn't like it and wanted the check". She offered coffee and desert - we just wanted out.

She got the manager and he was very nice, apologetic and said he would take off the eggplant parm.

I declined his offer and said we appreciate it but we don't need any discount or refund. (My dad / mom would never complain, they just don't return to places we don't like.) I have worked in several restaurants and don't mind being open and honest when asked.

The manager did in fact remove the eggplant parm from the bill, (the right thing to do since it was hardly touched).

We tipped 20% of the original bill, it was not the waitress's fault the food was so terrible or the place was cold, dark and loud.

We know a restaurants can have a bad night or make a bad plate, or a mistake (there were no real mistakes tonight besides the lack of butter) but to make 3 vile orders says something is very wrong.

Nice staff, I hope this was just a bad night/ table - we wont ever be back...

AVOID AT ALL COSTS wow where to begin here, from a dirty wine glass that I was told wasn’t dirty and had to plead to get a clean one, cold meatballs asked to be redone that came back the original ones reheated boiling in the centre and still cold on the outside, awful chicken parm that was served just two rubbery breaded chicken pieces with forgotten tomato sauce and 2 garbage bins being dragged out right beside us as our booking wasn’t until 8:15 and closing time seems to be 9. Less than half of one meat ball was cut off to try and was sent back once and second time was picked up without a mention by server (still on the bill at the end) chicken parm in pictures also barely eaten as so rubbery and disgusting also picked up by server without mention. (still on the bill at the end) my father had lobster ravioli which I wish I took a picture of it genuinely looked horrible and tasted like something you would get in an microwave meal for 7/8 dollars, he ate it as we didn’t want to complain about another issue and my mother had the chicken veg soup which was watery and tasteless again she ate half as we were already dealing with the meatball issue. my mam did also have the lamb chops which she said were good in fairness.

No sign of server for 10+ minutes after she dropped off the bill, asked another lovely server who was in our section to speak to a manager, this is when Jimmy “the manager” appeared about 10 minutes later and proceeded to speak so rudely to my father I’m still honestly baffled by this pipsqueaks etiquette in speaking to customers. He proceeded to outright argue with my father asking where the half a meatball went and that “it’s restaurants policy to charge for what was consumed” unfortunately I only had taken a picture of the chicken parm that went back to show him, as i was planning to write a review by that stage, I didn’t realise I would need to prove what was eaten and what wasn’t for billing purposes. After the most bizarre argument i’ve ever seen from a “manager” he came out and threw the bill at my father saying i’ve taken the two non consumed items off as “it’s not worth the argument” so rudely, and then proceeded to start to tell us what we should do in future on our return where I told him not to worry we would never be coming back and he answered good 😂

Very long story short, this place used to be good years ago, it has gone so far down hill on food and service I wouldn’t step foot in there with a $500 voucher! Avoid at all costs and finally Jimmy (who i’m sure does not read reviews - if anyone in management is reading that boy needs so much training he was actually...