Romano's Macaroni Grill — Restaurant in Colorado Springs

Wow...just wow. This used to be a decent establishment. What happened? Where do I begin?

First, it took over 25 minutes for just the bread to come out. It wasn't busy at all. There were plenty of service staff. They were at 20-30% occupancy at the most. Trust me, I had plenty of time to count. I also counted my server leaning against the bar talking with the bartender about 5 times during that period.

We waited another 10 minutes for soup and salad. The soup was cold and had to be sent back. The next one I received, the bowl was hot, the soup was lukewarm. Can you say microwave? I ate it begrudgingly because, due to my poor judgement, I actually came hungry.

The appetizer, calamari, came out 10 minutes later. It was very chewy and burnt. Again, hunger is the best seasoning. The dipping sauces were blessedly good at covering it up.

After another 20 minutes, the main courses arrived. We had three total. The mushroom ravioli arrived overcooked, while the sauce was undercooked and tasted strongly of masala. Borderline inedible. -The Osso Buco, a seasonal "special" came on a bowl shaped dish with a lump of mashed potatoes. There was so much sauce around the veal and the potatoes it might as well have been a soup. Bland, thick sauce that reminded me of tomato paste. The potatoes had more in common DAP drydex with than the tuber. For $28 dollars, veal has never tasted so bad. -The parmesan crusted sole, my plate, wasn't bad. I was reminded of Gortmans crusted fish fillets, and wondering if the maybe got a distribution deal with Macaroni Grille.

If you've read this far, you'll be amazed to hear that the food wasn't even the worst part.

My mother, who had the ravioli, ate about half of it God bless her. When the waitress asked how it was, she responded that it was "pretty bad". The waitress said she'd try to get it discounted and scurried off. We did not ask for a manager, we did not say we wouldn't pay for it, we simply told her that it was bad.

So five minutes later a man who looked like an amalgamation of Chandler from friends and Bruce Campbell, wearing a purple shirt, comes to our table. "So your waitress said you had a complaint?" I spoke up and tried to, calmly, describe the problems with our food and service. However, I was unable to do so with him cutting me off or talking over me every other word. "We don't have a microwave here, the soup is kept in the oven" "There isn't any wine in the ravioli, it's supposed to be sweet" "You're the first person out of twenty people that I've served the Osso Buco to complain. We don't make it here, its boiled in a bag."

Completely dumbfounded by the ineptitude of this man, I decided to not turn this into a shouting match and remained quiet. My mother attempted to explain that we were ( keyword "were") frequent customers of this location for many years, and have never had a problem until now. He asked what he was supposed to do to make it right, and she requested a discount. Much more polite than my desire to make him wear my dinner the rest of the evening.

They gave us a complementary dessert (to go) and $25 off the bill. I mentioned that I was pretty sure that we just haggled a used car salesman instead of speaking to a manager, then promptly left.

Well, no matter, I'm sure with that few of patrons they'll be closing their doors sooner than later. I wonder if Kitchen Nightmares is planning to...

I ordered twice from this location. First time was delivery, but it never came, even after the manager got involved. I don’t hold this location responsible, as it seemed to be a Grub Hub & MG corporate tech issue. Bad roll out! Bad quality assurance! At least that was the appearance on MY end.

Anyway, the manager sent me a very nice email which was appreciated. I felt bad for them as they were trying to get up & running. Covid didn’t help and I knew that.

The second order was for pick up and was just this past Sunday.

Positives - It was packaged well (except the salad). There is an amazing deal for $30 on a family dinner (we got the fettuccine Alfredo). There was 25% off this past weekend, which was also appreciated!

Negatives - The family meal comes with 6 delicious cookies :) Unfortunately, I paid an extra $10 for the cake ipo the cookies and did not receive :(. It then took me 9 min on the phone with a young lady who seemed to be doing the best she could to figure it out (again with the tech issues). She did figure it out by the way but said it could take 7-10 days for that $10 refund! Not her fault! That says corporate to me!

The pick up order was packaged very well except for the salad which was warm when I arrived home 30 min later in an air conditioned vehicle.Separating cold from hot would be much appreciated! We weren’t able to eat it :(

Anyway, MG in other locations has always been very consistent imo over the years. I’ve gone to MG in Tx, Ca, and Va many times. This location is struggling with consistency and quality control - but corporate oversight of function between delivery services, online ordering and refunds is also an issue, which I hope they get under control.

It hasn’t been easy during Covid and it seems to have affected so many things, so I will hang in there with the MG in CS., and give them one more shot in the future. They are the only MG in CS after all! Crossing fingers they will improve 🤞

Finally, NOT a good location. If it wasn’t so hidden, they would get far more business.!! Look at what Chili’s does! They are in the busiest areas and so were the other MG’s I have visited in the past...

Regardless, I believe I tipped 20% with the hope of better service when I picked up my food. If I was to change it, I would tip 15%. I DO appreciate our service industry, particularly during such a crazy,...

First time going here. I’d always been curious about them and so had my friends that joined me with their kiddos. I’ll start by saying everyone was super friendly and random workers in the kitchen said goodbye as we left. Very nice. Also appreciate they honor Veterans for a free meal on Veteran’s day. However, we didn’t have a good experience there. We were told it was no wait when I called ahead. When we arrived 20 mins later, we checked in and they said they just needed to bus a table and they’d be able to seat us in like 10 ish mins. It was way longer than that, Pbly nearly 25-30 mins. Then we were seated and they forgot to come start serving us for at least another 20 ish minutes, including not even asking us about drinks and bringing us the water we wanted. Multiple times another guy asked if we’d been served and we said no and he tried to go find someone but no one came. They switched us to a new server and that young server when he finally showed up was well-intentioned but clearly flustered/overwhelmed. Our food took a really long time and it arrived barely lukewarm, practically cold. Cold spaghetti and meatballs is not appetizing at all. Calamari appetizer was not very good taste (bland in my opinion) and cooked way too tough. Food we ordered was just ok, not amazing flavor, definitely wouldn’t go back and didn’t think it was worth the money it should’ve costed on their menus. The bottom Of the Kids pizza was soggy. Kids Alfredo pasta was just ok (but admittedly it’s a kids meal so I know they simplify it). Didn’t even seem like it was that busy of a night for them but they just seemed to be struggling. I hope we caught them on a really bad night (because otherwise I don’t know how they stay in business) but I still won’t be trying them again. I and my friends agreed we can make better spaghetti meatballs for a lot cheaper ourselves and have our food served faster too!

UPDATE: Still Have yet to hear back from them after I went to their site to report the feedback per their request below in their reply back to me. Very disappointing and feels like a major waste of my time if they were just going to...