Maola's Pizzeria & Restaurant — Restaurant in Cornelius

I hate to do it but I have to leave a comment on my experience last night. We came in last night it was Valentines night. The boyfriend asked me where I wanted to go I picked this place based on the smell I would smell when dashing food from here with door dash. It was on my list to try! Even with the fact that it was Valentines because I’m trying to be fair if considering it was a busy night, the food was so very below standard from Italian food I’ve ate in my lifetime. We didn’t order any apps. A girl brought out a plate of “bread” and that’s when I started to get worried. It looked like someone had pulled off small pieces of bread from a loaf and just slapped them on a plate with butter in a cup. It was cold and had nothing on it at all. So from there we ordered shrimp scampi for myself the bf ordered Cajun shrimp pasta. Both entrees were 23 dollars a piece. Somewhat higher than the average bowl of pasta. Mine came and was had maybe 5 decent sized shrimp on top of the most sour lemony pasta I’ve ever had I could not eat but 2 bites and I stopped. It tasted like Simeon had squirted lemon concentrate into the bowl I couldn’t taste a bit of butter or garlic at all. Not good at all. The bf his pasta was some better than mine but for the price it was just terrible. Idk what was going on in the kitchen if someone just had a bad night or what was going on but I really encourage them to try the stuff before they serve it because I highly doubt they would want it to go out like it was last night. I told the server about it I didn’t demand another plate or even ask them to take it off the bill. I believe that he said he took it off the bill but we still paid entirely too much for what we got. My loyalty stays with hawthorns in mooresville because they have never let me down. Last night was something different but not something better. And hawthorns comes in at half the price for one of their entrees than this place does. And it’s edible. Disappointing...

Went dining there on a Friday evening with no reservations. They were able to get us at a recently turned table. Cool. +1 star for greeting and kindness.

We were very excited because they had Arancini, which we have missed since leaving our Italian joint up north. Mind you they serve Sicilian pizza… we’re expecting some good stuff.

We got bone white flavorless rice with some mozzarella. No salt, and no other filling, as per the Sicilian methodology. Totally steer clear. The rice wasn’t risotto, as near I could tell (Arborio) and certainly wasn’t cooked as risotto should be. 0/5, do not recommend.

We ordered four entrees - veal parmigiana, eggplant parmigiana, a ravioli, and their chefs special carbonara, with chicken. The Caesar that came pre one entree was good enough, the other entree got pasta as their side. Another appetizer, ordered for Ravioli boy, was wings and he said they were good. Quite saucy but in my opinion cooked a bit too tough. And ranch dressing - meh.

Three entrees came out after the wings were then long gone… read: took a while. Some refills were had after waiting quite some time…

The chefs special came out about 10 minutes after the rest of the entrees. Read: someone forgot something, in the kitchen I think… here’s my guess. Grill guy cooked my chicken that was prepped for parmigiana, because it was about 4mm thick and had a great fire/grill taste, but then it sat to the side because person responsible for the carbonara did not. And so I got what seemed to be a creamed up Alfredo like sauce with some peas and fennel, on Penne. Not real carbonara. The chicken was pretty dry, but I swirled it in the sauce and ate it all. I would have sent it back, but I got death glare from a table mate.

My wife had brought a pizza home a few weeks prior while out with a boy, some massive Sicilian thing that was fantastic, even the next day. We will stick to pizza going...

I made a reservation for Thursday night after our son’s school play for a special celebration. I also stated this in our reservation request. Upon arrival they did not have the table set up, which tells me they never looked at their reservation requests. We were set up and ordered waters, which we promptly received. After the waters were delivered, that was pretty much it for service. We had to flag the server down to order. At this point we ordered our drinks at the same time as our food bc we waited so long. We ordered one large pepperoni pizza, eggplant rolletini, children’s pasta and ravioli for the table to share. Since it was our first time, we wanted to sample a few dishes. While waiting we were served hard bread and never checked back on for additional drinks. The food arrived, the pizza cracked in half when folded like a frozen pizza. The eggplant was obviously not peeled properly as it was stringy and hard to cut and the marinara has little taste, very watery. My son’s spaghetti was the same as the penne accompanied by the eggplant. We told the server we were sharing, no plates except the bread plates were on the table. Again, had to flag the server down. We were given pizza plates, not even enough for the table. Had to flag the server down again to get actual dinner plates and once those finally arrived, we had to flag them down again for spoons to dish out the food. I did read the service can be slow here which I am fine with, but having to constantly flag someone down for items that should be served with the food is frustrating. Not to mention more drinks would have need ordered, had they checked on us. I had to go get the server to get our check, and with all that being said, I wouldn’t return to work so hard for our meal that was mediocre at best. Save your night out and go to Mamma’s. Big disappointment on a...