Mario's Restaurant — Restaurant in Detroit

Warning! Do not use the shuttle service at Mario's Restaurant for concerts or sport events. You are likely to arrive late. I posted a review in December 2014 and have since seen many people who have been disgruntled with their lack of adequate service. Still, Mario's Restaurant continues to promote the inadequate service. Here is my review from 2014:

I am going to take the time to warn all of you who may be planning an evening out in the Detroit area to avoid Mario's Restaurant. What was supposed to a wonderful evening last night turned into a horrible situation. We had a party of six that had tickets to see Andrea Bocelli. We had decided to have dinner before the show and chose Mario's because the restaurant provides free shuttle service to events around town. This service is offered to lure customers in. The restaurant is supposed to be an upscale restaurant, and even though many of the online reviews were scathing, we still decided to eat there because of the convenience of the shuttle service. Our dinner reservations were at 5:00 and we didn't get seated until 5:30, but we were told..."Not to worry, you still have an hour and a half, you don't have to be outside to catch our shuttle until 7:00. We were outside before 7:00, along with at least 150 other people waiting for the shuttle. We waited and waited and no shuttle arrived. Many people started to complain to the management and they were completely unconcerned, but told us that it would be there. It finally did come, but very late. The show started at 7:30 and we arrived at 8:10. Andrea Bocelli tickets range in price from $100.00 - $300.00. Missing 40 minutes of the show, needless to say there were a lot of disgruntled people. The shuttle service going back was not on time either. It was 30 minutes late. We complained to the management when we returned along with several other people. The manager was insulting and didn't give a damn. I thought maybe it was just a bad night, and was willing to write it off as just a bad experience, but this morning I was reading some of the reviews of past customers. Several people had the same thing happen to them. Now I realize this is a common occurrence and I intend to contact the Better Business Bureau. If they are going to provide a service to lure customers in that service had better be adequate, especially when they are charging $25.00 - $90.00 per person for mediocre food. I am posting a few of the reviews from other past customers. 1.0 star rating 3/4/2012 Came here last night before a show at the Fox since they advertise their shuttle service so heavily. The show was at 8 and we figured a 5:30 reservation would give us plenty of time...wrong. Our waiter gave us slow, atrocious service even though he knew we had to make it to the show. He was rude, slow and at one point he actually said "I bet you didn't think you would see me again!" At any other restaurant I would have asked for a manager at that point, but we had to hustle out to catch our show. The food was merely OK. Basic pasta dishes, salad drowned in bad dressing, an antipasto tray that tasted like everything came out of a jar, and bland soup. We caught the last shuttle which got us to our show LATE. I was/am furious. Hey Mario's, if you're going to advertise your shuttle service so heavily, you might want to make sure you get people to the show ON TIME. Skip this place unless you want overpriced food and lousy, rude service. 1.0 star rating 12/28/2012 Warning: Do not go here prior to a show at the Fisher and expect to take their shuttle and arrive prior to show time!!! I was just at Mario's last night prior to going to the Jersey Boys, which was playing at the Fisher. Mario's offers a theater package deal, which includes dinner, a ticket to the show and a free shuttle to and from the show. While my group of four didn't buy the package (we bought our tickets earlier from the box office), we did make 6 p.m. dinner reservations and planned to take the shuttle to the Fisher. Let me just say it was a disaster. Don't be deceived by...

Preface: I promise you I am not a “Karen”. Gave person sitting at podium our name and stepped aside. Watched the confusion of several more parties giving names and confusion about the list. She then mentioned she was not the hostess but a bartender. Man in a suit then came and asked everyone but us about their reservations so I stepped up and told them about ours. He left and returned several times seating other tables before us. I reminded him that we were still here and he snapped at me stating that he told me to be patient while he got my table ready. He had not. 15 min past res time was seated. He came back several minutes later and apologized for the misunderstanding that he had said that to someone else and he got us confused. 10 min until greeted by a waiter. We had pre ordered thanksgiving turkey and sides shown on website. 10 more min until drinks came. No contact with any staff for over a half hour. Food then came and it was turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce pre-plated. Waiter brought two meals to our party of 6 and we let him know this was not what we ordered. Was supposed to be family style with more sides even than they served. We had one vegetarian as well with turkey on their plate now. He said he would go figure it out and left the plates (that remained untouched) He came back with the rest of the plates and we said again we didn’t order this. He said, well go ahead and take them and I’ll get the manager to come over and talk to you and make it right. Some of us picked at the food and some didn’t touch and some ate almost all. It was getting close to two hours that we had been there and we were hungry. Mind you we asked for another round of drinks and they hadn’t come yet. A sweet customer came over to our table to ask us how we managed to get food. She was bantering with us since they had been there before us and had not gotten their meals yet nor did they know they could even order thanksgiving food because it was not on the menu and only on line. They had a bread basket and we teased that we should trade them for our meals we didn’t want. Then it got worse. The manager came over and instead of apologizing was awful to us. Told us this is what we ordered. We explained it was not. She then asked if we ordered it online. We called and gave our credit card to secure. She said we needed to tell the waiter that we pre ordered. We did that. She asked if we got bread and salads. We had not. She then ACTUALLY SAID TO US “Well, you didn’t tell me and I’m the one with the list.” We said that we had just met her plus there were no instructions on the website to talk to management or a specific person upon arrival. It was as if she were trying all different ways to have the problem be our fault. She then left for a while and came back and with a worse attitude telling us that she would comp our meals since we didn’t like them but we had to pay for our drinks. We reminded her it wasn’t that we didn’t like them but it was not what we ordered. While taking back our plates she commented that some of the food was gone and that one plate was near empty with another snarky response. We reminded again the waiter brought them after we said they were incorrect and left them with us. No apology came from the manager and we were treated like everything was our fault from beginning to end. The waiter sadly came over when we were leaving and gave an apology. I know this is opinion, but he looked defeated as if he had just been chewed out. As we were leaving the other customers still had not gotten their food and we bid them good luck. I had not mentioned the line was out the door the entire time we were there. I told customers in line that we had not gotten our food from a 4pm reservation and most were there for a 5:30 res and it was after 6 and they weren’t seated. Never have I ever had such horrible customer service. We went to Bucca di Beppos who took us in and gave us great food and...

Although I attended Wayne State through most of the 1960s, I had never eaten at Mario's. I decided to make a reservation for my wife and I to eat there before the André Rieu concert on September 13 to take advantage of their free shuttle service to and from the concert at LCA. I must admit to having a few trepidations after reading some of the negative reviews posted on various sites. However, I'm happy to report that we had a very pleasant dining experience. Although we arrived about 15 minutes early for our reservation, the hostess promptly seated us with a smile in an attractively decorated dining room. Our waiter Hector quickly greeted us and explained our dinner options, pointing out Mario's anniversary specials and theatre menu. Hector quickly brought us the two glasses of wine that we ordered, along with a platter of antipasto and a basket of bread. My wife and I each ordered minestrone, and that was also served very quickly. Meanwhile, the restaurant was becoming quite busy as many concert-goers arrived. My wife ordered Shrimp Scampi for her entree, while I ordered Veal Columbo. While waiting for our entrees to be served, Hector brought us a free tossed salad to share--and every now and then a waiter with a nice voice would belt out a few bars of Italian songs. Our entrees were quite ample in size. The Veal Columbo plate had four good-sized slices of breaded veal, and I could barely finish three. Hector then brought us a "to die for" dessert tray from which to choose. My wife chose a delicious-looking cannola, while I selected the classic Alinosi spumoni covered with a decadent chocolate sauce. The accompanying French press decaf coffee was especially good. Overall, I would rate our meal as not great, but very good. There were no surprises on our itemized bill, which included a reasonable 3% credit card service charge.

After a quick trip to the rest rooms, we boarded a shuttle bus for the drive to LCA. Frankly, I was surprised by how far from the arena the shuttle bus dropped us off, especially given that many of us were elderly and handicapped. Had I know this beforehand, I would have parked in one of the nearby Park Whiz lots, which are located closer to the arena than our bus' drop-off spot. Apparently, we were among the last of Mario's patrons to exit the arena, for the shuttle busses were long gone when we got back to the rather dark and desolate boarding spot. But we dialed the phone number that had been posted on the shuttle bus, and before long the driver called us back and said he would soon be on his way to pick us up. He also picked up one other couple who were accompanied by an elderly lady who had difficulty walking. Before long we were back at the restaurant, where we picked up our car from the valet parking lot and headed home. All in all, a nice evening, but we won't be using Mario's shuttle...