Zia Maria Italian Eatery & Pub — Restaurant in East Cocalico Township

Edit: Zia Maria failed a health inspection July 11th, 2022, cited for unclean and unsanitary working conditions and prep practices.

Short: The atmosphere and service were good, the drinks were passable but overpriced. The food was not good, and after two tries we won't be back for a third. Overall price: $60, plus the frozen pizza we got on the way home.

Long: We ate on the deck, which has a great atmosphere, and we were served in reasonable time. We ordered drinks which were fine, nothing to write home about, definitely not good enough to carry the experience.

We ordered breaded Mozzarella as an app, the prime rib sandwich, the baked pasta shells, and cheese fries, the meal came with free bread. Of the food, I think the freshest food was the bread. The breaded Mozzarella (Mozzarella sticks), baked shells, and fries were clearly from frozen, and I'm willing to assume the prime rib meat in the sandwich wasn't fresh either.

The food came out in an odd order, the app and mains came out together, the bread came out maybe 5 minutes into the main course

The baked shells were barely sauced, covered in a hard shell of overcooked Mozzarella, and the cheese inside was gritty and dry. All signs point to frozen.

The side of cheese fries were your average Italian restaurant out-of-the-bag fries with a hard shell of baked on shredded cheddar, tasted as appealing as they looked, which was not very good.

The sandwich was passable at best, the au jus served with it was very concentrated and thus incredibly salty, but was necessary to give the sandwich some sort of juice, otherwise it was very dry.

The breaded Mozzarella was named in a way that might make you think they aren't just your average Mozzarella sticks, but that's all they were, and again just your average italian restaurant out of the bag sticks that everyone has. If you've had it once you've had them all.

The free bread was nice, a mix of Italian bread, a flat bread, and garlic knots served with pads of butter.

The shells and fries went uneaten and unboxed, and were on the bill at the end of the meal. I'm not one to expect a comped meal especially if we didn't complain at the restaurant, but it would have been reasonable to expect.

Overall, after two tries (one takeout, one in house), that's enough to know this places food isn't quite up to the...

I made reservations for my son’s 21st birthday to see my favorite band playing there. I was told we could have outdoor seating if available to hopefully eat and then watch the show. I had seen bad reviews but decided to give them a chance. We got there at 6pm and most of the deck tables were empty but I was told we HAD to eat inside because we made a reservation? I told the staff member that’s fine but we will need a deck table after to see the band. She said that was fine. My mistake I realized. The inside was so gloomy compared to the nice deck. It’s outdated and dark making our celebration not so good. Then there was the service. One girl took our order, another younger man delivered some of the food, and yet another man delivered the rest. The last server actually picked his backside in plain view. My fries were cold and inedible, my son’s burger was raw, my husbands chips were small pieces from the bottom of the bag, the Alfredo was inedible, and my dad’s cheesesteak had an odor of bad cheese. NO ONE completed their meal and NO ONE ever even came back to check on us! We waited 25 minutes just to pay our bill and my dad had to call at a staff member to get someone who took another 15 minutes. We then asked for a deck table and of course they were full at this point. We were told we could stand. When I asked why we weren’t just seated outside to begin with we were told it was per manager because of our reservation. My husband left to stand near the bar and try and get chairs which we finally got enough of after another hour. We spent over $150 on food no one ate and fought for seats we should have had from the beginning. The bartenders were fantastic as was the band. Perhaps the menu needs revamped to less items and increase the quality. If the owner would have sampled our meal I can’t imagine they would put their name on it. It was embarrassing that I let my parents and my son experience it. Had I known we could have had dinner elsewhere and just come for the band. Believe the reviews. They need a serious overhaul of service, food quality, atmosphere, and telling customers they can’t sit somewhere....

Where do I begin. So there was 4 adults and 3 teenagers with us. We came in at 7 p.m. and sat inside to eat dinner. The outside bar area was really tempting for us adults to come back to because it looked fun as hell. We sat down inside because we had the kids and just wanted dinner. Waitress came right over and got our drink orders and they came quick. Then she took our food order in a timely manner after drinks. The waitress was a very well mannered young lady who did a great job. The food came out I had an antipasto salad which I thought was great and one other parent had steak stromboli which he said was amazing. Now the really bad part. The three kids got pasta with Alfredo sauce and the pasta was hard in the middle but slimy on the outside. Definitely was poorly reboiled pasta that was sitting out all day. The two moms order a dish that had melted mozzarella cheese on top and side order of bread. Those two dishes were absolutely horrendous and they didn't come with the bread. Asking for a side pasta supplement for the bread was a huge ordeal. Manager came over and didn't care at all. She actually told us we wouldn't have wanted the bread anyways because it is made fresh in the morning and since it was 8 p.m. the bread wouldn't be good. Three out of the five meals didn't even get eaten because they were horrible. With all this being said anyone who wants to try this place I would say eat before you come but definitely sit outside in the bar area because that looked like a great time to hang out...