Marco's Restaurant & Pizzeria — Restaurant in East Donegal Township

This is my second time going to Marcos in a long time. I don't remember why but the last time I wasn't very impressed. This visit, I got the Stromboli and the chicken bacon ranch fries. The Stromboli was decent and I especially enjoyed the attention to detail with the seasonings on top but there are a couple of issues I have. First, the aforementioned seasonings include the parmesan/Romano cheese that has plant cellulose in it(aka. wood pulp). Look it up. This is common in the supermarket when you buy those cheese shakers on the shelf. Attention to detail means that cheese should be bought in blocks and a food processor used to break it down into crumbles. I realize that for most this is negligible, but wanted to mention this for those that want to know. The quality of the meat in the Stromboli is usually sub-par and here isn't really an exception. Most pizza shops do this because premium quality deli meat is extremely expensive per pound but again, I expect attention to detail. Another reason is because it's hard for people to tell once it's in a Stromboli and so most won't complain about it. And finally, regarding the boli once again, there was simply not enough meat inside. I can fully forgive the other dings against this item if it had more meat. The mozzarella and dough overpowered the meat. Do you know how difficult that is to do? We're taking about two ingredients that are mild in nature vs. deli meat that is salty/peppery. There was one slice of each meat inside. This is not enough! Also, I've eaten a lot of bolis and this one had way too much dough around the sealed edges. I'm a man who loves his bread, but the size and amount of dough was very deceiving in the actual size of the boli. The dough was delicious, though! The real star here is the sauce. This is really some of the tastiest sauce I've ever had! I could eat this with a spoon! It reminds me of my moms Sunday gravy.

Now onto the fries. The chicken bacon ranch fries are under the "gourmet fries" section of the menu. They used real bacon, real chicken, mozzarella, and of course, ranch. I really liked the flavors and quality overall. The only area this needs work, ironically, is the fries. These are frozen. They should be fresh-cut with a fry cutter mounted on the wall of the kitchen.

Overall I would say Marcos is on the right track but still needs work. Dough is good, sauce is amazing, meat quantity is low in the boli, the cook on the items were very good, fries should be fresh. Marcos has been written about in some local papers articles. I'm just trying to make sure it lives up to the claims. Admittedly, I've yet to try the seemingly famous chicken cheese steak. Maybe if I go back, this will be my go-to!

UPDATE 11/29/2019 Firstly, I want to give a nod to Marco himself for having an incredible professional and courteous response to potential negatives in my review. It is obvious he cares about what he does and his customers/potential customers. He even offered me a coupon for a free boli! This guy is a class act!

I want to apologize for saying that the cheese atop my boli as being of the wood pulp variety, is incorrect. He uses Grande brand Parmesan which is real cheese. Perhaps I just didn't like the brand but either way, it is important to note my original mistake in the review. Based on my other original observations, the review still stands at a 3 star. If google would allow half stars, I would probably bump it to a 3.5 if for nothing more than Marcos clear passion and kindness in responses. Maybe I'm just too picky but just for his professionalism, at least try...

I first want to make clear that this review is not reflecting the restaurant as a whole, just my experience tonight. I have been eating at Marco's for 15 years and have never had a problem. The food is usually excellent and even on an off night it is never worse than pretty good. Price is always fair and delivery is quick and usually accurate. But tonight was just dreadful. I placed an order for pickup and arrived 10 minutes later. It was about an hour and 15 minutes until I got my food. Other customers were waiting equally as long. I overheard the staff talking on the phone to another upset customer about a delivery driver that just walked out. I understand stuff happens and the staff has to deal with it the best they can, but they were so focused on trying to get all the orders caught up that they completely ignored the waiting customers and offered no updates. Props to the staff for trying their best but the big guy with dredds, who was running the register and dealing with the customer on the phone, just left to take that customer their food and left the register unattended. I really appreciate him doing whatever it took to get that customer his food, but once he left there was little communication with the rest of the customers. When i received my food I knew I should have checked it but after that long a wait after work i was just hungry. I should have checked! 3 of the 4 items were wrong and all of it was soggy. Im not sure how the order was wrong because the receipt had the correct items so I now have become concerned about the back staffs vision and/or reading comprehension. All in all just a bad experience. I will be back again because as stated earlier, i know that this place can produce some truly amazing food. Im just trying to let management know so they can avoid this in the...

Good food and friendly staff, but was frustrated that they have thing listed as regular items on the dine-in menu that they later inform you (when you go to pay) were takeout only specials. Felt like kind of a bait and switch.

EDIT: As per your request, I've added the relevant section from the menu. This was not one of the dine-in or take-out specials, just in with all the other menu items. When we ordered, I specifically ordered the "6 topping special pizza" and the waitress didn't say anything at that point. It wasn't until we got up to the register and I asked about the bill that she claimed it was take-out only and considered a coupon (and thus apparently incompatible with our LocalFlavor gift certificate). When I pointed out that the menu did not list it as take-out or as a coupon, she concede and changed the bill, but made sure to throw in a few comments about how thus was special treatment.

In the grand scheme of things, this was not a significant amount of money, but being made to feel bad for simply asking to get what was listed on the menu put a negative end on an otherwise positive experience.

PS - Sorry to air my grievance in a public forum like this. I tried emailing you though the website, but didn't get...