Maggiano's Little Italy — Restaurant in Houston

We made reservations for our family and friends for a birthday celebration. They were very accommodating in putting the ice cream cake we brought for our celebration in their freezer and provided us with candles and lighter. I brought my own cake cutter just in case. I had an issue with my chicken piccata being dry (it’s thin like a cutlet so it shouldn’t be cooked but 2-3 mins tops) but I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to make waves in the middle of our celebration. I ate the dish & kept my mouth shut until I could discreetly say something. So at the end when I was handing the waiter my plate I explained to the him to let the chef know as a courtesy to not cook the chicken so long that he was killing the chicken and it was too dry. The waiter was very responsive and said they could remake it for me but I really wasn’t interested in having it again. I was wanting to help them out. They really wanted to make things right as a courtesy to me. They wanted to have the chef speak to me and the manager came over too. Excellent response by them all! So very nice of them! They asked if I could have something else prepared so I asked for eggplant parm without breading just plain with sauce which is what I really wanted but not breaded which is the way they typically serve it. The sous chef accommodated me and grilled some pieces of eggplant to go with sauce on the side. This was very nice. I thanked them very much for their thoughtful response. They packed it to go for me. Many places these days don’t go to such lengths to try and please their guests. I think it’s quite admirable they went above and beyond. Our daughter used to work in the industry and so she knew they did an excellent job in addressing my concerns. She had seen so many abusive customers make restaurants miserable places because they take advantage of these mishaps. That’s not why I said something. I like the place and the ambiance and with a little adjusting in their kitchen it could be better. It’s not an easy business for them and very competitive especially after covid. We have come here quite a few times in the past six months. I think their fish and seafood dishes are quite good. Our son in law loved the dish with the clams and mixed seafood. I think it was with linguine. Our daughter had a dish with a lobster sauce served on the side with a crab topping on the fish and it came with mashed potatoes and asparagus. She said it was good but couldn’t understand why the lobster sauce was not over the top of the food so it could moisten the fish. So it looked good but I would recommend telling them you don’t want your mashed potatoes drowning in a lobster bisque sauce lol. Tell them separate plate for the mashed potatoes. You probably are thinking I’m being too much of a critic at this point. But this Italian over here didn’t want to cook and we wanted a festive place. It’s centrally located for everyone to get to with ease. Best thing is I didn’t have to do dishes tonight! Oh and the birthday man had the salmon and so did our friends. Oh I will say the Alfredo sauce is good. Make sure the waiter & the kitchen know what pasta you prefer. We asked for angel hair and hubby got spaghetti and I had fettuccine. We did ask for more sauce but didn’t address the pasta issue. We didn’t have dessert here tonight but they have some great...

Our experience at Maggiano's was as follows: My wife wanted to celebrate her birthday here yesterday with family and friends, so I made reservations for the 7 of us at 6:30pm. After arriving, we requested to sit outside on the patio last minute, to let the kids play in the lawn area if they wanted. The hostess was able to accommodate the request after waiting an additional 15 minutes--which was actually our fault for not specifying it when initially making the reservation. When we finally sat down at 6:45pm, the entire dining experience took until 8:30pm. We barely saw our waitress and it took forever to get anything. Only got a refill on drinks one time the entire night. The waitress was sweet in that she brought my wife some cookies from the kitchen for her birthday, but when we asked for the cookies that are included with our kids' meals to-go, she pointed at my wife and responded with "We don't have anymore cookies, those were the last ones." Which seemed odd because we were one of the few tables in the entire restaurant that night with kids. Also, my wife got an entree that came with a complimentary side entree in a to-go container. We had to ask for it ourselves at the end of the dinner and the waitress' face looked like she completely forgot about it, which would've sucked to leave without it. Not trying to be a jerk, the waitress was doing what she could in a crowded section, but it just turned out to be a really sub-par experience on all accounts for my wife's birthday. I understand that it can be difficult for a waiter/waitress to keep it all straight and everyone happy in circumstances like that so we were trying to be patient and understanding with her but, nonetheless, we walked away feeling that we got a lot less than what...

UPDATE3/24/3025* We finally decided to re-visit our "Home" Maggiano's. We had a super busy day and decided to have an early dinner since we skipped lunch. We arrived about 4:30 ish and walked into the bar area. The floors were clean and no longer greasy and the tables/booths were all clean and setup for diners. We sat in a booth for about 7 or 8 minutes and nobody was around so we went back to the hostess who promptly seated us in the main dining area. While the bar area seemed to be unavailable for service, our waiter in the main dining area, Ricky, was outstanding. My Wife had the Gluten Free version of the Linguini di Mare and I had the bone in ribeye steak (perfectly done). Our food was delicious. Ricky was attentive and friendly. He really took great care of us! Thank you, Ricky!

We visited the Lonetree Colorado Maggiano's and had a great experience sitting in the bar area. We decided to try the same here at the Baybrook location as it's our "Home" Maggiano's location. We should've known better as we walked into the Bar Area and the tile floor was so greasy that my Wife almost slipped and fell. There were 3 bartenders and 1 bar back yet every booth was dirty with water residue from previous Customer drinks and I had to ask someone to clean one of the booths just so we could sit down! While we were there, 1 bartender did nothing but socialize, another tried to make it look like she was busy, and the 3rd would disappear much of the time. The bar back sat there also doing nothing but drinking his drink. We are big fans of Maggiano's but this was certainly not typical of any Maggiano's that we have visited. PLEASE...