This is...sui generis. Mostly 1970s "family" dining. But its own thing.

This is a difficult review to write because this restaurant is neither operating at the standards of 21st Century Italian-style cuisine nor does it seem to want to...and nor does it need to. It is its own thing, like the ghost stories of walking into a pub and finding out it burned down in the 1970s.

The price is as if you are at a highly rated restaurant in the North End. The quality of the food is like something your very Midwestern mom made because it tasted basically like Olive Garden. The decor is like something COMPLETELY out of time. Maybe 1970s? Never updated, never dusted. And goodness, the bulk bent-square-stock event room chairs are museum pieces. You get butter in plastic fast food cups but the prices approach $30 for entrees. They can't manage a pat in a ceramic cup? But I would completely expect that, again, in 1970s family dining.

It may be that the prices are justified in the owner's calculus because of the grotesquely large portions. But then, Hullonians can really get a value. I mean we are talking TWO POUNDS of american style spaghetti. The kids can eat for a week.

If that marinara wasn't canned/jarred I would be stunned. Because it was. Newer items do indeed seem creative and homemade. Butternut ravioli for instance.

So I'm absolutely torn. This would be a 1-star review with animosity in the city. And I'm talking Boston, not even NYC. BUT it is a really, really different experience for locals, and extremely of its own thing. Seemingly unapologetically. Can't accurately be judged or compared. Sui generis. [SHRUG]