Mangia Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Huntsville

Really more like a 3.5 but...eh, overall.

Attended my BIL's birthday dinner here last Sunday evening. I wasn't super jazzed about going here at first because tbh I'd heard some pretty iffy things, but I'm pretty sure the place is under new management so I decided to go in with an open mind.

The restaurant is a good bit bigger than I expected it to be, sporting a lot of tables and a rather fancy-looking full bar. The decor is kinda kitschy classic Italian vibes. Plenty of parking since it shares a shopping center with a Publix. My husband was cold the entire time we were there but I was comfortable enough. They had several pretty big group gatherings at once on Sunday evening, and it did get a little loud, but we didn't suffer in terms of attention or wait times.

The highlight of my experience was our waitress, Kristy. She was very pleasant and super accommodating to our group of six extra-hungry, extra-thirsty folks. Think I lost count of the number of times she had to go fetch refills. There was an automatic gratuity for our party but she certainly would've earned her tip regardless. I'll also tip my hat to the management overall; for example, BIL ordered a large calzone. Kitchen accidentally made him a medium one. The medium was so large you easily could've fooled us into thinking it was a large, but instead, they made him another large calzone and let us keep both. Very kind and generous.

The other best-thing was definitely the fried mozzarella cheese wedges we got as an appetizer. There were only three to an order and I wished we'd ordered more because they were delicious, especially with the fresh and herbaceous marinara sauce. I also thought the breadsticks were good, if rather salty.

In fairness to the restaurant, husband and I were probably the two least impressed party members and we're also probably the hardest to please. Our table ordered a wide variety of items from the menu and everyone except for us was very pleased. BIL got a calzone, SIL 1 got the pasta carbonara made with alfredo (which, whiny moment here: real carbonara "sauce" is just eggs and hard cheese, NOT Alfredo sauce...it's my favorite pasta dish ever and it's impossible to find anywhere in town that does it the traditional way ugh), SIL 2 had a personal pepperoni pizza, and her BF had chicken alfredo. My husband also ordered a calzone and I had the baked blackened chicken alfredo.

My biggest complaint is that the chicken in my dish was just...weird. I didn't like the texture at all and didn't care for the flavor much either; I honestly wonder if it was cooked from frozen. I ate around it. The blackened alfredo sauce and pasta was decent if only slightly spicy and very salty. Very salty was a theme for most of what I tried and I was a little disappointed that most flavor profiles were just salty or creamy and little else. Husband felt similarly.

The portion sizes were absolutely MASSIVE, and I say that as someone who tends to eat her main meal at dinner and therefore comes with a big appetite. Three people probably could've split a medium calzone and been okay. Personally, I'd prefer a lowered price and smaller portions, or the same price and higher quality ingredients, but if you're coming to fill up your belly, you absolutely will get full.

Idk, I'm probably coming across harsher than I intend to; we had a pleasant and enjoyable enough time and my BIL was very happy with his birthday dinner, which is the most important thing. Ultimately, I'd be willing to return to this place if someone else was...

DO NOT EAT HERE!! Service was the most horrible I have ever experienced. We were greeted at the door and was immediately seated. We waited about 10 minutes and had not been greeted by our waitress, so then the bartender came over and took our drink order and brought us our drinks. We sat for about another 6 to 7 minutes and then our waitress, Kristy finally came over to our table. Without introducing herself, she said “are you ready to order?” Since this was my first time here and also having experience in restaurants, I knew this was not a “proper” greeting. I then asked her for her name, which she gave and then she apologized and then also indicated that had had a busy evening. I told her I completely understand and thought this would help relieve her of her feelings and responsibilities, but it did not. We went on and ordered our food. After about 10 minutes, our side salads came. After eating our salads, the empty dishes sat on our table for about 10 minutes. Since our waitress did not come to pick them up, I placed the dishes on the empty table next to us. Just FYI, they weren’t picked up until right before we left. We eventually ordered our main dish and after about 5 minutes, Kristy came back and said that the dish was not available due to the vegetables that they did not have. Mind you, Publix is literally next door. I then ordered another dish and eventually, we got our order which was brought out by another waiter. After eating a few bites, I noticed that Kristy wrung up the wrong dish. The dish I ordered did not come with bacon, but the one in front of me, after digging through it, had bacon. After getting her attention and telling her that, she advised that she did ring up the correct order and she did offer to send it back and correct it, but I told her no worries, that I would go ahead and keep it. Meanwhile, we had not received our extra drink order, side of ranch, or side of breadsticks. Actually, Kristy never came back to our table to make sure our order was correct or if we needed refills or even if the food tasted good or if we even needed extra napkins, etc. The only time she came over voluntarily, was to take our order (again without a proper greeting) and bring us the receipt. We noticed on the receipt that Kristy did in fact put in the wrong dish… smh. Later, the bartender which I found out is also the floor manager, came over probably after seeing how distraught I was, and asked about my experience. I then explained everything to her and then asked to speak to the owner since she said he was there. The bartender/floor manager came back from the back of the kitchen and said the owner (I think his name is John) could not come out to speak to us that he was too busy and all she did was apologize. She did not offer to rectify the issue or to comp the ticket or anything. After explaining that I write reviews pretty regularly and have had past restaurant experience, her lack of empathy truly troubled me. I told her this was my first and last time ever patronizing this restaurant. And again all she did was apologize.

Updated based on the “owner’s response below:”

And if this is truly the owner responding below, God bless you and good luck with staying in business with poor customer service and...

Well, Mangia needs some help, especially from the ownership/management area. The Italian guy which I assume is the owner seems to be putting out fires rather than preventing them. His wife/girlfriend in the spandex sitting at what looked to be the closed bar, on a Saturday, staring at all the customers in hate, made it awkward, especially when she kept getting up to get stuff for her coffee, naturally everything she needed was on the bottom shelf somewhere she loved showing off that hail damage, if you know what I mean. The Italian guy was sitting down and talking to her a lot.

The wait time to be seen by a sever when we were seated was average, about 30 seconds to the table. The sweet tea was undersweetend but drinkable, what was funny about the teas they gave what looked to be coffee straws to drink through, cute touch.....not! We were informed the the bread sticks are no longer free and they are $5, I asked if they were better than from their last location, she said yes, as we were really hungry, we were ordering with our stomach rather than being sensible, needless to say the bread sticks weren't improved, they were the exact same thing from the 72 location, thawed bread and what tasted like canned sauce, served in a cafeteria style plastic cup in a ballgame style basket. They also took about 15 minutes to get to the table. Don't get the bread sticks that every other restaurant offeres for free, that's just nickel and dimming the customers.

We also ordered an appetizer and entrées, like I said our stomachs were doing the ordering. After about 20 mins of the order being taken I noticed that thier was no food coming out of the kitchen. We also started to notice the waiters and waitresses starting to get annoyed with everything, one service station, for a 65+ seat restaurant is stupid, they were constantly stacked on each other, adding to thier frustrations.

Now they did have this little robot there that took a plate of food out to the tables, it would be cool, if they could actually put out some food. I would have hired another cook or bartender before that stupid plate carrier, making more production rather than a plate carrying plastic mascot. It was pointless to have, as it took longer to get the food to the table rather than a sever bringing it to you. More kitchen staff = more food being served. Robot should come last. Stupid investment.

After 40 mins of waiting we had to throw in the towel, no appetizer, no food, only 2 tables were served in 40 mins. A table down from us said they were waiting 55 minutes. So that was it for us. When we asked for our check the waitress went to talk to the Italian guy and he yelled at her to yell at the kitchen staff for our food. That was really unprofessional, that's his job, he was obviously to busy cleaning his wine glasses. Needless to say I think we are done with this place. I can't recommend the...