The Old Spaghetti Factory — Restaurant in Lynnwood

This specific location had a unique experience that wasn't the norm. I'm lived in the greater Seattle area my entire life and I've visited all the Old Spaghetti Factory locations. In general, you can expect great service and a fun atmosphere with this chain regardless of the location. This has always been the case until I went to the Lynnwood location yesterday around 2:30 pm. with a table of three. The three of us walked in, and we were greeted with smiles and a warm welcome. We were taken to a booth, and I immediately noticed a sticky stain on the bench. It looked relatively fresh because you could see the sheen of the stain reflect. It looked like dried soda that had dried. I didn't want to get this on my pants, so I asked the hostess if she had a wet rag while I pointed to the sticky seat. The hostess said, "We don't have any rags." I replied in disbelief, "you don't have a wet rag for that in the kitchen?" The hostess went to the kitchen and brought me a wet rag for ME to clean the seat myself after the previous patron soiled the seat. I was suddenly made an employee of the establishment. I hadn't even ordered or sat down, and now I was expected to clean a booth. I was with good company and this isn't a fine dining establishment, so I took the wet rag and didn't make a big deal of it and wiped the seat as best as I could while the hostess immediately left. I placed the rag on the tray closest to the kitchen. This really bothered me, not the fact the seat had something spilled on it, but that the employee expected the guest clean up the booth themselves. Do I want to touch a dirty kitchen rag with my hands and do someone's job before I spend money at this establishment? What is happening here? Later on, our amazing server, Chelsea, greeted us. I let her know that the initial first impression I had with the hostess would not impact her tip and explained what happened. Chelsey was so cool. She understood my concern and called for the manager. The manager came over and asked for the feedback I had to give. I explained how unprofessional it was that I was given the wet kitchen rag to clean the seat myself. The manager replied, "I've tried to clean that stain myself and it wouldn't come up." My guest who was quiet the entire time, now visibly irritated, jumped in and said, "That's not the point. She handed him the rag to clean up after someone else." The manager honestly didn't seem to care or understand. We were short on time, so I explained to the manager this was my only concern regarding professionalism. He left quickly. Chelsey came back and we ordered three manager's specials with that fun olive and caper spread. I forgot the name of the spread, but it was amazing! I loved it. Our entrees came, a mix of white clam sauce and meat sauce. The clam sauce was your typical average sauce that you can't go wrong with. The only issue was the pasta was definitely overcooked. Not a big deal to me. I went in to finish the final 3 pieces of bread and olive dip and noticed the bread had green mold on it. I already ate most of the bread and didn't notice. I wasn't going to say anything because so much had gone wrong and I didn't want to be that customer. My friend thought it was unacceptable and told Chelsey about it. She took the bread to the kitchen to show them and she took the moldy app off the bill. Chelsea was the highlight of this experience. I've never been to a restaurant where a host and manager gave subpar service while the server was exceptional. Would I come back to this place? I don't know. I want to think this was a one-off, but the vipe of the manager not caring seems like he might be creating a work environment at this location that seems to make excuses for poor performance, rather than holding staff...

When I was little, my Grandma used to take me to the Old Spaghetti Factory in Trolley Square which was in Salt Lake City. As a kid, my palate was pretty underdeveloped and I was wowed by the cool decor. In the past, food in UT tended to be better at any chain because they can't really prop it up with alcohol for their customers as effectively so it may have actually been better all the way around. Every other Old Spaghetti Factory experience I've had outside of UT has been pretty disappointing and this one was the most disappointing yet because the service was just terrible. I actually hate it more when the server realizes that they're doing an awful job and starts apologizing over and over again. Just apologize once and then fix the problem. By the time you have apologized more than twice, I just assume you don't care enough to fix the issue. This is especially true if the issue is you and your lack of attention to your job.

We sat there for more than 10 minutes after we were seated without a waiter stopping by. We were trying to catch a movie and had allotted plenty of time under normal circumstances but they were taking so long we started to worry. finally, a manager realized that we had been sitting there for a long time with no service and came to greet us and take our drink and food orders. She apologized and seemed nice but unfortunately, she passed off our orders to the still unseen actual server who didn't show up for another 10+ minutes with the drinks. Of course he was very apologetic but we were starting to get annoyed and worried that we were going to be late for our movie. I think we were sitting there more more than half an hour before our food finally showed up. The restaurant was busy, but not that busy. There wasn't much of a wait even though it was a Saturday night and a lot of kids were eating dinner there on their way to prom but again, it wasn't really that full.

When the food arrived, mine did not taste very good. My wife liked hers which is odd, because she's usually more critical than I am but my meat sauce did not have good flavor and was kind of bitter tasting. The meatballs were pretty good but the sausage was very bland and flavorless. Taste is subjective but I think that Hunt's canned spaghetti sauce tastes a lot better than this did. If I'm eating in an Italian restaurant, I at least want the sauce to taste fresh. Honestly though, this is why I don't eat at the OSF that often to begin with, because their sauces all taste like they're straight out of a can. I was once served a salad at the Vancouver BC location that was on a separate salad plate and was actually hot. Hot lettuce in a salad is gross. I don't know what else to say here. I was worried that the food wasn't going to be great going into this but my wife really wanted it. Ultimately, we were both disappointing and won't likely return to...

I took my Autistic son who is developmental delayed out to enjoy a nice pasta dinner with a good friend and from the moment the hostess went to seat us we were me with nothing but negative behavior from the hostess to the waitress to even the Supervisor trying to justify the bad behavior of the waitress. All my son wanted to get was his mac and cheese from the kids menu like he has done several times in the past but because he is in a grown body they insist that he can only order from a senior menu( his physical age is 23 but mentally he is 7. This just made things worse for him and he couldn’t understand why they thought he was an old man. This was his comprehension of what they were saying. I had explained to the waitress his situation and asked for an accommodation considering his situation. It was not about the price for me it was about his mentality and unable ability to u destined why theses mean people would not let him get the meal he always got when we went there in the past. Most people with any understanding of Autism understands it’s about routine and their ability to comprehend. It did not help when the supervisor just tried to make excuses for the rude behavior of the waitress. It wasn’t that she just said no to the order but how she delivered the message We left without ordering anything. The waitress and company lost about a $120 order from our party because of the disrespect and rudeness that they all expressed that evening. We will NEVER return to any Old Spaghetti Factory again due to this situation. I had to deal with a meltdown from my son the rest of the evening and was grateful that at least he maintained until we left. I highly recommend NO one bring their families here again especially if any of them have special needs. I will note as well my son wears a backpack that clearly says please be patient with me I have Autism and I even explained this to both the server and the Supervisor. The Supervisor claimed it in company policy. If this is a company that can NOT accommodate special needs people it then it’s a company that I nor anyone I know will support. I am calling for a boy court of all the communities that I and my son are with to boy cot this horrible...