Bennie's Italian Foods — Restaurant in Marion

I would highly recommend not using Bennie's for any type of catering event. I recently decided to go with them for catering of a fundraiser event because it seemed they could reasonably accommodate my order at a decent price. It was quite a bit of food for a fair price. However, when ordering, I asked for a good amount of Italian beef. The manager asked if I wanted any rolls for the Italian beef, and I asked if there was any charge for that and he said to let him check. He came back and said that there wasn't so I said sure. Now looking back at the menu, I do see that there was listed a charge of 1.00 per roll, so maybe he was trying to do me a favor that couldn't actually happen, which is fine. I appreciate the thought of anyone trying to help me, and I would be okay paying a dollar per roll as the menu said. I immediately asked for an invoice to be sent to my email so I could have it for records. I was never sent an invoice. The night before my event I called to ask for that invoice so I could pay the following morning. The lady who was helping me said that I could just pay that night and I said that would be fine. She got the receipt over to me, which had a 66 dollar charge for rolls. I was confused because I had never agreed on that so when I called back I asked why the charge was there and was told that it was 1.50 per roll. I said that the menu reflected a price of 1.00 and she just countered with its 1.50. I really had quite a bit to deal with that night so I just figured it best to pay it and I would call and talk to the person who took my order the first time since I knew he was working the next morning to get it figured out. When I called the next morning and talked to him, he said that it was the owner who rang me up. When I asked about the price and quantity saying that I would not have ordered that many, he said that the owner probably just picked a number that she thought was best for the amount of Italian beef ordered. All of this and in the end, the rolls were store bought so I was a little bit frustrated in all of this. It just seemed like dishonest business practices. Now I admit that I should have been more persistent in getting an invoice at the original time and quite honestly should have been a bit more vocal at the time that I was paying for my order or the next morning, but I am not the biggest fan of confrontation so just kind of decided that I unfortunately just had to accept the outcome, but will probably not return here for business and for anyone ordering here, just make sure that you cover your bases and protect yourself because this business wont...

Look, I don't like to dump on small businesses but there comes a point where food can just be offensively bad. Roz should have known the moment she saw tamales, burgers, and chicken stir fry on the menu.

So far, the pizza in this local area has been offensively bad and Bennie's is no exception. We ordered sweet teas, toasted ravioli, a garden salad, and a small pizza. We were pleased to hear that the ranch and french dressing was made in-house so we went with the ranch. It was pretty good and the iceberg lettuce and tomatoes mix was fine. The toasted ravioli was clearly the frozen/reheat variety, and was stuffed with a weird meat blend that tasted like Chef B's. I didn't hate it but poor Roz got dog food vibes. The pizza though... It's terrible. Might be the same crust as the terrible Tower Square pizza.... It's just awful. First of all, it's so thin it's more like a cracker - and I LIKE thin crust. But it's completely flavorless and has the consistency of cardboard. The sauce I'm pretty sure is canned or out of a bag - and not even a good restaurant quality bag of premade sauce. It's very sweet. The toppings were fine but skimpy. It's just... Look, it's just so low bar on effort it's pretty embarrassing to charge for it in a restaurant setting. Restaurant implies someone made something. Even as far as premade restaurant food goes, this is bottom barrel quality. You can get better stock out of the Sam's Club freezer selection. Honestly, take a pass on this one if at all possible.

The Good: Sweet teas The ranch dressing The music selection

The Okay: Toasted Ravioli (Roz hated it) The Service The salad mix

The...

I'd eaten here once before and it was amazing. But last night had some of the worst service I'd ever endured in a semi-busy restaurant. The greeter didn't tell our assigned server we were seated until I went up after twenty minutes and reminded him we'd like drinks. We didn't even get to order appetizers until we were there another half hour. We ordered a salad and a pasta dish to share without tomatoes (due to my wife's food allergies). The salad came out after the two tables who were seated after us ate and left. My pasta dish came out fifteen minutes after that, covered in tomatoes. We were so hungry by then, we tried to pick out the tomatoes so she wouldn't get sick. We were there almost an hour and a half so naturally, we went elsewhere for dessert (and our friends cancelled as I told them of the serving debacle).

And when other people dropped off parts of our meal, we were treated indifferently. When we asked for the bread and olive oil from the girl who brought the salad (not our server), you'd think we asked for a loan.

Our server did her best to appease us and the manager didn't charge us for my entree. But we visited there after driving five hours from Central Indiana and while we loved the food, I doubt we'll come back or recommend this to anyone. The three stars are for the food and our...