Tillie's Restaurant — Restaurant in McKeesport

At first glance, I was excited to try this place. It gave off vibes of little coal-town Italian restaurants left from the '70s, like Felicia's in Monessen or Meloni's in Uniontown.

The menu had a lot of options and, most important, had the two items my daughter wanted for her birthday dinner: wedding soup and gnocchi.

The soup was the first indicator that something was up. It tasted watery and lacked any flavor punch. We ended up table seasoning a hefty amount with salt, pepper, and parmesan cheese.

The bread was fresh, but the butter packets were very cold, and I had to massage them for a minute to get spreadable butter. FYI, take a handful of butter packets to thaw at room temperature. Then replenish your thaw pile throughout your serving hours. -Restauranting 101.

Then the entrees came. I opted for Veal Piccata. They gave me one small round piece of veal that was no bigger than a hockey puck in circumference. They did give me a large side of gnocchi, but I would have sacrificed that size for more entrée. I know inflation is real, and the price was low, but you should still serve enough of your entrée not to be dwarfed by the side dishes. Even offer a larger size if need be. Then I bit in, and the line from Soprano's immediately popped into my head; "the veal is like rubber." The taste was good, but the meat was chewy.

My daughter took ONE bite of her gnocchi and turned away. At first, I was worried she wasn't feeling good. This is not her style at all. I've seen her rip through plates of pasta I've reheated in the microwave as I've cringed from afar. For her to turn away a plate of fresh gnocchi?!

So then I sampled it. The sauce hit me right away. They advertised it as Tillie's famous PLAIN tomato sauce. Plain is an understatement. This tasted like the smell I get from an open can of plain tomato paste when I make my homemade gravy. No flavor other than base tomato. No garlic, no seasoning, and it is very sweet.

Then I chewed the rather large "gnocchi." Their style is to roll pasta cylinders and cut them near penne size. This creates the problem of undercooking. The center of the gnocchi was undercooked, and you could feel the gritty texture. It now made sense that my daughter turned it away. The real nail in the coffin was the water. Once I picked the top layer of pasta away, I was left with a bowl of tomato water (see picture). Learn to drain your pasta properly! Cut your gnocchi size in half; they will cook faster and retain less water.

My wife had chicken parm with GF noodles due to a food allergy. The chicken and noodles were "ok" to her, but she also disliked the sauce's plain nature.

The atmosphere was pleasing. The place looks like a 1970's restaurant that hasn't changed much in that span. Some visible damage to the décor but nothing to take you out of the mood. The restrooms were modernized and clean.

The service was satisfactory and friendly. Our waitress was still wearing a mask as of 11-2022. I was hoping this was for customer benefit rather than because she was fresh off the rona as she appeared to be the only one. No judgment. Welcomed as it is the time of year many people are getting sick.

The food was a deal breaker. I can’t recommend it. There was a sign at the door to please excuse service as there are staffing deficiencies. I would give it another chance if the table service sucked and the food was excellent. This was not the case. I could throw together a better meal with frozen pasta and can sauce from a...

2024 UPDATE: We had our 2nd bad meal in 55 years today. There were 9 family members for a post Christmas dinner and our bill was $250 with the tip. We noticed several changes from all of our prior visits (except last year the day after Christmas.) The biggest change was the sauce, although all the food was extremely salty. The sauce was extremely salty, less sweet, more acidic and had the pronounced flavor of bell peppers with several large pieces of bell peppers in most of our meals. There were even breaded, deep fried strips of bell peppers in our fried calamari appetizer! My daughter-in-law had several large pieces of bell pepper in her gnocchi and had to take them all out before eating it. Nobody ate more than half of their meals. They also brought out 4 of our meals and then made us wait 10 minutes for the other 5 meals, even.though most of the meals in both groups were the same. I am convinced that they have a different cook the week between Christmas and New Year's, one who obviously loves bell peppers and salt. Disappointing. I will probably go back after all these years, but not as often and DEFINITELY NOT between Christmas and New Year's. We will go somewhere closer to our homes.

2023 UPDATE: We had our first bad meal in almost 55 years last night. There were 6 family members for a post Christmas dinner and our bill was $200 with the tip. We noticed several changes from all of our prior visits. The biggest change was the sauce. It was extremely salty, less sweet, more acidic and had the pronounced flavor of bell peppers with several large pieces of bell peppers in most of our meals. Hopefully it was just a bad night with a different cook and we will give it another try, but after all the years of us going there, we won't go back if it is a permanent change. The salads were also noticeably smaller, had no pepperoncini and increased in price if ordered on its own.

My family and I have been dining at Tillie's for over 50 years! They have the best Italian food that I have ever had anywhere in my life! We always enjoyed sitting by the kitchen and hearing the ladies in the kitchen screaming back and forth in Italian! Their homemade spaghetti is truly homemade and far better than Cenacolo's (which always tasted like box spaghetti to me) for half the price! Their lasagna, gnocchi and all of their parmesans (veal, chicken, calamari, eggplant and zucchini) are incredible too! Their lunch menu has the same great food at discounted prices! Decent but not the greatest decor, but do you go to restaurants for the food or the decor??? At least they play Sinatra and other Italian music rather than Top 40's...

My friends and I drove from Dallas to ride The Great Allegheny Passage and on our first visit to Tillie's we arrived 30 minutes before they closed to be told that the fryer and oven were both turned off. The waitress couldn't offer a menu or make a suggestion on something to eat. We were hungry and not familiar with the town, and this place was already our second choice (Woody's is permanently closed) so one of the locals recommended spaghetti.

My friend asked if we could get some bread while we wait and I saw the waitress pull a wad of bread out of the bag and put it in a basket and bring it to us. No toasting (not surprised, the oven was off supposedly), no buttering, no seasoning (garlic, salt, parsley, etc) ... Just plain bread out of a bag. There were packets of butter found under the mound of bread. Even olive garden cooks, salts, and butters their frozen bread sticks.

The food was bland. I like my pasta al dente and this was undercooked. The sauce had no seasoning, no garlic, no basil, no red pepper, no roasted tomatoes, no olives, etc... My friend guessed it was canned or jarred. The ground beef hadn't been seasoned nor browned. $14/serving for that is the only thing that left a taste in my mouth. I would have given them 1 star based on my first visit.

On the second visit (someone else drove), it became obvious that very little is actually made there and about the same effort goes into what is made there. The service was a little better (hostess was clueless but waitress was knowledgeable and attentive). We got the same bland bagged bread with nothing on it and cold butter packets under the bread. My friend's pizza crust was obviously frozen (no flavor), covered in the same tasteless tomato sauce and I'm certain it was pre-formed/stretched (pan shape) before being frozen so you can be assured they buy it like that. My other friend got the chicken milanese and ate almost the entire thing. I think he liked his, and it did look good... But more of that bland sauce.

I got the hot sandwich, knife and fork roast beef. The meat was a little dry and had no seasoning on it... But finally, they toasted the bread... I don't guess a lot of people order that and the bread was stale from the bag the kitchen uses for it. You couldn't cut through it with the knife, otherwise the meat was tender and plentiful. I only needed the knife for the bread which I skipped after the first bite. It was covered in brown gravy with no seasoning.

Definitely never...