Cicily's Pastaria & Grill — Restaurant in Medford

"So nasty it was funny"

Let me start off by saying that I live less than a mile from this Cicily's "restaurant". Then let me tell you that me, my family and friends drive 4 miles to another better Italian joint in town. Why? When we arrived we thought the room was very pleasant and had been sympathetically renovated. This, however, is one of the only positive things I can say about our experience.

Two of us had starters, which were brought out 15 minutes later of us ordering. My husband's Risotto Critters was mushroom rotted gross and the rest of the time he was so disappointed that he was not a fun guy and my clams were obviously out of the ocean long long ago. Disgusting! Things went from bad to worse with the main courses, which arrived aesthetically displeasing. They made it to our table looking thrown together. Mother in law had the Olia pasta fresco as a main, so got off lightly! It was like an upscaled ramen noodle bag, she got bored of it. My husband's spicy vodka ravioli were apparently unspeakable - stodgy, unseasoned bolognese with a slight hint of shrimp (overpriced). However my spaghetti and meatballs was even worse - a rock hard bland ball of meat and some pasta that was obviously out of a packet and was swimming in butter and oil Ughh! what took place later that day we all were cutting the cheese, it was not good. Lets just say toots, pain and poo. Spare your bellies and colonic sphincter from this preventable travesty people. Speaking of cutting, it was a weird feeling cutting through the meatball, like this thing was not really a meatball at all, plus, I needed several mouthfuls of water to wash it down. It was hilariously bad! By now we were just laughing about how dreadful the food was.

Desserts were a bit better, thankfully as I was hungry for something to taste good. Since no one wanted to say anything about the terrible food (because they figured not returning, is good enough. I however did. And took it upon my self to spare others and right this review. When I told the waitress about my food, she just said oh really, yeah it might have been a bad batch and did not remove my main course from the bill. What?! You serve something with unsatisfactory quality and won't pay the dish!! cus words. Then the bill came with some extra drinks that was incorrect which added insult to injury.

Judging by the previous review this was not a one off. A shame because it's a really nice setting, but the place is obviously run by amateurs and the chef should be ashamed of what he or she is sending out of the kitchen....

Cicily’s Italian Restaurant doesn’t seem to be what it used to be. My biggest complaint though is to management.

When I was there about a week ago, I saw 2 waitresses doing pretty much all the work. They were running their butts off, while either the manager or owner sat behind the bar and chillaxed.

It was VERY busy, with people needing to be sat outside. Buss boys and hostesses didn’t seem to support the waitresses like you normally see in a restaurant. I worked in 2 restaurants for over 3yrs experience total, and normally hosts and/or bussers pick up the slack by helping with drink orders, drink refills, filling water, and also just checking in on tables to make sure they don’t need anything. It was odd to watch the hosts and bussers look lost and anxious on what they were supposed to do, as well as some hanging out and talking with the manager while the 2 waitresses served everyone. Service was not great, but that’s not the waitress’s fault.

It became a little more obvious that management was the issue when we tried to pay so we could leave. The check was brought to us, and it was taking a long time for someone to come by and grab the check, so I thought maybe we’re supposed to pay up front. Hostess up front was unable to pay us out, so we went to our a table to wait for our waitress. A busser than asked what we needed, said we were trying to pay up front, also needed to go boxes, he said he could help, and grabbed our check with $100 bill to pay.

He went to the manager/owner behind the bar who looked annoyed to be bothered, and then it looked like he proceeded to get us our change at a cash register. It was taking longer than it should and manager walked away from cash register and didn’t bring us change. Waitress came to our table stressed, told her we were trying to pay, and busser took our check and we were waiting on change, she rushed over to the cash register to get our change, took awhile, seems like we made things worse/confusing and she was trying to sort something out over there.

Told her we were sorry and didn’t mean to make things more stressful for her. Anyways, we got our change finally. It just seems like that one manager, a tall man, I think bald, was just useless, didn’t work as he hung out behind the bar, chatting with the hostesses here and there, while the bartender worked the bar. Bussers and hostesses didn’t have enough work, but also seemed like they weren’t allowed to do certain things or leave posts. It was just weird and poorly managed and I feel bad for...

Where do I begin? What was supposed to be a fun night with friends turned into a horrible experience! When we arrived for a 6:15 reservation the restaurant was packed on a Sunday night! I wondered why they were taking reservations when they were so busy. We were never sat at a table after standing at the bar for 20 minutes. The head of our party talked to someone and they suggested we sit on the patio because there was room for us. We had a baby in our group of 6 and the baby was hungry! After waiting another 15 minutes or so (we were never approached by wait staff) a nice waiter asked if we had been helped yet. We said no and the baby needs to eat! He said he would take our table since no one had come over yet. He took the order for the baby while we gave him our drink order. By this time it was 7:00. After getting our drinks, he took our dinner order and assured us the baby would get her food quickly. Meanwhile...we sat and waited, and waited, and waited for our food. Yes, we knew they were busy, but there was no communication from our waiter about how long the food would take. The baby didn't even get her food until after 7:30! My husband went into the restaurant to talk to someone about how long we had waited. By this time it was close to 8 pm...and we had a 6:15 reservation!!!! We were not happy! We were told that there was no manager on duty, no one in charge, and they were slammed. Our waiter told us there was nothing he could do to help us out. He wasn't allowed to comp anything for us and the only thing he could do was give us a free dessert. The head of our party told our waiter how unhappy he was with the slow service and the waiter was defensive and extremely unhelpful! It was not a good experience! The food was mediocre and overpriced! I could have made the same dishes at home for a lot cheaper! I believe that this restaurant has trouble keeping staff and management because it is so chaotic. Our waiter even suggested we write a Google review about our experience so that everyone can know how bad it is there! Because we were a party of 6 our waiter added an automatic gratuity of 18% for his surly service. I will not ever eat at this restaurant again and will definitely let everyone I know to not eat here too! Go spend your money...