Mario's Restaurant — Restaurant in Ormond Beach

My fiancé and I were extremely excited about trying this place. We’ve heard nothing but good things. We are on our way to Ronin our favorite sushi place decided last minute to go ahead and give it a try. We both have been in the industry for 15 years so coming in at 9:30 we asked if it was ok knowing they close at 10 but for Saturday night to dine in late like that is not unusual and the parking lot was packed still. We started with escargot and clams with white sauce it was ok not the best but not the worst. I felt like the clam portion was small and escargot was so so I’ve had better. We then had two house salads we wanted Caesar, which they did not carry. I thought was strange but that’s OK. The house was served with two slices of pepperoni, a boiled egg slice and tomato different but whatever. When I excuse myself to get up to go to the bathroom, I saw our dinner sitting on the bar. I figured when I came back it would be on the table, even though we hadn’t even started our salads yet and we’re still eating appetizers when I returned there was food on the table. I knew immediately had taken it back to the kitchen and put it under the heat lamp. We told the server to go ahead and bring it out. When it arrived we were immediately disappointed the pasta was dry the veal had a film over it from sitting under a heat lamp the sauce seemed off it was not good at all. We decided to take the salads and leave the server could tell we weren’t happy and pretty much confirmed the dish didn’t look right telling us it was made on the fly she did attempt to fix it by talking to the manager which we appreciate her solution was to offer a drink which we don’t drink or a dessert. We are not one to complain or ask for free food but our dish being market price and completely disgusting I would think to make a little bit more effort and we possibly would have returned. Instead we paid our $90 bill and agreed that was our first and would be...

I've been to Mario's at least six times and 3 of those times most recently have been mediocre if not just bad.

it is a dive bar experience with high end price.

I will elaborate on my last experience on January 28th to paint the picture. you have the choice of sitting at a table or the bar if it's open seating. we chose the bar as we usually do. we were greeted and served a drink right away. offered regular or garlic bread. we chose garlic bc it's delicious. they gave us menus to look over.

the game was playing so it was a little louder than usual.

it took about 30 minutes before we were asked what we'd like for dinner. I was not quite ready yet. another 30 minutes passed until we got the bartender attention to order.

I ordered shrimp scampi. hubby ordered chicken parm. about 15 min later I overheard another customer order the same two things except one without sauce.

a while longer passed and I noticed the bartender brought OUR food to the second couple. they had to correct them about the sauce. (read above)

10 min later our food was delivered. my plate was cold. my pasta was cold. hubby food was perfectly fine tho. I cut into a few shrimp just to check them and returned to our bartender. they came back a few min later with a hot plate. too hot to touch. and the same cut up shrimp ontop. obviously microwaved.

In between all of this there are back of house staff coming out front in their "street clothes" with kitchen rags draped over their shoulders (no uniform) to check the game scores.

I did not eat any of my pasta. we tipped our server/bartender well. but it's not worth the price.

$22 for microwaved pasta and...

We read a lot of negative reviews about Mario's and almost did not go. But now we are wondering if they were writing about the same Mario's in Ormond Beach on US1? This is our first-time visiting Mario's, and we are glad we went. The food is GREAT! Lasagna and garlic bread, even the simple spaghetti and meatball meal was Great, also the food was served hot. All the meals had a modest salad that was fresh and delicious. The tiramisu was rated as excellent by my wife, and if she says it was excellent she means it and she will order it the next time we return. We were fortunate to have Justin as our server, he looked out for us and timed everything exactly right. The prices were moderate but, in this day and age, we thought the prices were in the right range for us. The three of us with wine, meals, and dessert without tip was about $90 + tax. We will be back soon; my wife and I will be having some date nights here. We also went earlier than usual for us, and it was a clever idea. We arrived around 5:20 pm and had no wait. We took our time and enjoyed the ambiance and food. When we were leaving over an hour later there was a 30-minute wait for tables. But to wait 30 minutes for Mario's it's worth it. They offer a half size early bird menu that is offered until 6 pm, my wife and son enjoyed those, and I selected the larger serving. I brough home more than half. We can only recommend that you visit Mario's and have a wonderful evening meal and then write an honest review for...