Mario's Italian Cafe V — Restaurant in Palm Desert

WHERE IS THE MANAGEMENT?

I can understand a low budget, big portion family italian American style restaurant. Every town not along the coasts has one. But this is just bad.

When my girlfriend went to sit in the booth she put her hand on the ledge and picked up a handful of dust. I then looked around and noticed how much dust was accumulated on the walls, ledges and the worst was the AC ducts were COMPLETELY packed & matted with an inch or 2 of dust!

I know there's alot of dust here in the desert and AC filter changes HAVE to be done every 3-4 months with ACs running 24/7.. how hard is it to have someone take 15 minutes once a week to wipe down the ledge above the booths with a wet bar rag? Sweep the walls and ducts every 2-3 months when changing the filter?

For the food.. my girlfriend ordered lasagna. The waitress says, "sorry.. it fell apart" as she slid the plate down in front of her. We both looked at it in shock. It looked like a plate of microwaved goo. There were no layers or structure of any sort. She took 4 bites and couldn't take anymore.

No.. we're not snobby. I swear just some basic management/oversight would take this place a long way. It's too bad because the owners look like they put alot of money fixing the place up so its dumbfounding they'd let a manager maintain...

Had dinner at Mario's Friday night; I had the Chicken Piccata. It had too many capers for my taste but the dish was still very good. My wife had the Lasagna. She said it was not the best she's ever had. She prefers Lasagna that has Ricotta cheese. This version apparently had none. She ate very little and took none home. The garlic bread was very lightly browned. I would have preferred a much darker toasted bread. Came back two days later. Food was pretty bad. My wife had the pizza. The sauce was not very good. Tasted like tomato sauce. Ate two pieces, left the rest. I tried the Cannaloni. It was terrible! The Cannolini came smothered in a white sauce and the dish was absolutely tasteless. Tasted like flour more than anything else. I took a single bite and decided not to wast my calories on this dish. Really bad dish. It took quite a while to get our food so II did not bother to try something else. And again, the garlic bread was hardly browned at all. I guess one has to specify that the bread be toasted. Probably won't be back. Save your money. Find an...

I became a customer of Mario's in the early 2000's and I have dined at multiple locations over the years. This is only my second less than satisfactory experience. Before we were even completly seated our server asked if we were ready to order. I assumed he meant any drinks so I ordered a glass of wine for myself and my wife. The wine arrived quickly as we were starting to look at the menu the server said he would give us a few minutes. After about at least 10 minutes we noticed the server taking orders from two other tables that were seated after us. We finally asked the host to remind the server to take our order. We ordered a small house salad to share. We have ordered the same salad multiple times. Our ordered turned out to be either an individual salad or Mario's has significantly down sized it. I have ordered Bolognese sauce at least a dozen times and the.sauce that was served taste wise did not accurately resemble what I have previously experienced. My wife's meal was very satisfactory and as usual the most generous glass of house wine...