Marco's Restaurant — Restaurant in Peabody

I had the spaghetti and meatballs, she had the scampi. We had an amatriciana for appetizers. I had the smokey old fashioned she had the espresso martini. So, the amatriciana wasnt terrible, just needed salt, and i dont like salt so they obviously didn't used guancale, pancetta, prosciutto or any of the other legitimate ways to put flavor into it, oh and the sauce tasted like spaghettios meet chef boyardee. So spaghetti tasted like chlorine, and the noodles were waaay over cooked and had the consistency of packaged Ramen noodles that have been boiled for an hour straight, super mushy. Dont give me that fresh noodles are softer bullshit either because I make them myself, too. Again, the sauce was spaghettios meets boyardee, and the meatballs tasted like the meat that comes from canned beef stew, that stuff that smells like dog food. The scampi, again noodles, were soft and mushy. The shrimp were tough and fibrous so, overcooked, and the sauce was very lemon heavy, and dont gimme that amalfi coast b.s. , been there too ....no they dont. Yes, Scampi should have lemon, just not that much. Our server would reach over our food to take away other items. The lady that brought our food was different than the server, so I dont know who i was tipping, but she could barely hold the plates she brought out and ended up dropping them onto our table. My old fashioned didn't really have any old fashion in it...just bourbon but whos complaining. The only positive not. Is when then server kid was lacking the bartender came over and asked us if he could get us anything. That was cool. Oh and the pesto they served with the first course of bread was fire. Really amazing pesto. All for $100 before tip at a place in a strip mall. Should have known better but it was walking distance from my hotel and was really the only place...

The reviews were great so we went there to grab a small quick bite. Our waiter fresh from Italy was very nice and tried to do a good job....well First he miss understood when I said eggplant and brought out an Italian ham platter. Okay so took it back and made the eggplant. While all this happened my dinner partner still did not get her food. I asked about it, the waiter said how it will be out in two minutes and it was taking long because she ordered it with vodka sauce and no Italian ham. Well that was not true since about ten minutes later he said how they lost the ticket and were making her food now. All the while my food is getting cold waiting, they are mopping the floors, closing the blinds and putting up chairs! This is an upscale restaurant?! Her food comes out and is wrong. Wrong sauce and filled with Italian ham. They offer to remake it but at this point and being pushed out with the mopping and chairs up???? Then the bill comes with an extra charge for her dish for the ingredients that the dish was made of!!! Then no one including the cash register has changed if a ten dollar bill to make up money for a tip....so either too high or too low was the cash tip option. Wow. A mess from start to finish. What a shame. The restaurant seems to want to appear as a small upscale authentic spot, well they missed the mark over and...

We had a great experience this weekend all around: service was attentive and polite, the food tasted homemade and extremely fresh plus the portion sizes were generous to say the least! Real Italian food. Food was flavorful and there was a decent variety of options on the menu. Prices were very fair. Bathrooms and building in general were very clean and sanitary. The tiramisu was the dessert pick that I usually end up kicking myself for (because it’s usually American dry sponge cake-ified not like real creamy/custardy texture) but they did it right and it was so fresh and the homemade love was felt. Very relieved. Top to bottom was a fantastic place.

The only thing to note is that for first timers who can’t drive well in the dark (hehe but I bet we aren’t the only ones!!!) it is very VERY easy to miss your entrance and start doing loops of the hotels around because the entrance is NOT lighted nor is there a sign. It looks like you are going to have to drive up the side of a hill covered in mulch but in reality it is the only entrance/exit there is. In daylight you wouldn’t have a problem, but now that it’s dark at 4:30 and we are well… not night drivers 😛🙃 you are warned until they do something about that. But we aren’t counting it against them, they are easy to miss but definitely something you don’t...