Romano's Macaroni Grill — Restaurant in Phoenix

Once you walk in you're met with a gorgeous looking dining room and bar. But oddly enough no customers. The dining room was pretty empty looking for a Friday night. So I walked up with my reservation already made and let the bartender know (There wasn't a hostess/host), and she just gave me a weird look like they don't get reservations. Anyway my girlfriend and I were seated at the bar, drink orders were taken care of and our very first appetizers were on the way. ( Brussel Sprouts, "Fresh" Baked Mozzarella, and Parmesan Truffle Fries ) Our drinks arrive after about 5 minutes and disappointment is the only word I can use to describe our drinks. My girlfriends Diet Coke had no carbonation and tasted honestly awful, and my Michelob Ultra only came in bottles but the bottle was kind of warm and I was handed a glass that had been sitting in the ice chest to cool down. So the glass had a bunch of water around it and wasn't even colder than the beer. This was already a worrisome start. Got our appetizers, the Parmesan Truffle fries were the best out of the appetizers (Btw parm fries are not on the appetizers menu it's on the "sides" portion) , but it's really hard to mess those up. The brussel sprouts were extremely tiny, low in quantity, and honestly looked very distasteful as the Brussels were just thrown on a plate and then had a couple of drops of Balsamic on top scattered around. Lastly the "Fresh" mozzarella is literally just frozen Mozzarella sticks that have no flavor sided with a marinara sauce that comes from a can. You can taste the metal in the sauce. Appetizers - 3/10 stars. Still, we wanted to see if they could redeem themselves with their pasta entrees. We ordered the "Trio" plate and split it just in case it was bad and we didn't want to waste two whole entrees. It included Fettuccine Alfredo, Beef Lasagna, and Chicken Parm. I have never in life been served a fettuccine Alfredo with LITERALLY nothing to it, it was made with hard not fully cooked noodles and what I can only assume is an Alfredo sauce that comes in a packet and you mix with water. No seasoning, no color, and definitely no wow factor. Beef lasagna was just a bunch of lasagna noodles stacked on top of each other with little to no marinara sauce or MEAT in the middle. Tasted like playdough. And for the chicken Parm, I've had frozen chicken Parm from the grocery store that was better than that garbage. Not only is it covered in that nasty canned marinara sauce they put on too many things, it also doesn't even taste like chicken. We didn't eat but a couple bites from every dish to taste and immediately pushed it to the end of the table. Definitely not the place to go for Italian food. Olive garden is even a better alternative to this place. Which is saying something. Anyway at the end of the day, the restaurant looks absolutely beautiful and the staff isn't half bad besides the bartender never bringing me my 2nd beer lol. It's the food that really just lowers this restaurant to below subpar. Whoever is coming up with these cheap recipes needs to stop, it's not fun for the cooks who actually enjoy cooking and it's not enjoyable for the customers who are looking for a halfway...

We came to the restaurant on 8/11/18 to celebrate 3 birthdays, a total of 7 in our party, including an infant. We were promptly sat at a table and began to chat among us. We realize by about 6:45 that we have had a waiter come to our table let alone have any drinks. We continued to chat and noticed by 7:00 that we still had no waiter, no drinks or even bread. We waited a little bit realizing there was a huge party in the back for a soon to be bride. By about 7:15, a waiter shows up and takes our drink order. At this point we are ready to walk out being there 45 minutes. We ended up stopping the “manager” and letting her know we are still waiting to order food & have now been waiting way too long. She begins to take our order immediately, telling us the server is new and she will send someone else. She also throws in some appetizers for free. She leaves and we never see another waiter. Our drinks came at around 7:45 and even that order was messed up. Each time we brought an issue up, it was like it went in one ear and out the other. We asked for the manager and she sent the server who was supposed to “help” us earlier in evening. We had him fix the drink situation and shortly after, our food came. Mind you, we sat down at 6:30, food came out at 8. We understand there was a huge room full of people, but that’s not our problem. We were customers too and asides from being sat on time, everything else was a disaster. There shouldn’t be new people on the floor until they are fully capable and the manager needs customer service training. She never once came back and checked on us, but avoided us. When you go to a place to celebrate, it should be fun. This was far from it, our entire party was furious, making it hard to have a good time. It was as if every time someone came to the table, something would go wrong. Anyway, we finished eating at 8:30 and the new server had a hard time printing our bills. We get our bills and those are also wrong. The back up server wasn’t happy that we questioned why they were wrong, took him another 10 minutes to fix them. He did however take a couple of drinks off of a couple of bills. He also brought my 2 friends and I our birthday Cheesecakes. We all paid with cards and he even asked another server to come back to our table to ask if we needed change. We got irritated saying, “we all used cards, why would we need change?” This made another server pipe in, who has no business speaking and saying “he was just probably trying to get you change”. We had to retell her that we all paid with cards and that this has been the worst experience in a restaurant. There were many other people who stopped the manager on the way out, expressing their concerns too. I just wonder how much business you guys lost because of last night. It was a truly disappointment other than the...

My husband and I haven't been to the Macaroni Grill in many years since we moved from the area of the Agua Fria restaurant. However, we decided to try it for a belated birthday meal, and we made the drive to eat there again. Honestly, I dont write many negative reviews, but we were both so disappointed from start to finish. The quality of the food has really diminished since our last visit. When we arrived between 4:30 - 4:45, the restaurant was empty with only one or two other tables with customers. The waitress took our drink orders, and I ordered a peach flavored ice tea and my husband asked for water. She returned with a plain iced tea and a water. Since there was no one else in the restaurant, it was odd for the mistake. When she returned with the bread and dipping oil, I asked if it was lightly flavored. She did admit to her mistake and returned with the correct tea. The bread was incredible hard and tasted stale, possibly left out from lunch? Not sure, but even the taste wasn't what we expected. When the waitress returned for our dinner order, my husband ordered the Chicken Scallopine and substituted the pasta for asparagus. When received, instead of long strips of asparagus, it was 1 inch cut pieces from the ends, meaning the part that is cut off and thrown away. Those pieces were impossible to chew, and felt like tough pieces of straw going down. The artichokes in his dish were tangy like straight from a marinated jar and clashed with the other flavors in the chicken dish. In addition, the menu said capers were in this dish. He literally found 3 on the whole plate. I ordered the toasted ravioli and lobster bisque soup. Since my husband was so disappointed, I shared my ravioli with him, and I tasted his plate. I had the same experience. The chicken was pressed so thin and it was super tough, very hard to chew. We ended up boxing up the meal, took it home and upon reheating, ultimately threw it out. We shared both the ravioli and the soup. The toasted ravioli was very average in taste and compares to a frozen boxed meal that could be prepared at home. The soup was the best thing out of everything served, but the consistency of Campbells tomato soup. It didn't include one piece of meat in the entire bowl. Our first time of eating this soup without chunks of lobster in it. The total meal came in just under $50, and it was just so disappointing to pay this price for a meal that was ultimately one of the worst we've experienced in a very long time. When we left around 5:30, only one other couple had come in. Sadly, I believe the restaurant is losing its appeal and reputation if these are the types of meals it is...