The Mac House — Restaurant in Raleigh

Food was as expected. Kind of pricey for what it is. Service was horrible. My visit was at 2:30 PM. Well past any lunch rush and well before dinner. Dining room was full of empty tables with dirty dishes while no less than 6 employees were behind the counter, talking and hanging out. The girl who was taking orders was polite but very slow. (There was quickly a line out the door before I could order.) When ordering, you have to select a level of tip before you can pay. The lowest level is 15%, unless you select Custom Level. I left a Custom 10% and felt ripped off by the time I left. After ordering, I went and got my own drink and cleared half a table of someone else's dirty dishes so I had a place to sit. After about 5 minutes, someone came and cleared the dishes but did not bother to wipe the table. Additionally, when I looked away for a moment, they took my drink that I had just gotten and which was not even near the dirty dishes. I had to go and get another, as they did not offer to bring me one. After nearly 10 more minutes, my burger arrived but not my soup. A burger with a fried mac and cheese bun sounds good but is impossible to eat with your hands. Had to cut it up with a fork as there were no knives. After I was completely done eating my burger, my soup finally came. (I heard a girl continually reminding them about my soup. Frankly, I thought I was not going to get it.) The soup was fair but definitely not worth the wait. I asked the person who brought my soup, for future reference, if they ever had knives. He looks at me and asks me "Aren't there any up there?" To which I responded, "No, that is why I asked." He just said "Oh." And walked away. No apology, no offer to bring me one, no asking me if I still needed one. A few minutes later, someone brought some out. To encapsulate, food was decent, cleanliness and service were horrible. Employees stood around talking. Prices for this type of food were quite high. I would highly recommend not...

AVOID the "vegan" Bacon/Truffle Mac option if you are looking for something more TYPICAL (closely resembling mac & cheese).

Staff is always nice and very helpful. Although, every time I've had questions about the non-helpful chalk menu, I'm met with confusing explanations. Both times I've had to ask I was not given a very good descriptive detail. If they want vegan customers, the owner needs to educate staff and make a more helpful wall/chalk menu.

The first meal I ever ordered from here was the "Vegan Mac". It was tasty and I thought it had pretty good soy chorizo. On my second visit, I ordered the "Bacon and Truffle Mac", but they swapped the dairy for vegan cheese and the bacon for "vegan bacon".

The Bacon and Truffle Mac has "wild" mushrooms, elbow noodles, vegan cheese and "vegan bacon" in it. The vegan cheese has been good on both visits, but YIKES....

The mushrooms were very rubbery and chewy, making them impossible to stomach and the substitute bacon was AWFUL. The overall charm of this restaurant is nice for non-vegan's, but they do not know what they are doing with their vegan bacon. It had a chemical/nutty taste and had an abhorrent texture. Honestly, it was so bad for $9+ dollars and I likely will not being going back there.

Their saving grace is the Vegan Mac and the Buffalo Cauliflower Mac (made vegan). I have yet to try the "vegan" version of any other menu item, although I think there are only 2 more available .... Jerk Chicken and BBQ.

They get 2 stars because they seem to have everything else together EXCEPT the vegan bacon at this point. 1 star taken away for the bacon being awful and 1 star taken for those awful mushrooms, which left me picking out the noodles and having to deal with the awful aftertaste. 1 star taken for the unhelpful chalk menu and uneducated staff. *Also, I don't know what it was but the entire meal had a...

I am giving three stars because the place has a family feel to it and the inside was nice and clean. the pricepoint was also on the low end so I can imagine this being a good place if you have kids or a lot of peopl.

That being said the service was rather slow, there was a small line and I ordered a lot but it took 25 minutes for the Mac Rolls to come out. The Grilled Pimento Chesse sandwich came about 10 minutes after andit was a full 35 minutes to get the BBQ Mac n Cheese. During this time the coke was out syrup. People who ordered after me waited just as long, I felt really bad for the people waiting over 30 minutes for just 2 orders of Mac and Cheese. Maybe I caught them at a really bad but they appeared to staffed pretty well. Though, the wait was so great that upon ordering and sitting down someone came in to complain that his family was tired of waiting.

Regarding the taste of the food, it was alright at best. The Mac Rolls were pretty basic mac and cheese inside an egg roll wrapper, no special pop or uniqueness here. The Pimento Grilled Cheese sandwhich, well I couldn't find any pimento cheese, the sandwhich was burnt a bit, and it had that "old oil" taste to it, not very good. The Mac and Cheese had a grainy texture to it and was overpowered by the green onions inside, also not really good.

Overall I am hoping that I caught them on a bad time because they were highly recommended, that being said, even if services was faster I still wouldn't go back as the food didn't...