Marco's Express — Restaurant in Swansea

I am now residing in Texas and was visiting my family in St. Louis. We went to this Swansea, IL restaurant with two of my friends who were trying to get my mind off of burying my younger sister from the day before. The food was great, but the decor was dated. We all paid for our food separately. My friends ordered drinks with alcohol and had to order additional shots to add to their drinks as they both could not taste the alchol. The salads my friends ordered could have been made with a better quality of lettuce. However, due to my mental distractions, I didn't realize my server charged me too much for my food until I returned home. A salad was added to my ticket, which I did not order nor eat, and I ordered fettuccine alfredo with only broccoli, but my ticket had tortellini. I also ordered 2 non-alcoholic beverages and the loaded fries. I'm sure this mistake occurred because the server was flying around like a bat out of hell. And NO, the restaurant was not busy when we arrived at 3:30 pm on Sunday. There were approximately 3 other tables with 2 people each, with a total of 2 servers. My main problem is that you had to remind the server multiple times of additional items you requested, such as napkins or water, etc. I'm accustomed when asking my server for something else such as condiments or another drink, your server asking if there's anything else, but not her. So, the moment you mention one item, she's off to get the item when you're in mid sentence of your request. Tell me, what's the purpose of writing down my order if you're going to mix up a simple order from 3 people? I did tip her a little over 20%. If I had not been in mourning and in my right state of mind, I'm sure I would have caught such an error. I don't recall the server's name, but both her arms were covered in tattoos. I recall this because one of my friends complimented her tattoos and asked for a referral of where she got them. Be weary of this one, because better training is needed. Although I don't care for the fast food at chick-fil-a, this company should try their training model, as their customer...

This business recently moved and is in the middle of a changing phase. They are now working in cooperation with a local business entrepreneur and changed development directions.

It has moved from its old location on Lebanon to a sit-down restaurant nearby.

It is no longer blatantly friendly to blue collar workers or minority communities.

The new restaurant took over the failing dining room for the food trucks. This location has struggled to succeed as a restaurant due to the incredibly small dining room. The restaurant is VERY nice, definitely on scale to be a new date night location. Which contradicts the family eatery vibe of the rest of the food truck facility. On the outside it appears working class, but when you enter you are immediately met with a big "FOR GOD" sign in a high class Italian restaurant setting. The wait staff is more immaculately dressed than places on The Hill.

There is no curbside pick up at this location, or a pick up window. They are encouraging dine-in. I had to walk in to pick up my order and was wearing flip flops and shorts. Everyone at every table immediately turned to watch me enter when I came to pick up a to-go order. It was a very uncomfortable experience. There are only a handful of tables and they were filled on this day, and people would not stop staring. Even the wait staff stared while I waited for the hostess to greet me and get my order. It was difficult not to feel like I was unwelcome.

The hostess was not friendly. I assume because I was picking up an order and not dining in. I was not greeted and did not feel like I was treated as a long term customer. I did not recognize any of the new staff, and missed the kindness the old staff always showed me.

I miss my community Italian joint where i could easily pick up dinner after a 12 hour shift. Not... whatever this is trying to be.

The food is still great and they didn't have any major price increases over the pandemic, so the new price...

Went for dinner the other night with my girlfriend and her parents. I wouldn’t say the place was super busy but there was a decent crowd of roughly 8-9 tables. It seemed like it would’ve been fairly easy for the number of servers that were on duty. Straight from the jump, we had a fairly lengthy wait just to get our drink/appetizer orders in. We ordered a couple of calzones, chicken Alfredo, and loaded fries. The entrees came with a side, with one of the salads being a “premium” side. For my calzone, I asked for no olives. Despite this request, I would describe the filling as having an ABUNDANCE of olives. A couple of us ordered Mac-and-cheese as the side and it was extremely underwhelming. Basically bow tie pasta that was buttered with a very light sprinkle of what maybe was shredded cheese.

Aside from the olive debacle and the lackluster macaroni, the food was pretty good. However as another post mentioned, we realized the next day that we may have been overcharged. All of our entrees said a side was included however, my girlfriend noticed that each side showed up on the bill as a separate charge plus her mom’s Alfredo had a separate charge for the chicken even though it’s listed as Chicken Alfredo on the menu. All-in-all, the service and price were enough that I would likely not come here or recommend. While the food was decent, there are better options at the same...