Mama Z's Cafe — Restaurant in Tontitown

I've passed this quaint little mom and pop Italian restaurant dozens of times on my way to Siloam springs and thought Saturday would be a great time to come and check it out. Most of the reviews I've seen have been positive. I wrote a dining review column for a newspaper close to Los Angeles for 6 years and I only tend to write any type of reviews now when specifically Warranted. This restaurant is one of those attends to need a reality check. In this area for pain 17.50 for a meal I would expect a much much higher level of quality than what I got. The waitress brought out a salad that was included with my mail. The side salads I have gotten at Wendy's and McDonald's actually trumped this one. I was served a small dish of iceberg lettuce some of the leaves being a greenish Brown and this was a company with a squeeze pack of salad dressing. The toast served with it as a type of chips what's so hard it was almost inedible. My chicken parmesan arrived with a side of spaghetti. You would think an Italian restaurant could at least get spaghetti correct? I summoned the waitress the spaghetti was so overcooked it had the consistency of mashed potatoes . It was the worst I have ever had in all of my travels. My chicken parmesan was buried under a sea of cheese. It was very overcooked as well and by this point I was so frustrated that I took the ravioli that I had reorder to substitute for the awful spaghetti to go It is still in my refrigerator as I am hesitant to even give it a try. I am amazed that this restaurant has stayed in business for all these years. I would give all of garden a high quality rating compared to this establishment and I would never ever come here again. I'm writing this review as a kind warning for you to save your money and take yourself to at least Olive garden where you can get an average Italian male instead of...

My husband and I recently went there and unfortunately were extremely disappointed. On a positive note we were able to get in with no wait. Our waitress was polite but did not go out of her way to make us feel comfortable, she didn't know it was our first time being there either as she did not strike any type of conversation even though we tried. The meals came with rolls and a side salad. I have never been served a side salad with no toppings. No carrots, no cheese, olives, tomato.... nothing just plain iceberg lettuce. My husbands blue cheese was in a store bought package placed on his bowl and my ranch was their house ranch which was good. Our waitress put a basket next to our salads with two saltine cracker and what we assumed were croutons? I ordered the chicken parm and my husband ordered a fettuccine and lasagna combination plate. Both our meals were very bland and tasted like the sauce came from a can or jar. We are not picky but it was not good! Luckily there was salt, pepper and parmesan on the table, we added that to our dishes to try to add flavor. My chicken was not on the noodles, it was on the side in a dish that was soaked in the marinara sauce, more like a soup amount of marinara. Marinara and fake mozzarella on the bottom of the dish, the chicken parm and then buried under more marinara. I had to dig through all the marinara for the chicken. We were very disappointed hoping for good or authentic Italian food. I wanted it to be good so bad! It's the first time ever I have never taken leftovers home and we paid $50 for something he and I could have probably...

First time coming here. I have to start with the best parts and work down. The service was great. We had Carrie as a server and she was awesome.

The food is where it starts to lose me. I'm sure the sauce is a hit with locals, but it wasn't for me. I got the chicken parmigiana with spaghetti. The sauce was heavily seasoned and far too salty. Definitely not an authentic Italian sauce but moreso an Americanized sauce. The chicken batter was overcooked and overly floured. Made for a caked on batter rather than a breadcrumb style coating. I am not trying to be insulting, as the folks there seemed great, but I just couldn't enjoy the food.

My wife got the lasagna/fettuccine Alfredo. The lasagna has the same red sauce and therefore also over salted. There didn't appear to be any ricotta filling, so it was basically lasagna noodles with sauce, and cheese on the top. The Alfredo sauce was watery and had no real flavor.

I suspect this restaurants popularity is because it is one of the very few, if not only, "Italian" food options in the area.

Lastly, was the home-made cinnamon roll. Sad to say, the dough was more like a bread rather than a typical roll. The cinnamon sugar filling was all sugar and therefore the flavor was off.

Atmosphere... very plain and diner-like. Not a place for a nice dinner date, but more family style low key dining.

I am glad we tried it, but it...