East Side Mario’s

I’ve seen tons of ads on TV for East Side Marios for years, but never had a reason to stop in until last week.
The aroma of garlic overwhelms you as you approach the restaurant, probably due to the abundance of free garlic rolls served with your meal. These garlic rolls look about as manufactured as the Olive Garden’s breadsticks, but taste better (probably due to all of the Garlic).
East Side Mario’s is essentially like an Olive Garden, but with far more attractive décor, and you can get unlimited caesar salad instead of that Iceberg Lettuce excuse for a salad that the Olive Garden serves.
I ordered a Pizzarolli, because I’m a sucker for anything that is stuffed and pizza-​like. It was too salty.
But East Side Mario’s is inexpensive, good for kids, and we didn’t have to wait on a Saturday evening around 6 PM.
Not a bad option if you’re in the area and have kids.

When I was younger I used to visit East Side Mario’s with my family regularly and I absolutely loved it. I’m not sure if this is just a bad location, or if the whole chain has gone downhill since then.
We came at an off time and so the restaurant was near empty; we were seated and given menus immediately but despite this, the service was slow. I noticed after sitting down that the restaurant was quite dirty and dusty, with lots of cobwebs all over the chandeliers that were directly above our table. Gross, to say the least. While waiting for our server, we were given our first loaf of bread and it was extremely disappointing. It must have been sitting out on a heater for quite a while before it came to us because although it was warm, it was hard as a rock and very obviously not fresh.
When we finally got to order, we had two chicken fettuccine alfredos, a piada caprese with chicken, and three caesar salads. I also ordered one of the Jolly Rancher slushies. When it arrived, it was nothing but pure water slush with some flavour poured over top of it. It wasn’t mixed at all and was extremely weak and watery even after I mixed it myself. Very disappointing and I did not finish it. We got our second loaf of bread, which was much better, and our salads, which were huge and delicious. Just like I remember them being when I was younger, so no complaints there. One of our chicken alfredos and the piada came, but the second alfredo did not because it had been made wrong and so my boyfriend had to wait for his meal while me and his friend already had ours. His came out and we started eating. Although my piada was delicious, it was missing the cheese, which was the main ingredient… We finished our meals quickly and left.
Although the food was decent, I’m extremely disappointed with the service and cleanliness. It’s nothing like the East Side Mario’s I used to go to.

Food and the service is always top notch. I bring my son here every weekend and have always had a great time.
Highly recommended, you will not be disappointed.

My family loves this place! One of the few chains that haven’t attempted the «faux fancy» look affecting restaurants like the plague. This is a place where you leave pretense at the door. We love the super relaxed feel — almost like you’re in grandmas kitchen; or a family owned joint where everyone knows your name.
When we go, our group orders 5 of the same thing: «Hells Kitchen Chicken». 2 deliciously spicy chicken breasts, wedge potatoes, seasonal veggies and sauteed mushrooms. Yum! Paired with unlimited bread and caeser or garden salad, you are guaranteed to be stuffed and end up with a delicious left over lunch the following day!
Menu prices have risen noticably in the past few years, but they have some crazy daily specials or drink offerings like $ 8 for 8oz glasses of wine! Their house variety is actually quite delicious!
It was always a mystery why the other ESM’s shut down in Edmonton, but I am glad there is one left in the area! The hike up to St. Albert can be a bit of a trek, but well worth it.
Love you East Side’s!

Above average, but nothing phenomenal. But one shouldn’t expect phenomenal for $ 10-​$ 20 lol
This was my first experience, I went with a friend who
loves the place. She seemed to know more than the servers! Great, friendly, family atmosphere with very reasonable prices and great portions. Perfect for family’s.
The take home entrée’s are not cooked fresh, they are prepackaged and sent to them frozen.
Positive experience, would recommend. Great alternative to BP’s or Montana’s.

Not long ago, there were East Side Mario locations all over the city of Edmonton and in Sherwood Park. It used to be one of my favorite restaurants, enough so that I would crave the pasta and bread, and look forward to eating at a location whenever possible. With the St. Albert location being the only remaining ESM open, I haven’t been for a meal in at least five years. I headed here for dinner on a Friday night while waiting for my car to be done with a service appointment, and was disappointed that my food wasn’t great, or even good.
The décor is loud and bright, and it’s very much a casual family restaurant. There were lots of kids and families, and I feel like this place would be a good choice if you don’t want to worry about your kids being a little louder during a meal, as it all blends into the background racket. The menus are long, with at least five pages of dishes. They serve pizza, pasta, salad and some entrees like chicken and fish. I was tempted by the fish, but I’m glad I didn’t order it. Pasta entrees come with unlimited soup, salad and bread, so if you are on a budget you can fill up on those and take most of your pasta home for another meal. I got what sounded like the best pasta on the menu, firecracker shrimp bowties. There were a few shrimps in there, not a lot, and somehow all the peppers had settled to the bottom of the bowl. I didn’t get a single spicy bite until the end of meal, when I found and stabbed a pepper underneath a mound of pasta. Whoever made the pasta overdid it with both the oil and the garlic. It was just so darn oily. And so much garlic, it was overpowering. It felt like a cheap pasta dish prepared by someone that didn’t know what they were doing. I picked out the shrimp and did my best with the pasta. My husband insisted on bringing home the leftovers, and when I mixed them with my own plain pasta to dilute the oil and garlic it was finally edible.
Have my tastes changed over the years as I have eaten at some really exceptional Italian restaurants? Probably. Do I feel any need to return to try again? No.

Visited this location on Sunday for lunch. The place was busy but not packed. We were seated right away and given menus. Shortly after we were greeted by our server. He was friendly and took our drink order and brought our drinks and bread right away. Disappointed that they have no garlic butter!
I ordered Spaghetti with meat balls. The meat balls looked not cooked and were pink in the middle. The pasta and sauce were fair enough but nothing great. My friends had the Chicken Linguini Tetrizini which was tasty as always. They loved it. We gobbled up three loafs of bread which was great but I wished they offered a whole wheat option.
The service was attentive but they didn’t seem overly concerned when I addressed the pink on the inside meat balls.
Would someone please clean the obvious dust clusters hanging from chandeliers above the tables. This is a big turn off!

I wanted to like this restaurant SO much but it just isn’t a good place if you are looking for quality. All the menu items look and sound delicious but everything *i’ve tried* has been underwhelming and not appetizing in the least. The garden salad was swimming in italian dressing (terrible) calamari was so over cooked it was like dust inside of batter. The chicken parm was way way overcooked and the side of pasta with tomato sauce tasted like they used no name tomato soup. Ugh, not a good experience at all.
I want to give 3 stars but I’d have to say that McDonalds food is better. :/

Came here with a party of five (2 kidlets) on a very busy Friday night. They must have a lot of seating, as the parking lot was completely full, and inside was quite noisy. We were offered a choice of indoors or out, and as it was perfect weather, we chose outside. EXCELLENT choice — the patio is really lovely, with a wide variety of potted flowers, vines, and plants, all well tended and scattered about so that every table was surrounded.
The food was fairly average, no particular dishes to rave about. Kids meals, while not as inexpensive as some places, were better quality, and the pizza was made on site rather than frozen. The best part, from their perspective, was the tiny trio of ice cream cones included for dessert. I do mean tiny — perhaps two tablespoons of ice cream, not pushed down into the cones at all. However, it’s enough for wee ones and they liked having three instead of one.
The adults split two appetizers, skimpy lamb skewers and deep fried bites of some sort of cheese, overcooked on the breading but the cheese inside wasn’t melted — we all agreed we wouldn’t order either of those again. One Piada was quite flavourful (the 3 P’s) but the other was mediocre at best (steak and gorgonzola). The menu was fairly extensive, with a good variety of price points, and you could even completely customize pasta dishes to your liking.
Although the place was really, really busy, our server was cheerful and attentive. Food was a bit slow in arriving, but I cannot imagine that poor kitchen staff’s work pace with so many people. I probably saw at least two dozen wait staff just from my vantage point on the patio, and who knows how many more were inside. It’s obviously popular, but for the quality of food vs. price, we’ll stick to an occasional lunchtime rather than a weekend «evening out.»

Quick service. Friendly staff.
I came here for takeout today as I unfortunatly was accompanying someone in the er department. I ordered the kids fettucini bites and the fettucini alfredo with italian wedding soup.
The fettucini portion was quite small. Actually the kids meal had almost as much pasta as the regular portion. It did not have much sauce but when mixed it was just enough. Luckily the hostess gave me 2 parmesan cheeses that saved the dish from mediocre to good.
The kids meal was a good deal. 6.49 for a pasta with a apple juice and rice krispie square. My 10 year old was satified. The pasta came with a garlic loaf and italian wedding soup. Both tasted good but not great.
I also ordered the banger bread as per the suggestion of the hostess. They were little churro like soft bread like a soft donut that melted in your mouth. With the dip they were quite fantastic. I normally would not have ordered this as it appeared to be so simple but man ill be back just for this appetizer. The bread was so yummy. I ate it completly beffore even touching my pasta.
The takeout area is nice bc u pay and order and theres chairs for you to sit. I ended up having a drink as I saw one of my friends at the bar. Its actually kinda nice. Then the hostess gave me my order and I left. (Wait was around 10 – 15 min).
The hostess was so nice and literally running off her feet that I tipped her. She seemed to be overworked running too much but completly happy even though she was running from the kitchen to the resto and takeout area. As the restaurant was full this friday night. So kudos for great staff.

I went here back in feb. was the first good meal I had out in a while! The service was great and even though it was busy it wasn’t loud and uncomfortable to eat.

Terribly disappointed with the food. Alfredo sauce had no flavour, tasted like water. No garlic butter served with bread like they used to. My daughters only ate a few bites and they aren’t usually picky. The Alfredo sauce was just that bad. Don’t usually complain but I did this time. Told waiter, he just said ‘sorry they didn’t like it’. Would have expected more. Won’t be back.

If East Side Mario’s put as much attention to detail into their food and service as they do the décor and overall vibe of the place, they would be onto something. It didn’t look promising when we walked in. It was pretty busy inside. There were already two families standing inside the entrance waiting for somebody to acknowledge their existence and possibly show them to a table. Several staff members walked by us, around us, and through us without so much as a «hello.» They never said that somebody would be by to seat us either. Always a good move to make your customers feel invisible.
When we were finally seated, I ordered the Mario’s Chicken Parmigiana. That was my first disappointment. It tasted like a Weight Watchers frozen dinner. The chicken was dry and scaly. It was like sandpaper. As some of you may know, I am a milkshake enthusiast so I ordered the Oreo Cookie shake. It was completely tasteless and bland. It was more like a Tim Horton’s Ice Cap. Or more accurately it was like the sludge that you scrape off your ice tray when you’re defrosting your freezer. It’s not even worthy of being called a milkshake. It was five bucks, just like John Travolta and Uma Thurman’s shake on «Pulp Fiction.» But unlike John and Uma’s this one wasn’t worth ‘five dollahs.” Avoid this one.
Our waitress made a really good first impression. She was enthusiastic, talkative, and psychotically friendly. It’s too bad about her short-​term memory loss though. Poor kid. We had soup and bread brought to us for appetizers before the sandpaper and freezer sludge were served. We finished the bread and then asked for some more. No problem, she says. About 10 or 15 minutes later she came to the table and said that the bread was still in the oven. Eventually our main courses were served and consumed. The bread was never mentioned again, it went the way of Marty McFly’s older brother on the photograph. I guess the waitress forgot all about it. Just like I’m going to forget all about this East Side Mario’s.
I’m glad that we had a gift card.

I used to play baseball when I was younger and much more fit. I am now a foodie and my belly definitely shows it.
In baseball, 4 balls gets you on base and unfortunately 3 strikes and you are out! Well, what does this have to do with East Side Mario’s? Just sit right back and you will hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip…
It is Mom’s 77^th birthday and guess what she has a coupon $ 10 off at East Side Mario’s. So to make Mom happy we make a reservation for 7 people at East Side Mario’s in St. Albert. We are advised on making the reservation that «all reservations will have a 15% gratuity automatically added». I immediately think this is great as I usually tip 20% and round up, but if they are going to force me to an amount, the server doesn’t get a penny more. (ok so I am already a bit ticked off)
We arrived for our 5:30 pm reservation and the table was ready and we were seated right away (looks like it is going to be a good night). As I sit down, I touch the chair next to the one I chose and I thought it was going to fall over (one leg was about an inch shorter than the others), the wobble that was there has to have been noticed by someone (the downhill slide begins). Our server gets the chair replaced but not before finding three more with just as bad of a wobble and of course just leaves them for some other unsuspecting customer.
Our food order is taken in a respectable amount of time, Mom orders a shrimp and pasta dinner (a good choice for a 77 year old) and a stuffed mushroom appetizer. My niece just orders soup for her entrée and her Dad orders the linguini carbonara (it comes with three skewers of bacon wrapped scallops) with a soup appetizer. There is lots of conversation going on an none of us really knows what the other has ordered.
One of the other servers shortly brings the stuffed mushroom caps and a bowl of soup to the table asking who ordered the soup and my niece puts up her hand and the soup is in front of her and mushroom caps in front of the birthday girl and he is gone. It takes Katie about 20 minutes to work her way through the bowl of soup when our server finally comes to the table and asks why Katie as her soup already (noticing the Brian did not have his). She immediately makes an excuse saying I told him to give the soup to the guy. She asks Brian if he still wants his soup, which he says yes and asks Katie if she wants another as her appy so she doesn’t have to sit with nothing while we eat. Katie says no thank you.
Within seconds of her leaving the table our entrées are being brought to the table. Brian has a nice order of linguini carbonara with three skewers of bacon wrapped scallops, three skewers with one tiny scallop on each one, the three could have fit on half of one skewer. He starts eating his linguini and is about half way through and his soup now arrives at the table. Now, my parents are with me so I am bitting my tongue and not making a scene for Mom’s birthday.
The rest of the meal is fairly uneventful, other than when I asked for fresh ground pepper on my steak I got to enjoy her elbow in my face as the pepper was ground.
We asked for our bill, as she brought it to us she cheerily said «just in case you didn’t know, 15% was automatically added because of the reservation but you can give me more». She was handed a credit card and the ten dollar coupon to go process the bill. The credit card receipt came back, it was signed and we got up to leave. As we were walking out we noticed that the ten dollar discount wasn’t applied (but that automatic %15 tip sure was… go figure). I stopped at the door and asked for the manager.
The manager came over and I told her about the 10 dollar coupon error and started describing some of the other problems of the night. She snapped at me to just wait, she walked away about two minutes later she came back and demanded the credit card so she could cancel the whole original bill and redo it with the 10 dollar discount. She came back with the adjust bill and snootily said «the server says you never gave her a coupon but I took it off anyway», I replied «well you better check the floor because it was handed to her with the credit card». The credit card receipt was signed and out the door we went.
On the way out we noticed that they forgot to re-​apply the automatic 15% gratuity. I might have given a 5% tip, but now the server had nothing. Somehow I don’t feel bad, and as this was now the third time in four visits the I have had problems at this location. 1 ball 3 strikes YOUR OUT!
Their only saving grace was the Funnel Cake I had for dessert. YUMMY! This got them an extra star (2 instead of 1).

It was delicious and not hard on the wallet. I had the lasagna and the woman had the cheese cattilelinni. Pardon my spelling