The Spaghetti Warehouse

I know not cool to judge, but before reading these reviews about the food. I had already figure it must not be that fabulous just by looking at the building and when I when I ran in there from Hangar Lounge to look around I felt kinda out of place/​dirty. After dinner hours, they turn it into a little night club and have the rooftop patio area opened to hang out. I did come back a second time, still didn’t appeal to me. I only went over to flirt with the Irish man.

I sent a note to the people at SW explaining my confusion about a non-​vegetarian Eggplant Parm. I eventually got a nice, apologetic response from the manager of the Austin location. Here’s some of that response:
SW Austin: «I agree with you, that the menu is confusing. The beef base in our tomato sauce is explained only in the area describing the Spaghetti and Tomato sauce option, and not explained where the Eggplant Parmesan is. I sent an email to a few of our corporate office executives agreeing with you that the Eggplant should either come standard with Marinara, or have it explained better, especially since the vast majority of guests ordering the Eggplant are doing so precisely because they are vegetarian. Fortunately, we are putting out a new/​revised menu later in March and I hope this issue will be resolved with the new menus.»
I still probably won’t go back, but it’s good to know that management seems to care about and is listening to the concerns of their customers.

Just went here with my wife for dinner. The server we had was really nice and the food was quick. The spicy spaghetti I ordered was a bit bland but not too bad, I was just hoping for something with a little more kick. Though my wife said her lasagna was really good. Considering how inexpensive this was for dinner with an appetizer and some desert I think we will be going back.
tl:dr good food, good service, fun atmosphere, cheap.

I used to love Spaghetti Warehouse, now I’m just disappointed. I went for my birthday with a party of eight the weekend before Halloween, so we expected a wait. When we got in line to get on the list, the girl rolled her eyes, sighed, and stated that there was already a party of twelve and two other parties of eight and that we might not even be SAT before closing (mind you, we got there at 7:30, they close at 11:00)
As minutes turned to an hour and an hour turned to an hour and a half I realized we had been skipped on the list. I waited about ten more minutes until I saw the hostess realize this, start crying, call a manager over, and then FINALLY seat my party. When we got to the table, there were 6 other empty tables around us. Thus making me wonder why ANYONE had to wait.
We waited 10 minutes to get our drinks (everyone but me and a friend got water, we got soda) and it took her another 10 – 15 minutes to come back to take our order. About 20 minutes later, everyone BUT ME gets their food. Note that I got the exact same thing as another person at the table. The waitress didn’t even acknowledge that I hadn’t received my food. When I got my garlic butter noodles, they were cold. Why was I waiting if the food had time to get cold?
We ended up leaving right before closing, ironic, huh?
Worst service ever.

I’ve always heard this place was good, but never tried it in the year I’ve been here. I had some friends visiting from out of town this past week and we could not agree on a place to eat to I mentioned this place and we all decided to try it since none of us had been here yet. I was pretty impressed with the overall decoration of the place — lot’s of things to read and look at while waiting to be sat/​waiting for food.
We were sat within 5 minutes and got to sit in an old trolley that apparently came from the original Spaghetti Warehouse. Our waiter, Topher, was very knowledgeable and told us a little about the history of the place. I could tell the building was old and heard rumors it was haunted so we quizzed him a little about it and were told there are several rumors floating around about the place but he wasn’t sure if he believed them or not, specifically the one regarding a tunnel that runs from the basement of Speakeasy to the Warehouse.
They had really good dinner specials that included endless soup and/​or salad, appetizer, entrée and a desert for around $ 14 bucks at the most for each person. I ended up getting a house salad w/​bleu cheese (yum), 15-​layer lasagna (def yum), stuffed mushrooms (a bit on the cold side but still pretty tasty), and the pecan and chocolate tart (would have tasted better warm with some vanilla ice cream on top).
Overall, it was a good experience and I will definitely recommend it to others.

Wow. what a joke. The menu selection seemed fine, and the prices reasonable. That was about it for the pleasantries.
Our sever flat out told us the soup warmer was broken and the salad was slimy and didnt offer an alternative for the endless proportions that come with the meal. After watching plenty of tables around us enjoyed their S&S…really?
Then the worst happened, my beer ran out. Alright so things were pretty much rock bottom at this point. Our server hadn’t been seen in 20 minutes.
TaaDaa
Our entrees appeared. Judging by how absolutely cold my calamari was, (try eating cold calamari sometime) he had neglected our food for quite some time after it was ready. It was brought out by the kitchen ACs. Only after this did he stop by…
Well the manager got things cleared up to the best of his ability. There is only so much you can do to polish a turd though.

I went here with a friend for lunch, and after reading the Unilocal reviews I didn’t expect much. I also expected a long wait for mediocre food.
We were seated right away and our drinks and hot bread were quickly brought to the table. The restaurant was pretty empty and nobody was sitting in the traincar where I’d hoped we’d be seated. No matter to me, I was happy enough in our dim corner.
The waitress was nice enough to accept our coupon and even brought an extra salad for me because I’d suggested giving mine to my friend. (I’m picky about salads and wasn’t in the mood for one anyway) When the salads came out, I wasn’t surprised by the mound of iceberg lettuce, but I did enjoy the nice fat, tomato on top.
My friend had the mushrrom appetizers as her lunch, and there was so much on the plate she ended up taking half of it to go. I ordered a coffee and the veggie lasagna. It wasn’t bad, but it seemed they took a can of diced tomatoes and dumped it on top. There was tomato water swimming around my plate– not appetizing.
I wondered what was lurking underneath, and it turned out to be a perfectly fine lasagna. The mountain of tomatoes was pretty ridiculous (and I do like tomatoes) but if you scrape them off, there is a salvagable lunch there. The manager made his rounds and asked if everything was okay, and it was okay enough so I didn’t complain.
Besides, it was my friends b-​day and I didn’t want to rain tomato water on her parade.
Overall, we had a good experience and the bill came to $ 15 for the two of us. I do prefer the Spaghetti Warehouse in Dallas to this one for ambiance, but I wouldn’t mind coming back with my kiddo– she’d dig this place.
4 stars for emailing me a coupon for a free appetizer with entrée!

Major suckage.
Before I tell you why, here are some details:
1. Interior looks like a cheesy «spaghetti western» — wakka wakka — but it does.
2. All sorts of photos and themed antique crap are slapped onto the dark wood walls.
3. A trolley sits in the middle of the main dining hall. Sweet.
4. You’re ignored at the entrance until you walk around and search for someone to help you out (first clue we should have made a u-​turn).
I’m going to guess that the main dining room was closed off because they weren’t busy. My best friend and I were seated in a small section along with what seemed to be a school group of young kids, some old people, and a few couples. It’s always annoying when that happens and you can hear the surrounding tables’ conversations, but das ist Leben.
You can choose soup or salad with your meal.
I picked the minestrone soup to accompany my 15-​layer lasagna. My minestrone was like water with pieces of dirt in it. Minestrone is one of my favorite soups, but the minestrone before me was flavorless. The 15-​layer lasagna was mediocre, and liquid/​water seemed to be coming out of it from everywhere. It diluted the flavor even further.
My best friend had calamari as an appetizer and I nibbled on some. It was okay — just like anywhere else. Just there.
The service sucks. It probably sucks to work here, but still — doesn’t excuse the apathetic and annoyed attitudes of the staff.

Really don’t like this place and I have been here many times for different events. (Really don’t see why people keep picking this place to go eat at.) You can definitely find better Italian food somewhere else.
Things I have tried:
Spaghetti and Meatballs: They give you 3 meatballs along with it and I will say some times it’s a hit or miss with the dish. Sauce is sometimes lacking in flavor. Some times they don’t give you enough sauce to go with your spaghetti, which is okay because you can ask for some more. But some times the sauce is just plain watery… don’t know how you can fix that…
15 Layered Lasagna: Pretty good. Probably one of the only things I don’t mind eating there. Cute how they stick an Italian flag in it.
Manicotti: There is no meat in this dish and way to much cheese for my liking. I got bored of this dish rather quickly. I don’t think I finished it and I never ordered it again.
Fettuccini Alfredo: Very good to bad if you go as an event they don’t allow you to order this as one of the options anymore.
Also with the spaghetti and meatballs review, I have also tried it with the meat sauce and the marinara sauce and I found that those sauces can be watery some times as well. Definitely ate here to much for me to ever want to come back here on my own. There are just better Italian restaurant out there where I don’t have to come back to this one.

Not bad for what it is. If you are accustomed to more authentic Italian food, or if you’re a pretentious eater, you won’t be impressed. The sauce is watery and overly sweet but the rest of the dish shows a lot of effort. If you haven’t had Italian in a long time, or if you just want a quick descent and inexpensive meal, then go for it. It’s a nice atmosphere and it really isn’t bad.

The description of the Vegetable Garden Lasagne, directly from their menu:
«You’ll think you’re in the Garden of Eatin’ when you cut through layer after layer of fresh veggies, lasagne noodles, ricotta, mozzarella and Romano cheeses — all topped with marinara.»
Lies.
There was one small layer of spinach and that was the extent of the veggies in the vegetable lasagne. Some zucchini, maybe peppers too would have been nice. But no, just spinach.

I went here for dinner with a friend after a loooooong day at SXSW Interactive. I had the chili spaghetti and it hit the spot. It was a lot of food for the price, which I definitely appreciated since I had only eaten a granola bar very early on in the day. I also ordered a frozen sangria, which was very good (and DEFINITELY needed!). Our server was very friendly and suggested several local spots for us to check out. I wouldn’t go out of my way to dine here again, but it will certainly do in a pinch!

Alright, so the pomodoro that I ordered looked NOTHING like the picture in the menu. It turned out to be crappy store bought pasta, in a bland… soup like sauce. Funny how the menu says it’s hand pinched.
And to top it off, a roach flew onto our table! HAHAHAHHA… WHAT?
This place is a joke, sorry for the harshness, but really… it is.

Okay, first of all– in the spirit of full disclosure, every time I drive by here I like to pretend it’s called The Spaghetti Whorehouse. I don’t know why, but it makes me laugh. We went here for a small family get together– you know the kind where you have to pick a «safe, everyone will be happy, even though it’s going to be terribly bland» kind of place? And yes, I do prefer to take people to restaurants that have local flavor, but sometimes you just know you’re not gonna win with that tactic.
So, here goes: the fried zucchini appetizers were soggy and devoid of any seasoning, including the simplest of breading or salt and pepper. I thought I was splurging on my no fried foods diet, and for this? Geez. The Caesar salad was drenched in dressing and cheap parmesan and flavorless croutons (but hey! they didn’t skimp on them!) The table bread they brought out was cold and hard. And I don’t give even a tiny amount of thought to the premise that this place is «moderately priced.» Who cares how much it costs if it tastes bad?
To be fair, I will say this, our waiter was very nice and alert, not to mention quite knowledgeable on Olympic curling. But a great waiter does not a great restaurant make.
Someone said on the way out «well, would you have preferred Chile’s?» And I was thinking… actually, yes! And that says a lot.
Next time, I will go down kicking and screaming to take them to Romeo’s, Frank and Angie’s, or Home Slice if they must have Italian. I advise you to do the same!

I hadn’t set foot in a Spaghetti Warehouse before today since Salt Lake City, 1990. All I remember about that experience is that I liked the spumoni, and that the gender names on the bathroom doors were almost unrecognizably carved into wooden planks. I thought the «Gents» sign said «Cents», and I began rooting through my pockets for spare change. Hey, Utah’s weird; they might have pay toilets. Thankfully, I quickly found the women’s restroom, but I digress. I have no idea what entrée I ordered, or if I liked it.
There is a reason for that: the food is just average.
I admit, I was downright scared of completely wasting my lunch time and money on this place, based on the reviews I’d read here. I didn’t think it was as bad as most of you said it was. Then again, I didn’t pay $ 35 to attend dinner theater at Spaghetti Warehouse like a lot of you did. Had I done so, I would have expected a much better experience.
I got my food to go, which I’d called in ahead, so it was ready to go when I got there. I got out of there for under $ 8. I think that’s really saying something for downtown. I have spent the last couple of weeks, since I started my new job, looking for decent cheap places to eat and have come up almost empty-​handed.
Fettucine alfredo and wedding soup is what I got. The soup was much better than I thought it would be. I had never eaten wedding soup before, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I didn’t love it, but I liked it. As for my entrée, Macaroni Grill has better tasting fettucine, but it’s also more expensive. I did have trouble curling the fettucine around my fork, so I pretty much had to cut it up to eat it. At first I thought the portion was skimpy, but I couldn’t finish it so it was obviously more than enough. And, of course, there was bread and soup to be had.
If I’m at home craving Italian food, I’ll go to Macaroni Grill or Carrabba’s or will cook my own. Since Spaghetti Warehouse is close to my office, though, I can see myself walking over there again.

I never got our waiter’s name today, likely because he forgot to give it to us, like everything else during our visit. We were there for the express lunch, and it was everything but that. I think our waiter may have been stoned, and he was maintaining his high in between making visits to our table. He was most definitely a mono-​tasker. He couldn’t take our drink order and food order at the same time. He would take forever to return to the table, and it wasn’t even busy. He passed out the food to the wrong people, and when one of my colleagues asked for a refill on her tea, but in a to-​go cup, he brought her a to-​go cup with ice in it only — not a hint of tea. When she asked him for the tea, he said he forgot. She asked for the tea, he returned with the cup, maybe a minute transpired — good evidence that he might be Mr. Toke-​a-​Lot.
Added to the bad service, the food is just so-​so. I got the spicy meat sauce and spaghetti, which was not spicy at all. I had to add copious amounts of red pepper to the dish (of course, red pepper that I had to remind my waiter to bring). My friends got the baked penned and grilled chicken caesar salad, and they said their stuff was good. Mine didn’t taste bad, but it didn’t wow me either. They get two stars because it’s cheap.

I’ve heard that this place was bad, but I thought that it couldn’t be that bad. All I had was the spaghetti and it was rather bland and came with harly any sauce. Maybe other things are better, but spaghetti is hard to get wrong.
It was cheap though — $ 9

Its good food. It really is. I actually love the food. Its not going to be the real flavor of Italy, but for me, I personally dont care.
What I do care for though is the parking. It sucks. Since this place is downtown you got to actually be in a Buddhist calm like trance as you try to find parking. So recommend you read Eckhart Tolle book a New Earth. Thats it. Simple huh? I heart the Warehouse of Spaghetti!

I like the food here, but I’m told I eat like a little kid. The food is plain. There are reasons to eat here, though. First, the bread comes out hot. I usually eat a couple of loaves by myself. Then I don’t mind so much that the rest of the meal is… not special.
The place is huge. Other than the night of the Obama rally downtown, I’ve never had to wait. (That night, no joke, we were on the waiting list behind a party of 62, a party of 44, and about 20 other groups.) You can go there drunk and not be embarrassed or inhibited. Sure, it may be a «family» establishment, but they can seat you in your own section. It’s also a very solid meal to eat before drinking.
Did I mention the hot bread? I guess I’m out of reasons to eat there. It’s hard for me to find people to eat there with me, but I keep trying anyhow.

Reminds me exactly of the Spaghetti Factory. Maybe the partners got into an argument and branched out? Who knows. But everything has a familiar hint: the railroad cars in the restaurant; the garlic «butter» that comes with the bread; the really cheap prices; etc.
So we didn’t come here expecting excellent regional Italian cuisine but to be honest, this place was actually good. The food was decent and the value was more than great. I got the lasagna (supposedly it’s 15 layers or so) and fettuccine Alfredo combo plate which was about $ 12. I can eat more than Wilbur but this was a lot of food so we ended up taking it home, about half our plate.
The lasagna (again, it’s not your long-​lost Italian Aunt Giuseppina’s lasagna) but it’s good. The meat sauce is thick and hearty and they weren’t scared to put in a lot of ground beef. Nor were they stingy with the cheese — it was just pounded with ricotta and mozzarella cheese.
Surprisingly, the fettuccine Alfredo was non-​touristy and non-​Gringo-​y and tasted somewhat «authentic.» It wasn’t heavily salted like most American Alfredo sauces. Their Alfredo sauce was rich and buttery and slightly bland (which Alfredo should be).
Helpful, friendly service. Quite strange really; at most places you’d expect really rude service for such cheap food but out waitress was really friendly and professional and the bus boys were very professional as well (e.g. plates immediately cleared, water immediately re-​filled, bread immediately replenished, all without interrupting your conversation).