Mario’s Italian Cafe

The service is always good. The frustrating thing for me is the fact they serve gluten free pasta, however, the waitress told me all the sauces contain flour (gluten). If they can’t alter the recipes, simply don’t offer the gluten free pasta.

Waiters are very friendly and knowledgeable. Last nights dinner, however, NOT good as the chicken was like rubber. Used to be a favorite place to eat but not a

Have been to several Mario’s (LQ, PD & Indio) and no complaints about their food or service to date!
On this particular visit, we were celebrating a birthday! With a party of 15 & an hour notification… Mario’s took care of it all! Upon arriving, they were setup & ready to take care of us. The food was delicious, staff was friendly and attentive! And, food was well priced & portions are well sized!
I’m not Italian… so can’t concur with others on how authentic their cuisine is, but I honestly enjoy all I’ve tasted thus far and will definitely be back for more!
A few of our favs are: Calzones, Chicken Marsala or Fettuccine, but my All time fav: Chinese Chicken Salad

Tried this location for the first time the other day for lunch. The $ 5.95– 2slice pizza w/​salad lunch special is a deal, until you add $ 3.50 for a soda. The salad was good and nice sized, but the pizza slices are much smaller than normal. My biggest problem is the cleanliness of the café. The ceiling fans are covered in dirt, so imagine how much falls into your food. The walls are covered with fake grape vines to give it an italian café look, but they also are dusty, along with the kitchen towel hanging on the wall that i believe was once white. I would have loved to have let the owner know what i thought, but there website has no email contact on it.

I have been here at least 5 times thinking maybe it’s just me but this is the worst Italian food I’ve ever had… Garlic Bread not toasted. just a soggy mess… Eggplant and Chicken Parm all badder. and paper thin… trust me when I say that the Eggplant Parm in the freezer section of Trader Joe’s is far superior in flavor and substance…

We ate there with friends about 8:00 p.m. and had a great dinner. The prices are very reasonable and the waiter was terrific. Great italian food. Very large glasses of Chianti for $ 5. Ask for the salad to be chopped; it was another $ 2 I think but the salad was huge (shared with my wife) and delicious. Not many customers when we there there and it was easy to carry on a conversation.

Veterans were recognized today! Great service and delicious food! Haven’t been here for awhile but definitely coming back!

DH and I love Mario’s! We probably rely on them for dinner 1 – 2 times a week. We are never disappointed. The food is delicious! Ashley and Amanda (to-​go facilitaters) are so sweet and efficient. All the young ladies are great, actually. Their Unilocal rating is unjustifiably low. They did have consistency issues when they first opened (with making their plates the same as the other locations). However, I can honestly say, even with the frequency that we patronize this restaurant, we haven’t had a single complaint in 3 years. I’m confident their reviews will continue to show more positively moving forward. DH and I actually never mind being the one to go pick up the food because we really enjoy sipping on the gigantic glass of wine they offer. Finally, their lunch is a steal! For $ 6 you can’t get a decent meal at a drive thru, but you can at Mario’s!!!

I’m not sure why all the bad reviews, the food here is really good! There were five of us and we all loved our meals. The wait staff was really quick with our drinks and food and that yummy bread! We had the baked penne pasta (forgot what it was called), shrimp alfredo (shrimp was sooooo tender and fresh), and the cioppino pasta was amazing!

Look no further if you crave some authentic Italian grub. I enjoyed my Spaghetti Bolognese, but beware of ordering red wine in July. My Chianti was a bit too much at room temp.

Went in for lunch today. Ordered the chicken Parmesan sandwich. Looked awesome when it got to table. One small issue… The cook forgot to deep fry the raw breaded chicken. I thought I was going to die. Taking a bite of raw chicken is not a good feeling! Omg you can’t make this up! I was mortified. My guest was grossed out.

I can truly say that Mario’s is one of my favorite little joints for Americanized italian food. I understand the lower reviews, I do, I can say that with as many «hits» as I’ve experienced here there have also been a few «misses». If the location hadn’t been so promising I probably would have been like the rest of these people not giving it another try, lucky to say I kept trying Mario’s and I’ve found a lot of great meals!
Now for the basics…
Service: 5 stars– service here is awesome! No snooty waiters, friendly staff, they get the job done and my take out orders are always correct.
Atmosphere: 4 stars– fun, cheesy italian décor, definitely not «trendy» just good old fashion italian family vibes, I dig it. Outside patio has the misters which is a plus.
Food: 4 stars! Like I said above I’ve come to find many tasty dishes! Pizza here is off the hook! Sausage and meatball super yummy. Their dressings are also handmade and out of this world! Always get a side of ranch and the side salad with creamy italian cannot be beat! Also their calamari appetizer is really good, a little fishy but I like the more authentic taste like that…
Now for some honesty: stay away from the pasta dishes… I know that sounds like a sin to say at an italian restaurant but those are literally the dishes that make me second guess this place… not sure it’s their sauces or what but I am not a fan…
Ok now to end on a happy note: pricing 5 stars! Lunch specials can’t be beat! All ranging from $ 6 – 10 at a sit down italian restaurant id day that’s unheard of.

Enjoy the food, but the smell of the ammonia-​based cleaning fluid overpowers the air spoiling the dining experience. Happens every visit — they start spraying that strong cleaner as we are eating on the tables nearby. Find an odorless cleaning alternative, please!

Got my real last meal before heading over to Coachella. Pretty average BBQ chicken pizza if you ask me. A little messy, but it wasn’t bad! A little pricey if you ask me. It came out to $ 22

I had the Shrimp Alfredo. I don’t see where my $ 16.95 went in this dish. I suspect the shrimp was frozen, the Alfredo sauce wasn’t cheesy or creamy. Bland. Wife got the Veal Piccata. Chewy. Wine was ok, big pour. Servers were nice. We went towards closing time. Half way through our meal we could smell the cleaning agents they were using in the kitchen. For the price there are better places to go.

I don’t usually do this, that is give a poor review. I like the place and food in general is good but my experience with Veterans day was horrible.
I heard their ad on the radio here in the Coachella valley and thought about going there for Veterans day. The radio ad was that Veterans eat for free. Wow, ok that is great. Other places did the same thing all the way from Red Robin to Fantasy Springs.
So when I got there… there was a sign on the door with American Flags saying Veterans eat for free. OK…
In I went. I showed my Veterans Card, greeted nicely and sat down. I ordered an Ice Tea and fried Zucchini which I love. The server came over and asked if I was the Veteran, which I said yes and she gave me an menu.
When she came back I ordered something off the menu and she said «oh, you have to order from these small items for the Veterans deal»… which as ½ a salad, ½ a sandwich… etc.
They didn’t say anything about that on the radio ad or the door sign… I ordered a small salad, and my FREE meal cost me $ 7.93! I paid and went out.
Then it pissed me off on the bait and switch tactic and worse yet to our VETERANS??? WTF over.
So I looked for other places that honored our Veterans and found real offers not this bait and switch. I also talked to the head server to pass on my surprise to the owner and my contact info. Nothing from him! No contact… nothing!
Then I went onto their website and send them an email… that was 6 days ago to the writing of this review. Nothing from them yet.
So what do you think of a company that does this?
Is this something or somewhere you want to go to?
Not me and you can bet I’m going to be passing this around to every Veteran organization I can find and I’m in involved with them too!
I do like the place and food, don’t get me wrong… but their bait and switch plus neglect to engage me made me do this review.
For me… Their Veterans policy is all I need to realize to NOT do business here again.
If they come back and fix this, I’ll put a follow up review but to this date… they don’t care about our vets other than a way to bait and switch to get more revenue from the Vets on our most special day… Veterans day.

This place absolutely nourished, replenished, and nurtured me when I was completely Coachella’ed out.
Beyond really good Italian food (its authentic, yes, shockingly so for this area — very good), the wait staff looked out for me when I was a hungry, sandy, thirsty, hoarse, stinky, sunburned mess with a broken finger — emaciated from partying all weekend.
Beyond good service; compassionate human beings. Thank you Marios staff. Seriously.

Had their dinner special which included a house salad with ranch, a piece of garlic toast and the chicken alfredo. Service was decent and attentive. Place was busier than I would’ve expected for a 6PM dinner.
The house salad was rather small and completely smothered in ranch dressing, though the ranch dressing was decent. The garlic bread was a little odd, but edible. And the chicken alfredo was a bit overpowered with garlic. The sauce was a little on the runny side, but it too was edible.
Not anywhere close to the best Italian food I’ve had, but I would say it rates a very strong mediocre.

Yes, I am a fan…& not sure it could be any better elsewhere. Been to 3 of the multiple locations and without a doubt they’ve always been EXCELLENT! Now we normally order to-go…yet always good, totally as expected/ordered…can’t say the same thing for other places too many times.
Bottom line, it’s our first go-​to place in the desert area of Palm Springs/​Palm Desert/​La Quinta areas.
On a more personal side after attending the Palm Desert «Relay for Life» for the American Cancer Society I (personally) saw how Mario was giving back to his community by providing dinner that evening for all participants & the numbers where huge!. We’re big supporters of our own community on volunteering… I was truly impressed at Mario’s support!

Big, large, abundant — I mean HUGE portions. A family restaurant in a strip mall, it has outdoor seating, wall murals of Italy, and HUGE portions! Did I mention that?
I’ve had the Bolognese and the Chicken Primavera. Both were excellent (and large).
When you want casual eats, this is the place.