Romano’s Macaroni Grill

Can’t believe all the bad reviews on this place. If I’d read the reviews before coming I’d gone somewhere else. Let me say the food was great as well as the service. We brought some out of town friends and everybody enjoyed the food. I had a salad other house dressing and blackened chicken Parmesan chicken. It was great! Highly recommend.

We ordered the Italian Bake and Blackened Chicken Parmigiana and were extremely disappointed with both meals. The Italian Bake and the capellini pasta that came with the ‘new’ Blackened Chicken Parmigiana were WAY TOO SPICY TO ENJOY. The chicken parmigiana was just ok, a little greasy. There were lots of red pepper flakes in the capellini and neither item description on the menu mentions being spicy. It was so hot I mentioned it to our waitress, named Clarisse, and she could have cared less. There was no offer to fix another side of pasta without the heat or tame down the heat on the Italian bake. The only good thing about the meal was that we were there on a Thurs night and the bottle of wine we ordered was half price. Don’t go unless you can tolerate really spicy food. If you can’t, then expressly tell your server, hopefully not Clarisse, that you don’t want it spicy when you order. Now I wish I had talked to a manager because now we definitely won’t be back.

Rather disappointed. I have only been to one other Macaroni Grill and the food there was far better.
I personally make far better meatballs than the ones I had here. They were rather bland and dry, very disappointing.
The one saving grace, our waitress. She was wonderful and right now I truly wish I could remember her name, she deserves the recognition. She was saying well past her shift and treated us as if we were her first customers of the day. Because of her alone, I may give this place a second chance.

Been to this location twice now and that is where I will be stopping with my visits. Both times I went I had the same experience. Very slow is being nice. We checked in and hostess stated a 30-​min wait, okay, not bad for a weekend, but there was 13 tables open during that whole time. We were seated and waited and waited, close to 20-​mins, until one of members of our party got up and went to a server and asked to get some water and that we where ready to placed our order. Finally, our server showed up and stated he was not aware they seated anyone at his table, which I would of believed, but I noticed him him walk by our table and us no less then four times. We ordered our appetizer and main meal. Then our appetizer showed up, we finished that and then our server who then stated to us that one of our members of our parties meal so no longer available due to running out of an item of it. She ordered another item on the menu and then we waited and waited for the main meal to show. I guess the only good thing is we got a comp dessert for the problems. Which will not change my mind in coming back. This goes on the «do not go to» list now.

Service was great but I didn’t like the taste of the food. It was either too strong or too weak. The bathrooms were really clean though and I did appreciate that.

Hubby and I came here with a $ 25 gift card for our fifth wedding anniversary… and it was just not our thing. The service was great, the waiter, Michale, and management, Kinon, attentive, but the food just fell flat.
I have always thought this place was a really high class fancy place but was actually pretty amused to find it to be more quirky. Each table is covered with paper which both the waiters and management (and customers!) can write on with crayons. That was cute.
Every table gets bread with olive oil and you are supposed to break it first with your hands for good luck (bad luck if you cut it). That was a nice touch though the bread was super salty on top. I also liked that the menu is a little more authentic than I am used to– for example instead of angel hair pasta they have cappelini, which is either the same thing or a variation.
We decided to go with salads– Caesar and Tina– instead of appetizers. I knew to stay away from the Bleu Cheese salad because I’ve recently discovered I don’t like Bleu Cheese (thank you Kroger for the free samples!) The Tina salad is the Florentine Salad without chicken. If I ever am back I will want to get mine without capers. The Lemon-​Citrus dressing was good. I also really liked the few bites I stole of hubby’s Caesar salad, which I usually dislike.
For dinner, I got Chicken Under a Brick and hubby got Buffalo Chicken Parmesan. I really just did not like the skin on mine at all. After that, it was more tolerable but not necessarily tasty. Hubby’s was too tasty and became overwhelming after a few bites. My side of Cappelini pasta with Vodka sauce tasted ok but much better with parmesan cheese mixed into it.
Loved:
— Caesar Salad
— Tina Salad
— Cappelini Pasta with Vodka Sauce (and parmesan cheese)
Ok:
— Bread
— Broccolini
Disliked:
— Bleu Cheese
— Buffalo Chicken Parmesan
— Capers
— Chicken Under a Brick

Asked our server to clear our table of the bottle of olive oil and unnecessary plates. She answered back as asking us whether we want the salt and pepper taken off our table. Service was slow. Found hair on the bread of the brushetta. Waitress was always in a hurry and needed to be asked if what we needed. The food was unappealing. Too much garlic in one dish, pasta tasted under cooked. From out of town. Would not recommend this place. At 6pm, this place had 4 tables and meanwhile other restaurants
in the area were busy. Wonder why.

The service was good but the food wasn’t. My chicken was very overcooked and the cheesecake was obviously of the hurriedly unfrozen variety. I understand that they will be closing when there lease is up. With crappy food like this, I understand why they didn’t make it here. There is too much good food in Memphis for mediocre restaurants to survive.

It’s ok. The service was average and so was the food. I had one of their fresh bronze-​cut pasta dishes. It was good but not great. The bread was not that great; it tasted like it had been frozen and heated, or at least not freshly baked. The redeeming factor was the three-​tier tiramisu, actually. After the experience I had had so far, I was not expecting a good tiramisu. I get tiramisu at pretty much every italian place I go to. It was actually one of the better ones I’ve had in Memphis. The atmosphere was ok but it felt confused. It felt like they wanted a cozy Mediterranean interior but lacked ambience in favor of making it family friendly. Overall, it was alright, but I’d rather go to Olive Garden if I had to choose between the two, and neither if I wanted good, authentic Italian.

macaroni grill is always good, always consistent. lobster ravioli was delicious. wife had chicken under a brick. it was huge and scrumptious. gus our server was great, smiling, great attitude. i wish more servers had his personality and energy. i will be back.

Very disappointing experience. My family ate here for lunch as we passed through Memphis since there isn’t a Macaroni’s Grill close to our home. The restaurant had about 12 – 13 tables with customers & the rest of the restaurant was empty. With a restaurant that slow I would expect far more superior service and food quality than what we got. For starters, we had to ask for bread… It was difficult trying to occupy two hungry little ones while we waited. My wife and I got our salads, which were good. Then another server brought my daughter’s lunch (chicken tenders) which we thought was great at first because we thought they were being attentive to our kids being hungry. Well, that wasn’t the case. Our daughter thankfully was in a sharing mood and let her brother eat off her plate. Then my wife and I waited and waited for our food… Our server apologized and said the kitchen was backed up. Really? You have 3 people working in the kitchen and a very slow restaurant and they can’t keep up? Finally my wife & I had our food delivered, but not my son. Our food wasn’t bad but it wasn’t good either. By the time we finished my son’s spaghetti arrived. We ended up boxing it up because we were over it and wanted to get back on the road. They should have comped the spaghetti at the very least but it wasn’t offered and we didn’t feel like bringing it up to a manager.
Also, the restaurant needs a deep cleaning. Floors are sticky throughout and the bathrooms are gross. Don’t think we will be returning anytime soon.

AMAZING SERVICE.
I asked for a no/​low carb dish (at a pasta restaurant!) what they made for me was OUT OF THIS WORLD. I’m in competitive fitness competitions, so my diet is tricky. They were more than accommodating. And the food was unbelievable. Very helpful staff. And amazing food. Wonderful atmosphere. Best lunch I’ve had in a long time.

Wanted to try something new instead of always going to Olive Garden… wish we hadn’t. The food was just not good. From the start the bread came out full of rosemary which was terrible. Would have much rather had plain garlic bread. Our server was very nice and told us about a lot of things since we told him we had never been. And when i ordered a meal without mushrooms he warned me that it would take away a lot of the flavor and I’m glad he told me because they were the one good thing about it. My mom ordered a trio sampler and nothing stood out. We have no plans to return because the food just didn’t leave a very memorable impression. The actual restaurant and staff were fine just not good food.

The service was really great. The waitress was really nice, and we got all of our food and drinks really fast. All of our appetizers were great, and I was quite excited about the entrée. I got the lobster ravioli, and was very disappointed. It was not edible. Something in the ravioli was hard and crunchy, and tasted gross. I know it wasn’t lobster because it didn’t taste like lobster. I was really disappointed and I most likely won’t eat there again.

Out of three entrees, two were brought out cold. Service was spotty… it’s just not as good as it used to be.

Lunch — had the sea bass — I would NOT order it again — fishy and over cooked. The wine was was half price and the service was good otherwise it would have been 2 stars.

We had dinner tonight at Macaroni Grill and this is the first time I was extremely disappointed with my dish. I had the sea bass and was not impresses at all. It was dry Amd felt like it was warmed over. Additionally, it took us 30 mins to receive our entrees. The service and atmosphere was good but it will probably be anther couple of year before I visit again. I put three stars because my wife and son enjoyed there dishes but my wife was extremely disappointed in the delay of our food.

I always feel like there is a very limited menu here and it is expensive for what it is. and the SALT in the food and soups! I do like the sea bass and one of the chicken dishes. Personally I never eat here. We have friends who like to eat here and we go since they enjoy it. The experience is always nice. It is very difficult to get refills on coffee. For some reason the servers just do not refill the coffee more than once, if you can get them to do even that.
It dos have a nice atmosphere and the staff is normally very courteous and (except for the coffee refills) good. Not my favorite place, to say the least.

On any given day, I prefer local establishments to chain restaurants. I like keeping my money in the community, and usually find non-​chain restaurants to have far more interesting food than their chain brethren. That being said, I’m also not one of those «chain restaurants are from the devil» sort — there is a time and a place for them, and if you know what to order, the food can be quite good.
Enter Macaroni Grill. I admit to liking the place — it’s Americanized Italian-​style food, and also a chain restaurant, but the food is tasty.
Atmosphere first — sit in the bar area, not the restaurant itself. I find the restaurant to be too loud — it’s cavernous and echo-​y, and if it’s more than a quarter full, it feels like the noise bounces on top of itself straight to your eardrums. The noise is perfect if you have, um, «exuberant» small children — but not so much if you’re trying to have a conversation with a date. Also, periodically a singer comes around and sings a rough approximation of operatic Italian. I appreciate live music as much as anyone, but the singer is generally quite loud. In a restaurant where a pin drop can seem like an anvil, this is not conducive to enjoying one’s meal.
The bar is much quieter and more intimate with a few booths, a large bar, and a couple other tables. Service tends to be better, too. There are a few TVs showing sports, but they’re not large or intrusive. It feels like an entirely different restaurant.
The other reason you should sit in the bar is their excellent happy hour. From 5 – 7 daily, you can get $ 3 giant glasses of house wine, $ 3 domestic beer, specially priced cocktails and, best of all, $ 5 pizzas. On Thursdays, they also offer half-​priced bottles of wine. There are three pizzas to choose from — sausage, margherita, and pepperoni. They’re huge and have a perfect crackly thin crust. The only confusing thing about the happy hour pizzas is that the flatbreads aren’t included in the $ 5 special, though they’re grouped with the pizzas on the menu.
So, what else to order?
You’re brought out a loaf of their peasant-​style bread with a dish of olive oil and pepper for dunking. The bread is good, but try not to fill up on it — you have eating to do!
Some of my favorites:
Mediterranean Olives — A mix of olives marinated with oil, roasted garlic, parsley, roasted peppers and lemon zest. I eat these embarrassingly fast — if there are more than two olive lovers at your table, I suggest you get two orders.
Oven Fired Artichoke Hearts — Roasted artichoke hearts topped with shredded parmesan cheese and served with aioli. Like the olives, these don’t last long around me.
Wild Mushroom and Goat Cheese Flatbread — I tried this one night at my server’s urging, and now I have a hard time ordering anything else. The caramelized onions and truffle oil send this dish over the top, and all of the flatbreads have the same excellent crust as the pizzas. This thing is enormous and more than enough to split or have plenty leftover. Unless you’re me, then you *might* have a tendency to eat the whole thing. Oops.
Chicken Under A Brick — Cool name, wonderful dish. It’s unlike anything else on their menu, and in a really good way. The chicken has great flavor, and everything works deliciously with everything else. A red peppery diavola sauce is served on the side — it’s good, but unnecessary. I believe it’s also the only dish on the menu to feature both white and dark meat chicken, if you’re interested in that sort of thing.
Create Your Own Pasta — Exactly what it sounds like. Pick your pasta shape, sauce, toppings, and meat (if you want it). Tons of options.
They also have the standards seen at most American Italian restaurants — Chicken (or Eggplant) Parmesan, Chicken Marsala, Caprese salad, Lasagna, Fettucine Alfredo, etc. It’s solid food and huge portions. You can add a salad for a few bucks extra — house, Caesar, or bibb & blue. I’ve only had the house salad, and it’s fresh and generously portioned, but nothing terribly special.
I can’t talk about the desserts, as I’m always too full for them, but I’d imagine they’re good too. All in all, Macaroni Grill is a decent choice for a dinner out. The food is nothing ground-​breaking, but they do an excellent job with what they have, and there should be something to please just about anyone.
Insider tips:
– Their house wine is served in a very cold tumbler instead of a proper wine glass. I find it uncomfortable to hold due to the icy feeling, so I always ask for it in a regular wine glass and it’s never a problem.
– If you create your own pasta dish, get the pomodoro or arrabbiata sauce but ask for a bit of basil pesto on top. It really rounds out the flavor.

When it comes to Italian chain restaurants, this is my favorite place. The food is always good, it’s plenty, u can get the same thing at expensive restaurants for double teh price and sometimes with less flavor, yummy desserts, yummy bellinis, and the best bread ever.
It’s good for parties, kids, family, casual we’ve been dating for a long time and I don’t have to impress you but I like this place kinda place.
And people tip your servers 20% and don’t expect to be served the same here as you are in lets say Ruth Chris (I don’t even like that place but they charge enough to kiss your a$$ till tomorrow).
Anyway, this place is yummy, cozy, and you know what to expect.