Mario’s Pizzeria

We have lived in Orange for about 8 years now and have been eating at Mario’s for a while. I moved out from Charlottesville where there were many places to pick from, and I travel quite a bit for work around the country.
We have enjoyed everything we’ve had from Mario’s. I have a strict «No Buffet» rule (I worked in one about 20 years ago and have never eaten at one since). But everything we’ve ordered off the menu has been good. The pizza is New York Style and we haven’t had any problems with it. The service and staff are friendly as can be, and they have a weekly «Kids Night» on Wednesdays that can’t be beat. For FREE your kids get a slice of cheese pizza and they play a movie in a special party room. On top of that, as a parent you can get 2 slices of pizza and a drink for $ 3.99. We can take our entire family of 5 out for pizza and a movie for $ 8.
I’ve never had an issue with cleanliness or poor food quality. I know that anywhere and anyone can have an off day, so hopefully the other reviews on here were one-​off issues. Since we eat there fairly regularly, I can tell you that it’s worth stopping in — just order hot food off the menu! :-)

Food is fantastic. Fresh calzone is top of the line. However. I found a mosquito floating in my drink. Not on the top but in the bottom. Meaning it was either in the glass or mixed in to the drink. I’ll let you decide

Interesting combination of good and bad. We looked at the buffet and it was not at all tempting. They have an incredibly large menu that makes you wonder how any kitchen can produce so many dishes.
We ordered a fresh pepperoni pizza and salads from the kitchen. The pizza was very good indeed, with a very nice crispy crust– not too thick or thin. The Caesar salad had the dressing on the side. The house salad was described as having mushrooms and peppers, when it came we were surprised to find that the red and green bell peppers were were pickled, not fresh; it was very odd on a fresh salad. The waitress was friendly and attentive, we liked her very much. The restaurant is obviously on old place with old décor. It seemed clean enough, just nothing special. I would be very comfortable bringing small children here. We would certainly order a pizza again if in the area and in the mood for pizza.

If I could half star this place I would. Good customer service experience. Horrible food. Didn’t have a choice in dining so had to come here. The buffet looked old and worn. So decided to get the homemade lasagna. If it was homemade, it was made last month and kept frozen. Ground beef? I don’t know what it was but should have told me it was squirrel. It certainly wasn’t beef. People of Orange County, i feel bad for you.

We used to come top Mario’s all the time. We started working in NOVA again and hasn’t been here in a year. What a difference that time makes! The buffet looked like fake food on display. I don’t think that a single thing was edible, including the salad. The restaurant used to be full of customers at 7pm. We were the only ones there tonight.
I got the pizza steak and she, the stromboli. My pizza steak was done nicely. I added mushrooms to mine and they were fresh, not canned. The roll was toasted to hold up to the steak, cheese, and sauce. I saved half for later. The stromboli was a whole different world. First bite netted what seemed to be half of an unchopped onion… you know… the bottom that you didn’t trim enough so the root core is still there? Next came the sour green peppers. That was the second and last attempt to eat it.
We told the waiter about this and still had to ask for it to be taken off at the register. The «owner» (I say it this way because, darn it, Ignacio needs to come back!) grumbled about having to take it off, but did.
Unfortunately, we’ll not be going back unless we know the real Mario is back. His daughter just doesn’t care and it shows all over the restaurant.

Not much I can say but TERRIBLE food! The buffet food was dry and old and when I asked for my money back I got smarted off:-/

Can’t say too much bad about the place except skip the buffet unless you feel like salad and peel and eat shrimp. The staff is great and the owners are very friendly. The cheese steak and fried mushrooms are my two favorite things to have and although still good they aren’t great like they used to be. It remains one of my favorite spots but it just seemed so much better when it was at the little place it started in.

Terrible food but really nice staff.

Wonderful but took an hour for delivery, came w all the extras red pepper, parm, and extra sauce :0) tastes great, great price

Not bad and not great at the same time. I figured that based on reviews and a glance over at the buffet, I better play it safe and get a sandwich. I am glad I did. The buffet gets one star because of the unappealing and old food. I ordered from the menu and only ordered a tuna sub which was fine. It was a typical mayo-​based tuna salad on a sub roll with provolone, onion and tomato. Pizza slices were also ordered at our table. The pizza was plain cheese and was nothing special. Edible. Our waitress was very nice and took care of us. This is a good place for good service and simple food.

I went with some family who really wanted to try it out for some reason. I had my doubts, but they wouldn’t believe the other reviews. I got the buffet and the food was really terrible. Not only was it not fresh, but it was low quality food-​service type food. The pizza was overcooked, the Italian stuff was dried from sitting under a heat lamp for far too long, and anything fried was swimming in grease. Don’t waste your money.

I am a local resident and with the High Meals Tax, here in Orange, I usually just get a pizza for take out. It is the BEST tasting pizza around. They also include a styrofoam container for extra sauce and one with extra parmesan cheese. This is an every weekend dinner, so they have come to know us by name.
Marios pizza is by far better than Fabio’s in Gordonsville and better than Ciro’s in Culpeper.
I am not a fan of Buffet’s, so I can’t add any comments to that. When and if I give it a try, i will add an update!

All You Can Eat Pizza, Salad, Bar, Hot Seafood, Italian Entrees, and Desserts. How hard is it to mess that up? Well, it turns out it isn’t that hard at all. Nope, not hard at all. In fact, all you have to do is put food out at lunch that nobody wants and then just relax for the rest of the afternoon/​evening.
We were at Mario’s Pizzeria for over an hour. When we sat down there was part of one meat pizza and one dessert pizza available. They were rock hard and slimy at the same time. Pretty icky pizza. What sucked is that I kept waiting for more to come out. Waiting and waiting. None ever did. Ever.
So, we were left with the other warm dishes and salads. Pics of everything is uploaded with this review. None of it was very good and some of it was really bad. The fried seafood choices had clearly been sitting under the heat lamps for a while. Do you like your fried shrimp «crispy» without flavor? Olivia did take solace in the peel-​n-​eat shrimp. They were edible.
The lasagna, fried chicken, mac-​n-​cheese, pasta, and steak had all been sitting there for hours. We came at dinner time and it was quickly obvious why the place was so quiet. The quality of the food just was horrible since it had been out all day in those heated trays. The steak was especially tough and chewy. I couldn’t finish a small piece. Salad options were limited, but turned out to be the safest and therefore easiest.
To be honest, I feel pretty bad about giving Mario’s Pizzeria one star because the server who brought refills and cleared the plates was especially nice. She deserves better than this.
Note to self: Next time you go to an All-​You-​Can-​Eat place that doesn’t have any customers for dinner be prepared for some old, dry, hard, and generic food or just simply don’t go.
I should have known that. Mario’s Pizzeria has now jammed that little tidbit in my memory for ever. I’ll call it Mario’s Rule.