Marie Callendar’s Restaurant & Bakery

Horrible service. My family and i waited to be seated for an extended amount of tome without even being acknowledged! The worst part is that the employees saw us and ignored our presence. We will not return to this restaurant. It was my birthday and we were excited to have a nice lunch, but instead we were treated with disrespect when we confronted a manager about not being noticed.

We bought a pie for super bowl and cut into it and it was burnt! The whole bottom of the pie was burned. Not only that but it was also watery. probably one of the most nastiest pies I’ve had from there.

i ordered artichoke chicken. and kept trying to chew it. very hard and overcooked or reheated. they refunded 10 dollars .but wasnt hungry after that. they would have givin me something else. wifes food was okay. disapointing xmas meal.

The food here is hit or miss but most importantly, they have twice messed up my takeout order. One time I ordered a lemon cream cheese pie and got home to discover it was lemon sour cream. This week, I ordered a bowl of navy bean soup, only to get home and discover they had given me potato cheese. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, I stop going to your restaurant. I should have double checked, but I should not HAVE to double check. As far as I am concerned they owe me the right food when I pay them for it.
Also, the website states they have 50% off appetizers during happy hour, starting at 3pm, but they refused to honor their own promotion.

Flys all over the restaurant got salad bar and half way finished seeing something moving in my salad a half dead fly no manager to come to the table nothing i will never go back there ever again and they never changed out the salad i watched they said they did but no they didnt

We picked up an apple pie this evening & it was awful. Not fresh at all & with a chemical after taste. I called them about it & they offered to exchange or refund the pie & mentioned that they sold 60 pies today. Go figure…

Watch out for this one folks! I have been a MC fan for decades — and all over SoCal — so it took me by surprise when faced with a limited food selection and an extra 15 — 30% markup on their prices. When I asked what that was all about, the explanation offered was that this is a franchise store instead of the corporate locations I must have been visiting.
Nothing special about the food or service, except the nostalgic look and feel of a throwback (60/​70s) Marie Calendar’s restaurant coupled with futuristic inflationary prices.

We went in on Turkey Day. They were only offering turkey or ham on this day. We got the turkey and let me tell ya it was terrible. Even the drinks were terrible we got straw/​lemonade TOO soury. My guests and i didn’t like the yams & baby carrots they had NO flavor. Way over price for the crap we got totaling $ 75.87. Will never ever dine here ever again. Should have gone to COCO’S they have special for Turkey Day.

I hadn’t been to a Marie Callendar’s for several years, but today my mom and I went to lunch there. We both had the salad bar and everything was fresh and good. Good selection of salad fixings. I think I would go up to 3.5 stars If I could. Good salad, soup and fruit.

I came here with my ex (yes, we’re friends-​sort of) because I was too tired to drive to where I really wanted to go. Plus, Marie Callendars always has good home-​cooked food… or so I thought…
I was a little hungry, but not starving and toyed with the idea of getting a salad, but finally settled on the pot roast, since it looked so damn good in the menu, I wanted to lick the picture! Yum! Plus, I haven’t had pot roast in I don’t know how long, so I figured I would eat some and take the rest for lunch the next day. My ex settled on some kind of steak sandwich.
Well, when the food came out… Amber no wanna lick no more… It was basically burnt! The plate was very hot and I could tell that they warmed the food on the plate, but it did not taste fresh. It tasted more like it had been sitting all day, if not a couple days. The mashed potatoes… well, I didn’t get to eat too much of those because I guess it had been in the warmer for so long that it had become hard and gummy, sticking to the plate. So on top is what’s left of the fluffy mashed potatoes, then the gummy section, then the hard section. If you’ve ever had mashed potatoes like this, you know what I mean. So I could only eat so much before I hit that gummy and then hard stage. The gravy was very bland. So disappointed… I was getting upset by this point, and then I thought… maybe the meat will vindicate this dish! No! Hell no! It didn’t… Even though the meat was in gravy, it was hard and stiff. Like sharp, sticking you in the mouth-​stiff. The top layer of the meat looked soft, but the bottom wasn’t. It was… BURNT, right along with my potatoes! By this point, I’m super irritated and this is just MY plate! I haven’t even told you around his plate, yet!
His steak sandwich (tri-​tip), I believe looked gross!!! I told him so, too and he gave me this «Shit…I know, righttt, but lemme just try it!!» kind of look. First of all. The sandwich itself was very plain. There was hardly any BBQ sauce. In fact, you could only see the little smidgen of sauce if you removed the bread. The bread was straight out of the bag… not toasted or anything. The meat… the meat… the meat… was a brownish gray! «Huh?» you say…“Oh most definitely,” I say. It was so dry and so old looking that you could see that it was brown and fresh at one point and then gray the next, because it was OLD! He said it tasted alright, but it was dry. He still ate it… the one half, anyway… ghetto mentality, I guess. Don’t let food go to waste! Even he felt disgusted by it, saying that it was the worst attempt at a tri tip sandwich that he’d ever had and this is coming from a southern white guy who knows flavor, himself and tries to give folks the benefit of the doubt, but damn! This is just plain bad!
The highlight was the pie that we ordered to go. Their pies are always good. The poor server was nice, as well. We left her a good tip, because she checked on us as much as she could and kept refilling my exes’ tea. It’s not her fault the food sucked a$$! I’m so cool on this place. I will only go here for the pie from now on, unless I find a better place for that, too!

It was a Friday night and my fiancé and I decided to stop by Marie Calendar’s for a quick appetizer and dessert (they have the BEST pies of course!). We walked in 45 minutes BEFORE closing, waited about 5 minutes before we were asked to be seated and the gentleman who helped us looked at his watch (obviously a bit annoyed) before seating us. I thought this was completely uncalled for and very rude considering they didn’t close for 45 more minutes. Little did he know we did not plan on having a large meal and would have been out before closing.
We ended up leaving. I will not support an establishment where I am treated in this way. Customer service needs improvement ASAP!

Best beef barley soup, wish it wasn’t only available on Saturdays but hey I don’t need it every day I guess. But mainly this review is for the service, everyone always works hard and is very kind especially the hostesses !!!

BAD FOOD, EVEN WORSE MANAGEMENT!
I am writing this review for my 84-​year-​old parents. They’ve been going to Marie Callendar’s restaurants since the 1960’s, and in fact, even take relatives who visit from another state. But not this restaurant.
They used to go to one on Hawthorne in Torrance that closed, and now there is one on Hawthorne a little farther away. Being a little farther away and they are 84, they decided to drive to the San Pedro restaurant, which is not as busy. WHAT A MISTAKE!
They’ve been ordering the same thing for years, the pot roast, and love it. They had had it a couple of weeks before at the Torrance restaurant and loved it.
This week, they ordered it and it was inedible. The meat was not of good quality and the taste was terrible. There was a large party next to them, and my mother said although the waitress was good with them, she was working very hard, and they chose not to disturb her. My mother said that she was worried if they made a fuss, it might spoil the time of the large party next to them too. My parents are old and my dad is hard of hearing, and they just preferred to pay their $ 40 and get out of there.
They took the meat only in a to-​go container to bring home to the dogs. When they arrived home and gave the meat to the dogs, they were shocked to find the dogs sniffed it and wouldn’t eat it either. At that point, they were afraid there was something wrong with it and threw it in the garbage.
What makes this all even worse, I complained on Marie Callender’s website about this and received a phone call from a woman who identified herself by name but not title. She said the minute they received my complaint, they went in the back and prepared the pot roast meal and sampled it and it was WONDERFUL, and why didn’t they complain at the time!
I explained to her several times the circumstances, and that they are well aware of what the meal is supposed to look and taste like, and it didn’t, and even the dogs wouldn’t eat it – and all she did was say they made one out of the same stuff and it was WONDERFUL.
They’ve had this meal probably from before this woman was born, and she’s going to doubt the word of her customers? Some supervisor.
BAD FOOD, RUDE MANAGEMENT!

Pleasantly surprised. Hesitant due to the one star rating. But food and service was good. Would come back. A little expensive but it was fine.

Food — expensive and sub-​par. My bad for ordering the steak last time, but I didn’t even taste it because it could not be cut even with a steak knife. My last try. I used to come here years ago and it was a favorite. Now its just tired and bad.
Manager — was obviously annoyed when I didn’t accept the table right next to the servers path, despite the availability of open tables. When I sent my steak back, without eating it, he charged me for the vegetables (2 asparagus spears) and some bad greasy mashed potatoes. The non-​steak dinner cost almost $ 20 by the time he added it up.
Servers — nice kids, trying very hard in a crappy place.