Romano’s Macaroni Grill

Gathering place to share, to meet, to know, to get to know. This dinner was a celebration of past, present and future for a sweet young barely 25 year old woman (who calls me Aunt Suzie — known her since she was a baby) who battled breast cancer & went into complete remission this past month.
Many people & cultures «define events through food» & associate food with feelings and identity. In ancient times, sharing one’s meal symbolized hospitality and goodwill. If one was breaking bread with someone, it indicated friendship, truce, fellowship, an alliance, & harmony. And I can’t think of a holiday that doesn’t center around or end in eating!
Therefore, celebratory meals will always remain part of human culture. And this dinner at Romano’s Macaroni Grill was truly celebratory!
Romano’s Macaroni Grill-​Gold Dust management (especially Chris & Tim) & staff handled our large party of nearly 50 people in an exemplary manner.
I was amazed by how smoothly the whole evening flowed (from when I arrived & escorted to check in table in back to a semi enclosed banquet room) & how well organized they handled such a large group in conjunction with H.O.W. Helping One Woman-​Scottsdale Chapter (honoring one woman who’s had a devastating loss in past 12 months) ‘Girls’ Night Out’, on the third Tuesday of every month.
I was presented with 3 main entrée choices with salad, bread, non-​alcoholic drink, tax & tip for such an amazingly great price. They even extended their happy hour prices with their glasses of wine with their signature honor system. If you needed anything or special requests/​changes; they immediately with friendly professionalism took care of it. My food was delicious.
They even donated a very impressive RAFFLE prize (red & white bottles of wine with a large bottle of olive oil). WOW! Seriously impressed with their caring & professionalism.
Will definitely recommend them for large parties, get togethers or fund raisers. Plus they have great specials like their Express Dinner Counter ‘dine in’ or to go $ 9 in 9 minutes or it’s free.

Very poor food. You could only taste garlic. Paid the bill in cash and change wasn’t returned. Simply taken as a tip. I’ll never go back.

I had lunch here and had the Parmesan Crusty chicken salad and it was good. Great service, not crowded. I would definitely go again

We’ve sort of given up on Macaroni Grill but gave them another try, because our grown kids had fond memories and wanted to come here a few weeks back. That was a good evening.
So with no drama I say, yesterday was a huge mistake.
Everything that could go wrong, did. Wrong orders, forgetful service, poorly prep’d food that was horrible and at times we were completely forgotten. I could could go, but.

I don’t know why my Mom wanted to come back here. Their service is really slow & the food is mediocre. We came twice in a Sunday with our family of 10 – 12 both times. One of them was Mother’s Day. (Their table/​set up & back room area works out well for my Elderly Dad in a wheel chair.)
It is beyond me how a large corporate chain can have such bad service! Our server was super sweet but our table of 10 was too much for her.
(We eat out at restaurants 5 – 6 times a week and know good service.)
They need bus boys to help the servers. They also apparently need managers that know how to run a restaurant. Our server didn’t get ANY HELP BRINGING OUT our food for 10 PEOPLE!!! SHE BROUGHT THEM OUT 2 AT A TIME & VERY SLOWLY! I got my food last and the first people were done eating already.
I never even saw a manager around. They never came by to see how our meal was going — most restaurants have a manager come by for larger parties.
BOTH VISITS THEY MESSED UP RUNNING THE CARDS. In April, the waiter ran my card for the whole bill on my card (when we had written out how much to put on 4 cards). They reversed the charge that day, but they NEVER TOLD ME they ran it & it TOOK 3 days to get the $ 300 credit back from the bank!
The reviews at all locations are low. The chain needs a major over-​haul before they go out of business!

I realize that this is a chain but I think all of the Italian restaurants over in this plaza are. In any event despite that and rather in contrast to Oreganos I have always gotten really great service here. I really like the $ 10 three course lunch special. Which is certainly not as fancy as it sounds but I like having starters and a salad with my entrée which would be too much food and out of my lunch budget at other places. So 5 stars on customer service and the lunch special, minus 1 because a couple of dishes I’ve tried were too greasy or a disappointing flavor combination On that; there is a jalapeño one in the appetizer section that I thought I would love which is awful, don’t get that one. Also the mushroom ravioli is very good but definitely towards the oily side and would be much better with a lighter touch.

My mother loves this place, God knows why, but we come here 5 – 6 times a year. This place stinks. Literally. Ladies, use the restroom at home because the one here smells like total ass.
Service is so so, conserve your beverage as your server will hover until your order is placed then reappear when you start chewing so you either have to wave at the empty glasses or eat the ice. They also have a bad habit of not clearing the dishes and dropping the check. My kids always want dessert and the servers rarely ask, oh you want a dessert menu? Ok.
Food is meh at best. Step above Olive Garden. Maybe.

Great Food at a reasonable price. Not sure what prior reviews are talking about. The service was great, food was delicious, nice clean relaxing restaurant. Can’t ask for more at this price point.

Ordered food to go while on vacation. I thought my grilled chicken & gluten free pasta was quite tasty! We only have have 1 location about 10 miles from home but never think of going there… It was a nice treat as good Gluten Free Anything is hard to find ANYWHERE!

We were so disappointed eating here tonight. This is our family goto place since it’s great for kids and the food is pretty good normally. We had to wait over 20 minutes for our drink order to arrive. We then waited an hour for our food to arrive and they forgot to bring one of our orders.
The manager had come over earlier and asked how things were and we told him our issues and how disappointed we were considering this was a special birthday dinner and he said he would make it right. The bill came and not one item was discounted for the poor service. Not even a free birthday desert.
We have been eating here with the kids for years. That ended today. Very disappointed with this restaurant.
Side note: we ended up bringing all the dinner home because we ended up eating so much bread waiting for dinner to arrive.

Horrible service had to wait 15 mins for anyone to see us. Went to a manager he forgot extra dressing, water etc. Waitress took drinks away and never brought refills then laughed about it when asked. This place needs to close down.

I have been eating at Macaroni Grill for years. While in TX, I ate at one almost every other night. I eat only whole wheat pasta, so gluten free and regular pasta is not for me. It even got where every one in the grill knew me. Then I moved to an area without Macaroni Grill. Yesterday, I went to this Macaroni Grill and to my surprise they do not have whole wheat possible. Therefore, I was not able to eat there. Heather (my server) was wonderful and very apologetic for not having what I wanted. Others were not too thrilled and let me know it.
I suppose the Macaroni Grill drops off of my favorite places to eat.

Worst service ever. Manager doesn’t seem to care that his servers are drowning and understaffed. Go elsewhere.

We have been here since 7 o’clock. It is now 8:41 and we have not received our FOOD!!! If there was a star for bad service… I would give them –5. There is no one to help anyone !! This place sucks and can’t get anything right. I wonder what they are going to charge us!!! Stay tune!!!
It’s 931 and we have not received our bill!!! They are breaking each bill by each person in our party.!! Oh he just showed up with bill!!! 932pm

Food was not good. So salty and bland. Plus the service was so slow and the waiter forgot couple of time for some items for us and they looked short staff. This was a great restaurant but ok now. I don’t think I will come back again. Only bright spot was they were very nice and kind.

Not the best pasta in the area, but for a quick or even full sit-​down lunch, I tend to come here often. They always deliver on the 7 minute express lunches and I personally believe the service is great. The food is always delicious in my opinion. Bottom-​line, being close to work, if I crave pasta I will very likely go here and I have done so over and over.

Terrible service. We were seated and drinks ordered at 5:15pm by 6:40pm the only think I had received was bread and my alcoholic beverage. Was in the area for my son’s football game and couldn’t even get the check fast enough to make it to the game on time. Very disappointed.
It wasn’t even busy. :(

Had an absolutely terrible experience at this Macaroni Grill.
I came here to celebrate my birthday with my family and boyfriend (keep in mind there were only four of us). Let it be known that Macaroni Grill was definitely far from my first of choices when it comes to a birthday meal/​celebration, but the reason we decided to come here is because this is one of the only places that will liquify my grandmother’s meals (due to physical/​dietary restrictions she has, she MUST have her foods liquified).
Anyhow, we were seated immediately and greeted by our server. There weren’t a ton of tables in the restaurant, but then again there weren’t a lot of servers there either. So it looked like he had his hands full. Drinks came out promptly. We ordered three appetizers: fried macaroni and cheese, a fondue dip, and fried zucchini chips. After about 45 minutes of waiting, they came out at different times. First the mac and cheese bites. There were five small 1″ or so cubes of macaroni that were served with an alfredo-​like sauce. Granted, they tasted okay, but for around $ 9 for this specific appetizer, the quantity to price ratio was definitely an issue for me. They were polished off by our table before our next appetizer even arrived. Ten minutes later, the fondue arrived. I personally didn’t like it, but everyone else said it was okay. Essentially it was just melted parmesan and mozzarella. Another app that wasn’t worth the high price tag. The best of the appetizers, the fried zucchini, came out about another 10 minutes later. There weren’t a lot of pieces to the entrée and they lacked a certain «wow» factor, so as I’m sure you can all guess, we weren’t too impressed with the first course.
For our entrees, my grandmother ordered the liquefied chicken alfredo (keep in mind she gave specific liquefication instructions that have been followed at this restaurant before), I ordered the spaghetti and meatballs, my mother ordered the lasagna, and my boyfriend ordered cheese ravioli with alfredo sauce. They came out all at different times. Like with three minute intervals in between the arrival of each entrée. Given that there were four of us, that was a considerably disappointing amount of time for food to come out after the appetizers (enough tim to go through four loaves of bread with olive oil). And, let’s not forget to mention that every single one of our meals was cold. Not warm. But cold. My boyfriend’s cheese ravioli were still frozen on the outside. My mother’s lasagna was lukewarm at best, and my spaghetti and meatballs were cold as well. My grandmother’s dish was the worst disappointment of them all as it was prepared incorrectly and was served at what seemed like a refrigerated temperature.
We notified our server of the problem and he did his best to take the meals back and have the kitchen re-​prepare them. When they came back there was legitimately no improvement with any of them. We flagged down a manager and spoke with him about what had happened, and he said that he would take care of us, like any manager would. We then saw him go to our server and verbally accuse him of the entire situation being his fault. Uhm. No, homie. If anything, you should be speaking with your back of house staff. And behind closed doors, because it is unacceptable to belittle an employee in front of guests.
Instead of having our food sent back to the kitchen a third time, we left two entrees and boxed the other two to take home without even eating them. The check then arrived, and the manager took off $ 8 from the check. The discount that was entered was a «referral comp» which didn’t even account for the cost of one of the appetizers. This was the biggest disappointment, as it was obvious that he didn’t want the GM to see how badly the dinner service was by comping the items that were truly messed up.
Most definitely not impressed with this trip and I have to say I will not be back. The quality of the food and the service at this place has gone downhill really quickly.

Food is OK. Decent taste. Chicken was weird looking though.

This is a review just for take out.
If you like to get high, go to McDonald’s and order a buffalo ranch mcchicken the buffalo chicken pasta from Mac grill is for you. It’s similar to a buffalo mcchicken but upgraded with cheese, spices, and pasta. It’s pretty dank. My compliments to the chefs.