Romano’s Macaroni Grill

It has closed its doors. No longer in business. Sign on door. No word how or why. But it’s closed. If anyone knows why you may want to add a review

Seriously disgusted with this place. I would give it no stars if I could. I came here with my hubby for a nice date night. I ordered a grilled chicken salad. What WASNT wrong with this salad. First off, how the heck do you mess up a salad? You literally had ONE job. The lettuce was wilted, the chicken was not grilled it was burnt, AND I didn’t get any dressing. Are you kidding? After asking 3 different times for ranching I FINALLY got a few drops. I have never been so disappointed with a business in my life. This location needs to close already. They don’t care about their customers and if they mess up a salad, Im afraid on everything else they «cook» here. Disgusting.

Food is okay to good
Service is horrible!
I just read a dozen reviews on this location and the reviewers have it dead on. The service is poor — slow, inconsistent, etc. The servers are usually nice, but that doesnt make up for painfully slow and mediocre service.
Rock and a hard place for me — my kids love the man ‘n cheese — its the reason I go back.
Most of the time the receipt comes with the web address to complete a customer feedback survey. I have completed this 5 or 6 times. I provide my contact information along with critical and constructive feedback. I do not receive a call back.
Management either tolerates the poort service and ethic or they dont truly understand how bad it is.
Tonight’s story — the food (for 5 of us) was delivered in three stages, approx 5 or 6 minutes between ther first person getting their dish and the last person. A server (not our waiter) came to our table with a parm cheese grater and asked who wanted cheese. My two kids asked for cheese and it turns out the grater is empty. We asked the server to come back with a new one. She said ok and disappeared. I later saw her serving other tables. Eventually we tracked down our waiter asked him for the cheese. This time it took only 3 or 4 minutes for him to return. All in all, it must have been no less than 15 minutes until my kids started eating (nearly an hour after first being seated).
Once my kids outgrow the mac n’ cheese, this restaurant will loose a customer.

I seriously have no idea how this particular Macaroni Grill could still be in business. I’ve come here quite a few times with friends or family and every time something weird has happened, or gone wrong.
1. Once, we had asked for a refill of the bread, and for some reason had been charged for it. We probably wouldn’t have noticed it; when we pointed it out to the waitress she was really apologetic about taking it off our bill.
2. Another time, we never got any bread or water, and our food took an hour to arrive. What?
3. A pretty surreal experience — my friends and I came here after a movie on Friday night, and for some reason we were literally the only people in the restaurant for most of our dinner. Despite that, it still took eons to get our food and the pasta one of us ordered came out somewhat cold.
What???

2 stars for bread. Zero stars for service.
Frankly, I’m not sure I should even give them two stars, for two very simple reasons:
1) when the restaurant is not ev close to half full, it should not take and hour to get a pepperoni pizza and a simple spaghetti pomodoro… ESPECIALLY when you have a toddler who is doing his best to deal with the wait.
2) There was broken glass on the floor. I told them about it shortly after being seated. They never bothered to clean it up.
Look, I used to eat at this chain a lot. I love the bread. The issue is that the service at this location is dreadful. If I want to go to an italian chain, why shouldn’t I go to the Olive Garden where I will get better service?

Sitting here waiting for my food, was anticipating some bread only to be told that they ran out yesterday? WTH? really? happy fathers day to me. Now waiting for my food, 45 minuets & still no food.

After five years, management is close to getting it right. First, they deep-​sixed the live opera singers who often terrorized tables. Moving on, powers that be persisted in hanging on to their stellar space at the Promenade.
The menu is usually solid and sports a blackboard with daily specials. Service is slow more often that not, but the wait staff usually plunks down the freshly baked bread loaf (tasty with a sense of fennel) in reasonable dispatch. True, the bar service is agonizingly slow, and the wine selections are rather pedestrian.
All in all, serious diners, especially those who take advantage of promotional specials (coupons, etc.) enjoy returning for good repast.

Just wow. I signed up to Unilocal just to post this review. We had a large party of 11 and were seated at 8:10 on Wednesday. We did not receive our food until 9:30. You can fill in the blanks but it included multiple inquiries which finally got the manager over. His handling of this situation was stunning. No apologies, no recompense or attempt at making the situation better. The food finally came and was sauceless, dry and generally awful. They started clearing the table as we were finishing our meals. It would be comical if it wasn’t sad. This restaurant can’t have long to live.
The term we used for the staff is soul crushed. Human zombies going through the motions of running a restaurant but lacking the minimal spark to do their jobs even minimally well.
My family used to spend a lot of money at this restaurant. We stopped coming last year over food quality and service. After yesterday, it has gotten so much worse. Does corporate have any QC process to check in on their franchises?

Give up. The have a new Mgr every few months. Food quality is poor and the service is a joke. FAIL! I used to love this place. The restrooms are disgusting so you can just imagine what the rest of the place is like. Never again.

The bread is really salty. The crayons were NOT sharp. The Coke was too Cokey. None of the water bottles had labels… WHAT IN THE HELL ARE WE DRINKING!!!
Our server had love handles and smelled like Gouda. This restaurant is dying…

I have eaten at several MG’s in Southern California and never experienced one quite like this in Westlake Village. The Unilocal reviews are right on and I should have heeded them before giving this location a shot.
We arrived on a week night and there were maybe 5 total tables filled. That should’ve been clue #1.
We sat down and the waitress came over and immediately asked if we wanted to try the house wine. My friend took her up on it and before she even asked me what I wanted, she walked away, retreived the bottle of wine, came back, poured it, THEN asked what I wanted to drink. Weird.
After we got our drinks, she took the order and we had to ask her if we got bread. Only then did she bring the bread to us and then, to much of our internal gasps, did not even offer fresh cracked black pepper on the olive oil we had to pour ourselves. Again, weird. We even looked over and could see that they had the tall pepper mills just sitting over there.
I was looking over at the cooks and could see them just casually walking around, no rush, no urgency to anything. It’s not even like the restaurant was full, or even semi-​full. After too many minutes of waiting, we finally got our food.
The food was mediocre at best. The red sauce on the pasta tasted as if it came out of a can. I also never received a refill on my drink — the waitress came by, even looked at our table, and just walked away. No «hey can I get you anything, how is everything…» Nada. My friend wanted another glass of the house wine and when we finally were able to flag her down, she said «it’s on your table, you can pour it yourself.» Really? REALLY?
I honestly don’t know what’s going on with this place. It’s obvious there is poor management, but you would think corporate would see the failing numbers and do something about it. From the other reviews I guess corporate and management have been made aware of the issues and don’t seem to care. Such a shame from a chain that had a good reputation until now.
I hear there’s a great place right next door to it that has much better food… and better service.

the letter I wrote to corporate today: SINCE YOU ARE CLOSED — WHEN MOST PEOPLE ARE DINING, and in order to afford $ 79 dollars of crap, I have to work, when your customer care is open… I WILL WRITE INSTEAD OF CALL… First, I have been going to Mac Grill for 10 years cause I work really close, and lunch time service used to be great.
The quality started going down and I frequented less and less. The other day my daughter wanted raviolis, so we were close to Mac Grille in Westlake, CA so I took her and my husband there. Well even though there were only families with small children (not like the upscale adult crowd it used to be, my daughter is 14. at the grill — there were no kid friendly raviolis, so I talked my daughter into the lobster ravs at $ 18.
We got our bread, best part of the meal, and waited to order. the waitress came by (mind you, there were only 6 tables with customers, and we asked for vinegar, she said sure, and came back 10 or 15 minutes later to ask us for our drink order. I asked for the vinegar again, she said did you want vinegar or to order. I said both. we ordered our ice tea and water and our food.
our ice tea was tea with a scant of ice. Our water cam in a bottle, with no ice and no lemon, and tasted reminiscent of plain old tap water in a fancy rustic bottle.
anyways — our stuffed mushrooms never came. our salad was OK. Had to ask for more dressing, but that is ok.
When we told the waitress to take the mushrooms off our bill — she said, I never put in on.
There was so few ice in our ONE cup of ice tea, my husband let me take his ice, and put in my cup. A server saw me do it, but did not care. We never got refills.
when we got our food it was warm (colder than warmer) so you can imagine cold lobster raviolis… and my chicken was not fried correctly so it was like tough baked chicken parmigian,
My daughter could not eat her lobster raviolis — she took one bite — there was no sauce barely on any of our plates.
I talked to the manager at macaroni grill… who came to apologize that we did not get our starters, And told him my food was warm, so was my ice tea, and the waitress asked me did I want balsamic vinegar, or service… He did not care… I asked if he read the Unilocal reviews lately… He said why would I. Everything is just negative…
Anyway, if you do not fire all the employees at your Westlake village location, it will be shut down in less than 2 years, I assure you. And they WILL blame it on something else… Not them. Right now they are one of the few restaurants around here on Unilocal
At 2 stars. I could go on and on. But I will see if you email me back at
, for further clarity on your titanic.
PS I did share the same concerns to the owner of Fox Sports Grill In Westlake… and he heeded no attention either… and well we know the end of that story.

I am not a fan of Macaroni Grill franchise. This one is in a good location with a pretty good open space interior.
What hurts this branch is how slow the service is. This isn’t the fault of the staff though. It seems like they are simply understaffed most of the time. It takes time for the waiter to come and get your drink order, then it takes more time for the food order, more time for the food to come, then you wait for the check for too long, and finally you wait for the receipt to sign it. Every single one of these wait times were over the average time you would wait at comparable restaurants.
The food tastes OK to good for the price. It is a bit on the heavy side, but the menu shows the calories and you can always choose a low cal option. Their bread is great, but just the bread will not be enough for anyone o come back.
Overall, I don’t see how they can survive without good and fast service on such a competitive market.

It’s sad how far this restaurant has fallen. My family and I have been going for years and I remember waiting over an hour for a table. Last night we arrived at 6pm to a nearly empty restaurant with a party of 6. We waited about little over 5 minutes to be approached and then we ordered about another 5 minutes after that. Our meal did not arrive until 7:10. We received conflicting information form the waiter and manager, and they still forgot the chicken on one of our meals. They commented that they were busy, but the restaurant was less than 60% filled. The food was good, but this restaurant forgot about not only customer service but how to run efficiently. It’s sad how the mighty have fallen and with another restaurant coming in next door, this could be the end of the road for this restaurant.

If you have time to kill for lunch and not in a hurry to head back to work, then i recommend coming here. We waited at least 20 min before a waiter would even take our drink order.
As far as food goes, its nothing to brag about. I recommend pasta, and yes im being vague. By the time the food came out, i might have been past starvation or full from the watered down ice tea. I sucked it up, finished my food, and left not hungry.
Would i come back here. Sure, when i don’t have to pay for it.

My friend Jen and I used to go here all the time in high school. But I haven’t gone back since the time I got FOOD POISONING on my birthday! This place used to be my favorite restaurant and that was why I had my birthday dinner here. The servers would bring out the dessert and sing happy birthday to you. So at my birthday dinner, I order the Pasta Di Mare. It was alright, nothing special or amazing. However, I kinda tasted a hint of sand in the pasta. I figured they didn’t clean the seafood that well and didn’t think much of it when I left the restaurant. I should have stopped eating that pasta dish right away! You should NEVER eat seafood when it is not well prepared because food poisoning is not fun.
I’m sorry Macaroni Grill, but a ONE STAR is very fitting.

Oh brother has this place backed into hell.
Last 2 visits ordered the Penne Rustica and all I got was a bowl of toasted noodles.
Bad service, indifferent servers.
No good pasta sauces, just out of a can pureed tomatoes in vinegar, and even that sux.
On top all that, «we’re out of it» was what we were told.
How the hell does a Italian restaurant run out of it’s only «sauce», that’s canned?
No chefs, just a kid in the former kitchen opening cans, defrosting pre-​cooked fare.
Then we got a bad attitude from the bartender.
No fun anymore.
We’re all done with the Macaroni Grill.

I had not been to the Macaroni Grill in about 2 – 3 years. I had seen commercials talking about the menu being updated, and live right near this Westlake Village one. So I thought what the heck and tried it out.
Our table tried the artichoke hearts and meatballs. The hearts had no heart, and the meatballs were very dry. For the entrees we had veal and «Mama’s Trio.» The veal was very chewy with no flavor. My entrée was the Mama’s Trio, which I thought was fairly simple and would be hard to mess up. A combo of chicken parmigiana, lasagna and something else I can’t remember. The chicken parmigiana was burned, as well as the lasagna. The pasta had little flavor had as well.
To top it all off, the service was also quite poor. Unfortuantely not a good option, and one I would recommend not bothering with.

Not my first choice in Italian dining, but we went there for a friend’s daughter’s 16^th birthday. As we sat in the far back corner, my date was amazed at the server’s ability to write her name in crayola backwards AND upside-​down!
I had the Shrimp Portofino, which was really good, and my date had the Lasagna Al Forno, which came out burnt and dry. I ate my entire serving, which I never do… Portions were small for the price and overall, the food was good. They have a new dessert menu as well. The birthday girl had the chocolate cake and I snuck a bite… TO DIE FOR. Yumm…
Just OK, and no doggy bags this time. :(

Talk about downhill… This used to be one of my favorites and the Penne Rustica was all I would eat.
We thought tonight, where to go to dinner, and this sounded like a good idea since we haven’t been there for some time.
There were only a handful of customers, 2 waiters + the manager and two cooks. Slow night I thought.
On the table there was a drink menu from the bar (which was empty) with no bartender, and I decided to try the blood orange cosmo… Bad… Yes it had vodka and yes there was blood orange juice, but it was just flat. I tried the apple-​mash upon the waitresses recommendation. It tasted like a 7 and 7 with apples in it. WAY sweet, and again, so flat it tasted like syrup.
I got the penne rustica, which was MUCH smaller than i remember (or perhaps I am much bigger). The kids ordered mac and cheese, which was far from special, one step above Kraft, and my wife got the ‘order your own pasta’ and they got it wrong.
The waitress was very kind and accommodating, but the aire of this place has changed. Perhaps it is the economy, maybe I was just in a bad mood, but its not the same place I remember.