Old Spaghetti Factory

Ah, The Old Spaghetti Factory. When I was younger it was a family tradition to have dinner every Valentine’s Day at the downtown location. But as we all got older and had our separate plans for Valentine’s Day, the tradition was lost. I’ve always had a soft spot for the restaurant though…
Anyways last weekend I decided to have my birthday dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory. Getting in contact with them was incredibly easy. The staff that I talked to and the manager at this location are AMAZING! I was worried about having a bigger table and not being able to bring in a custom made cake for this event. But everything went SO smoothly and the manager was more than okay with me bringing in the cake.
This location went above and beyond on the day of the dinner. When I arrived the table was set up and right away we were seated and asked if we would like any refreshments. They gave us enough time for everyone to show up and kept bringing us bread (HAVE YOU HAD THEIR GARLIC BUTTER ?! ITS ORGASMIC) and more drinks. The service was quick and the servers that served us were super attentive and were always there to answer any questions we had about the menu.
I will definitely be returning to this location. I love the service, the atmosphere and the management is great.
Not to mention their food (Fettuccini con Pollo is my favourite dish from there, haven’t tried it? Get on it!!)
If you are looking for a place to host a large dinner party, I would suggest them! And even for smaller events I would suggest them a thousand times over.

Old Spaghetti Factory is my absolute favourite place to go to score some cheap eats! (waaaaaaaaay better than Olive Garden imo)
Located conveniently downtown, Old Spaghetti is an easy stop for lunch or dinner! Their meals are awesome values — including all you can eat bread, a starter soup/​salad, your entrée, and spumoni for desert. All for a very cheap price tag!
I’m a huge fan of their garlic butter. It’s so very good on their bread, which comes to your table freshly made and hot out of the oven. The homemade Italian dressing on the salad is also delicious! The perfect amount of tang and not too heavy.
The pasta sizes are quite large, and more than filling! My favourite is the lasagne, which is LOADED with a variety of different cheeses. Mmm…
Perfect to come to with a large group, your family, or even a date! All very affordable with great atmosphere to boot.

Now this is the second time I’ve been here and I really enjoyed the first experience i had here. The meals here always come with a free loaf of fresh bread to munch on, with a choice of two different butters (garlic or regular) for spread.
The main course also comes with a choice of garden salad or minestrone. Our server informed us that the minestrone was good, upon seeing us struggling on our choice for soup or salad, so all three of us settled on the minestrone soup.
The service was a bit slow but our server did inform us it was her first shift alone, though she did make a valiant effort. 25 minutes in after ordering we received our soup. We all found it to be a bit salty and not that wowing but it wasn’t too horrible. An extra 25 minutes after we finished our soup, we got our dishes.
My friends both had different variations of the seafood pasta, one with linguini and the other with Alfredo. I myself ordered the Cajun chicken Alfredo as I ordered it the first time we came here and I loved it. The pastas we ordered were super filling, and I barely got through ¹⁄₃ of my pasta as I was already super filled from the bread and soup. Plus 1+ points for going home with left overs!
My friends managed to finish their meals but slowly and sluggishly as they too were full to the brim. The end of the meal came with complimentary ice cream, choice of a mixture of pistachio, vanilla and chocolate or regular vanilla. We all opted for the first choice and rolled out of there paying less than 23 bucks per person.
Tl;DR
Super filling, comes with complimentary soup/​salad, fresh bread, and ice cream.
Service was a bit slow, but attentive.

I go here almost every other week with my boyfriend. It’s our famous spot. The managers know us and are always really really kind. The «full meal» thing they have for their menu is genius. You get the salad to start (we usually upgrade to a Cesar for a dollar more) then you get your entrée (which is always massive) and to top it all off you get yummy pistachio ice cream. This place is great. Go there, you’ll be happy.

The interior is quite spacious, and what’s kind of cool about this location is that they have a trolley which you can dine in. There are booths all around the restaurant. It was relatively full when we came here on a Saturday evening. Our service was okay, but near the middle/​end when the restaurant got a bit busier, it got a bit spottier. I saw an immense amount of food getting pumped out of the kitchen. I can definitely say that they have really strong standard operating procedures, which results in consistency in the kitchen.
It was Downtown Dining Week, so I decided to order off of the set menu since I wasn’t sure what to order. For appetizers, we had the option of the Bam Bam Shrimp and the Calamari Fritti, so we got one of each. We also had a choice between Caesar salad or clam chowder. For Entrées, we had the Chicken Parmiagiana with spaghetti and marinara sauce, and the 8 oz New York Steak with sautéed mushrooms, with spaghetti with meat sauce. We also got their homemade sweet cheesecake.
Our meal started off with some complimentary sourdough bread with whipped garlic and plain butter. The bread was nice and warm and went nicely with the butter. I thought that the garlic butter could have been a bit more garlic-​ey but otherwise, this was pretty good to start your meal off. If the restaurant is really packed, this is a good way to temporarily satisfy hungry customers!
Next, we had the clam chowder and Caesar salad. If you’re trying to decide between the two, I’d definitely recommend the clam chowder. The Caesar salad is pretty standard. Nothing too amazing, but I’m not a huge salad fan anyway. The clam chowder, however, is definitely the better alternative. It comes with hearty bits of potatoes, and a generous amount of bacon, though a bit light on the clams. To be fair, the only real comparison that I have is the clam chowda that I’ve had when I was in Boston, for which it is known for!
The Bam Bam shrimp came out nice a hot. It’s lightly breaded white-​shrimp glazed in a spicy sriracha sauce, topped with fresh green onions. This was definitely one of my favourite things of the night. It was really light, and the glaze didn’t make the breading too soggy. Definitely recommend this appetizer. If not at the restaurant, definitely try it at Taste of Edmonton if they’re on the menu this summer!
The Calamari Fritti was also really nicely seasoned and cooked. I always find that calamari can be hit or miss. It’s really easy to overcook squid, so I’m glad that these were nice and tender, and not too chewy. The Tzatziki sauce was nothing amazing, and didn’t really add much to the dish. The calamari was seasoned enough and didn’t really need additional dip. Pretty good on its own! If you’re trying to decide between appetizers, both are decent, but I’d have to give it to the Bam Bam Shrimp.
At this point, we’re getting pretty full already from the bread, soup, salad, and appetizers. That’s one thing I can say about Old Spaghetti Factory, is that you do get an enormous amount of food! The Chicken Parmigiana is hand breaded chicken breast, fried to a nice golden brown, then topped with marinara sauce with melted parmesan and mozzarella cheese. The cheeses in the restaurant are all locally sourced from family-​owned producers, which is always nice. The chicken was nice a tender, and not dry. Relatively nice piece of meat, and went well with the marinara. The spaghetti at Old Spaghetti Factory is made of 100% durum semolina, which makes it a bit higher in protein. I found that it was better than like regular dry pasta that you can get at the grocery store.
The New York Steak was a nice piece of meat. I ordered it medium rare, and that’s exactly how it came out. It was well-​seasoned and tasted pretty good. For my spaghetti, I opted to get the meat sauce. This was definitely a good idea. If you have the choice to have either just the regular marinara sauce or meat sauce, definitely go with the meat sauce. It gives the sauce another dimension and makes the dish all that much better…

Always great food and great service, the managers really care that you have a good experience. I always opt for the steak!

Mmmmm mmm! Love old spag factory. It’s a great family restaurant. We had no trouble getting in with a 7 person table on a Sunday.
Service was good, food was great — lots of options on the menu, the entrees all come with an appetizer, tea or coffee, and a very yummy ice cream.
Super Sunday night dinner with the family!

Didn’t enjoy at all, aside from the cheap price.
Coffee was terrible, couldn’t drink it. Minestrone soup was pretty good, although nothing to rave about. Salad seemed like it was sitting in watered down dressing for a bit before being served. Not sure of the name, but good tri-​flavoured ice cream.
When I mentioned to the server that my coffee was no good, he simply said «alright» and didn’t take the cup away or offer another drink. He seemed distant after that. Shouldn’t have been a big deal, bad coffee happens.

My colleagues and I came here for lunch today. I haven’t been to this restaurant in years and surprisingly it hasn’t changed that much. The staff were great and were able accommodate our big group.
The menu largely contains a variety of pasta dishes but does have some non-​pasta options as well as lunch specials that are served until 4pm. If you choose a dish from a section that has «It’s all included» means you receive sourdough bread with whipped garlic and plain butter; a choice of minestrone soup or green salad, spumoni ice cream and a choice between tea or coffee. There lunch specials include all of the above as well.
I ordered the lunch sized spaghetti with the creamy clam sauce. To start, we were offered the sourdough bread. It was perfectly warmed allowing the whipped butter to melt in the bread and then in your mouth. It left me wanting more. I ordered the salad as my starter and it was nothing special. It seemed to come from a pre-​mix bag and I could tell it had been in the cooler for a while. The spaghetti I ordered was ok. The cream sauce lacked flavor and the clams were few but it was cooked al dente which I like. My favorite part of the meal was the scoop of spumoni ice cream we received after our main course. It was absolutely delicious and a nice way to finish off the meal. All of this came to a whopping total of $ 9.95. The quality may not be the best but for quantity you definitely get your bang for your buck.

Good looking restaurant with tv’s to watch sports not overly crowded the servers were not the same we had 3 different people take our orders one for the drinks one for the entrée and one for ice cream whatever that was about because the ice cream lady did not ask everyone if they wanted ice cream, the bread and butter was delivered and was really good I ordered Spaghetti and meatballs and skipped the soup I guess I should have had the French onion soup I hear it’s delicious as for my meal the meatballs 2 were hiding under a ladle of marinara sauce which covered a bed of dried out pasta, the meatballs were very good if you like a twobite meatball like I said the pasta was dry and very little sauce, good thing is it was free not from the restaurant but from friends, the Alfredo makes you gassy LOL

Good food, mediocre service.
After having a great experience at the WEM location I was very excited to try the OSF downtown. We arrived for supper at a time that the restaurant wasn’t very busy. We were immediately sat in a booth, but despite the restaurant being only half full our server took 15 minutes to come over to our table with bread and take our orders. Unfortunately, our drinks, salads, and main courses all took quite a while to arrive. The food was good, though. I ordered the Seafood Marinara and it was awesome! I also had a Bellini drink which was equally as good. Luckily we weren’t in a huge rush to get in and out of the restaurant so it was still a mostly pleasant experience, but I preferred my experience at the WEM location.

Went here after avoiding for years. Food was decent service was good. Cheesecake was top notch. Much better than my visit last year at WEM. Cheesecake cheesecake. Made fresh in house. Everywhere else orders in frozen. Miss the conductor beverage. I want to still take the glass home

I have been to this restaurant some 6 years back and returned this week. To my surprise the quality of food was very good, with great choice of menu. Above all it was not very expensive.
Some of my colleagues were skeptical about the place prior to trying. However, their opinions changed and all of them were unanimous that the food was surprisingly very good from what they expected it to be. We went as a 12 member team to eat and each one of them had a clean and empty plate as they finished their lunch.
Places of this kind should be well appreciated as they are rare and required wide awareness. I am glad, I found this back to add it to my list of restaurant choice in Edmonton.
Did I forget… I had vegetarian choices too and by that I don’t mean eating bread (which was great tasting too), raw leaves and vegetables. :)
If there is something that I should pick on for them to improve… may be a little cleaner windows. They were very dusty and soiled from the construction outside. It may be a case on that day.
Check it out if you are in downtown and require a not so expensive and good food!

This is a place where you bring a great friend and enjoy delicious food from the loaf of bread they give you to start to the amazing scoop of icecream at the end (save room for the icecream!) great coffee as well, their pasta dishes are always delicious, the minestrone soup is the best I have ever tasted, great service always, sit back and relax and know you will have a great time :)

I love it here. We always have friendly and fast service and their pasta is the perfect comfort food for cold winter evenings! I have yet to have an item on the menu in didn’t enjoy.

There is a decently large selection of boring pastas and spaghettis. I love Italian food but I didn’t find anything too enticing on the menu. I decided on the lasagna. It was just your average run of the mill lasagna. It was really cheesy and quite salty.
I like the fact you get bread, soup/​salad and an ice cream all included for one price.
The one thing that really struck me was the helicopter service. Our server, who was pleasant and always smiling, seemed to hover over us at all times. I know she was just trying to be friendly and helpful, but she checked on is every couple of minutes it seemed. I appreciate attentive service, but this was a bit too much.
It’s a great place for a family meal of Americanized Italian food, if that’s your thing.

This has ALWAYS been my birthday dinner restaurant. since I was very little. You absolutely cannot beat the value here. My mom and I ate for $ 30 total… that includes your beverage (it says coffee or tea, but they rarely charge you if you get a pop instead), soup or salad, pasta dish, bread & amazing whipped butter, and dessert.
I always have enough to take leftovers for lunch the next day. it is absolutely amazing. I’ve also tried some of the more expensive entrees (chicken parm, canneloni etc…) and have never been disappointed, but I always go back to my standard — Manager’s special (which allows you to choose TWO sauces) with spicy meat sauce and the mizithra & browned butter. I can’t get enough… my mouth is actually starting to water at 8:30 in the morning just thinking about it.
I can’t give it 5 stars because although I’ve never had a complaint with the food, the service can definitely be spotty sometimes. My most recent visit was for my birthday in March this year. they were adequately staffed and the restaurant only had about 5 or 6 tables occupied, but our server would disappear for inappropriate lengths of time and our food took a lot longer than usualy to get to us. Once we did get it, it was incredibly apparent that our dishes had been sitting under the heat lamp for quite some time (some pasta noodles had dried out and some were sticking to the edge of the plate). I would have brought it to the server’s attention, but we didn’t see her again until it was time for dessert.
Even that couldn’t ruin the experience though. And I will happliy continue to go back there.

Although not somewhere I would go for a fancy dinner, The Old Spaghetti Factory is great value, especially for lunch.
We slip over to the 103 street location every once in a while for lunch during the work week. The service is pretty quick and the lunch menu is filling and a great price. Lunches are still fairly large portions and include bread, soup or salad, your main course and ice cream, for around $ 12. Not bad, considering it is hard to find lunch for that downtown!
I find that they’re usually quire accommodating of groups too, and split the bill without the hassle of some other restaurants downtown.
One tip– they often forget to offer the ice cream, so you might have to remind the server if they show up with the bill before you’ve had your dessert.

I have been to the west ed location a handful of times and thought it was average at best but I just came home from a visit to their downtown location and am already looking forward to my next visit.
The service was nothing short of excellent considering they were dealing with a packed restaurant. Everything came out to our table well before I was expecting it too but still with enough of a break in between courses for me to enjoy my dining companion and not feel like I was being rushed out the door so they could get more customers in.
The food was delicious! My caesar salad was so fresh and the dressing was great. It’s kind of light and doesn’t have the creamy texture that some other dressings offer but it’s a nice change. When my spicy spaghetti first came out I was a little concerned because the portion looked small width wise but it did fill me up nicely as the dish had some depth to it so there was more food on the plate then what I initially thought there was.
You can’t beat these guys if you are in the downtown core looking for a great meal on a budget. Try it for yourself and i’m sure you will agree!

A childhood favourite, likely due to the Spumoni. I mean who doesn’t love Spumoni … seriously it’s just fun to say. Spumoni.
Anyways, the Spaghetti Factory down town has quick service at lunch which makes it ideal in Edmonton’s downtown business community. I’ve also been here for dinner and it’s usually pretty busy! The food is always good and the usually the service is too. I don’t really have much to say about this place. I really do like the Spaghetti Factory, and it will always be a classic… I just think it’s lacking a «wow» factor.