East Side Mario’s

Normally they’re consistent with their food. Today, my salad looked like it sat out on the counter for a while before they decided to throw the dressing of my choice on it then serve it to me. The calamari di avolo was dry, my firecracker shrimp bowtie looked like it was reheated then brought over to me. Funny because my cousin had ordered the exact same pasta dish and the color and consistency were the total opposite. Hers looked freshly done.

Service was extremely slow!!! We were there for close to two hours…
We just sat down and the waitress came over to take our order. We didn’t even get menus or anything!!!

I decided to go to the Bell’s Corner location for my birthday with my boyfriend. I had heard that it wasn’t that good anymore but wanted to check it out since I hadn’t been in years. We both really liked it, we were seated right away and our waitress was great. I had a seafood pasta which I will definitely return for. It was a wonderful dinner at a reasonable price.

I was here a couple of weeks ago, decided to write my review!
I would never recommend this location to ANYONE! I don’t know if I would ever to to another ESM again, this experience left a horrible taste in my mouth.
We arrived at about 2:50, and we were told that the lunch menu ended at 3:00. I said, oh good we’re just in time. The gentleman then said that because it was almost 3:30, we couldn’t get the lunch menu. I showed him the time on my phone being no where near 3:30. I think it was 2:52pm. He scoffed and asked why I wanted the lunch menu, I said that my mother has difficulty getting through large portions (which is 100% true) he sat us and gave us one lunch menu. I was happy as I tend to overeat and prefer smaller portions myself. However, I was told that by our server that the gentleman who had sat us was the manager, and had told our server that only my mother was allowed to order from the lunch menu. Being in the industry myself, I’ve never heard of this treatment.
Our entire experience was bad, to say the least. We had a solid view of the kitchen, our food sat underneath a heat lamp for about 10 – 12 minutes before they bothered to bring it to us. Drink refills took forever and I always felt like we were bothering our server if we needed anything, napkins or a refill. I’m not very needy when I eat out, and being a server I really try to make it easy on whoever is serving us but the staff was rude, the manager was worse!
ESM used to be my favorite restaurant in the entire world, and now I wouldn’t dare step foot in it. It’s a damn shame.

Alex is the best server! Always have great service and ive never had a bad meal here.
I always get my free refills and my favourite dish is the fettuccine alfredo!
I come here weekly and the manager always stops by and remembers us. It feels good, and this is the only restaurant that bothers to do this for us. Love it!

This was a last minute decision my friend and I made after driving around trying to decide where to go! We got there around 8 pm so it was still a little busy, we opted to sit in the bar as there would have been a wait for a table. There were a number of tables available in the bar so we had a decent amount of space. Our waiter came over after about 15 minutes and seemed ok but slightly distracted. Our drinks came over quickly which was nice.
There was a large party waiting by the bar for a table, they finally got fed up with waiting and started moving tables in the bar so they could sit together there. The waitstaff didn’t seem to mind and one waitress was saying «anything for my favorite customers». However, this entailed pushing there table directly up against ours and I basically had one of these people sitting about 10 cm away from me. He was pretty much sitting at our table. While this is not the fault of the restaurant in anyway, I was disappointed that they had allowed these people to rearrange all the tables in the bar and to almost displace us from our table.
After this large group took over the bar, our waiter no longer paid attention to us, even when he was at our table he was looking over at the other group. It was also incredibly hard to understand him because he kept mumbling and looking away while talking to us.
On the plus side our food arrived quickly, however, as is common in restaurants like this, everything came at once. We had our salad, bread and main dishes arrive at the table within 5 minutes of one another. The Caesar salad was good! The bread was fine, although my friend ate almost all of it! haha! The chicken parm, left a lot to be desired. The chicken was extremely overcooked and dry, with a little bit of sauce. The pasta was dry and crunchy. It tasted like it had been made hours before I got there. I only ate about ¼ of it. My friend said she enjoyed her baked tortellini though!
Our waiter took quite a while to return after our food was served to ask if we wanted our bill. Not once did he ask if we wanted drink refills or if everything was ok. So while I can appreciate how hard it is to deal with a large group of people, there are still other people in the restaurant who deserve to be treated well. The food was not up to par and the service left much to be desired. I will not be returning to this restaurant.

Great experience. It was busy for a Friday night, but we were able to be seated immediately. As others have noted, the ambiance in this East Side Mario’s is special and unique — I’ve never seen any other ESM with at least 30 high-​class feeling chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, each a bit different from the rest.
Our server was exceptional. She came back at just the right times and was quick in refilling orders of the unlimited salad and bread (a must!).
The food was delicious, but it feels like the menu has shrunk. Obviously, being an Italian place, their main offerings are pasta, pizza, and salad. But I hardly noticed anything else that could have been offered, such as ribs, steak, or a larger selection of burgers. Maybe it’s just me, but all of the pasta dishes are generally the same except for a few small ingredients: They’re all pasta, sauce, vegetables, and a type of meat. A larger menu, or perhaps some more exciting pasta options, could have livened up their menu.
I also really miss their pizza dough from back in the late 90s and early 2000s: since then they have obviously changed their dough to a thicker, frozen option, and it really shows.
The pasta dish I ordered was good. The bolognese sauce could have used more beef, as it tasted like it was basically a vegetarian dish without much meat. The pizza was also good.

You know, it’s an East Sides. There are a couple of things that do distinguish this from other locations, some good and some bad.
I’ve been here many, many times for past work functions, birthdays, etc. This past weekend we stopped by for my mama’s birthday dinner after our originally planned place closed down. If was crazy busy at 5:45 p.m. on a Saturday night and there were about 6 large parties milling around the waiting area. We only had to wait about twenty minutes or so, which wasn’t so bad.
I didn’t expect any kind of ambience, but it was pretty loud due to all the families. It was also stiffing — which could have been from either the fact that the temperature had dropped about 10 degrees outside and the heat was still blasting or because of the amount of people.
Who doesn’t love the unlimited salad and bread? I savored a tiny slice but did eat a bunch of the Caesar salad which was quite yummy. I ordered the gluten-​free pizza (hey, I said I was on a quest right?), and it was actually pretty decent. Not amazing by any means, but the crust was quite nice — it didn’t have a ton of cornmeal-​like taste which was nice. My sister didn’t particularly love her pasta dish (an alfredo something) and both her and my Dad also complained that their dishes didn’t have enough sauce on them. Mama loved her grilled chicken salad though which was nice.
I ordered one of their «drinkable desserts» for dinner which was kind of like a boozy milkshake. It was nice, but waaaay too much. Sister and Dad ordered the peanut butter stack which they said was pretty good but not outstanding. Mama had the cheesecake which she enjoyed (and didn’t have any crust which was perfect for her gluten-​free diet!).
My favourite part of this spot is the amazing gallery wall on the back. It’s quite breathtaking actually :) This is a good spot to bring kids and those with a less adventurous appetite, but again, be warned that it gets pretty busy!

East Sides was a spur of a moment decision tonight, and the hubby and I showed up around 4:45ish with a group of 4.
We were seated at a small table near the kitchen and washrooms, which became overly crowded and way too busy once 5:00 hit. Lots, and lots, and lots and LOTS of children running around the tables. Seating was not the greatest, definitely recommend getting a booth if dinning here.
All of us ordered a main with the all you can eat bread, salad and soup. Hey, that is the best part about East Sides, right?
I ordered the bruschetta pizza. It was alright, but not great! I was so content with the salad and bread that I only ate a slice and brought the rest home. Crazy to say, but much better once cold.
The hubby ordered a baked pasta dish, and thought it was just alright, and he is usually a pasta lover.
Our waiter was quick, helpful, and tried very hard to make our dinning experience pleasant. He was nice, and awkwardly charming.
Food highlight of the night was the bread.
Great spot for families. Will only return if requested by friends or family.

What a disappointing meal. Chicken parm for each of us. Flavourless pasta sauce, undercooked penne, just awful. We each ate maybe 2 – 3 bites of the chicken parm, that’s it. We had to fill up on bread and salad.
I told our waitress, Rachel, who was surprised, saying it’s one of their bestsellers. Well, maybe so, but I was looking for much more for $ 18.99 for chicken and pasta each!
The service was good, but we are in the middle of moving and were looking forward to a tasty sit down meal, we walked out hungry.
The waitress offered to have us look at the menu for something else, but by then we were turned off the whole experience.
We received $ 4.95 off our bills, and took the leftovers home thinking we could add my own sauce and jazz it up, but I tossed it in the garbage.
Not going back there again. Ottawa has too many good restaurants to eat at.

Great for family. My kid loves it. Good value for what you get and the servers are always nice.

Had the sausage and peppers of the lunch menu. A very good combo of peppers and sauce. Not enough sausage however. It was marked as «spicy» on the menu but not as spicy as i would have liked. Nice over all vibe to the place. Very friendly staff and good service. If I am in Ottawa again I will stop by again.

I’ve always had good food and service at this location. On a recent visit I did find it a little salty, something all resturants seem to be suffering from in recent years. Their new master chef menu was nice and provided something different, which was exactly what I was looking for.