East Side Mario’s

It was fortunate that my friends and I came here at a less busy time on a Saturday evening (5.30pm). As such the service was pretty good and the wait time for food was not too bad.
The free flow of garlic bread, soft drinks and salad/​soup was definitely something that was amazing. Furthermore the bowls for both the salad and the soup were pretty big.
The food however was nothing special. It was basic Italian fare, but it did not have a special taste that would make me want to come back to this location to eat again.
So overall, it is an alright place to try out once, but it is not worth being a regular to.

Free soup was the best part but the place was dirty, and the food was meh. Also had to wait a long time.

I don’t think east side marios is ever particularly worth it unless you’re dying for all you can eat salad and garlic bread.
At this location, it was difficult to even completely indulge in the all you can eat because it was difficult to flag down our waiter.

I come here super often. My last visit made me never want to come back which is quite sad because I actually like their soups. I got the worst service I’ve ever received at this ESM. Waiter basically thought we were non-​existent. He was constantly serving and being very accommodating to the two booths in front and behind us. At 15 minutes in, our table was still empty. No water, no soup, no salad, no bread. Meanwhile, the table behind us was on their second refill of drinks and bread. At least give us our water??? When we finally got our bread and asked for another loaf, it literally took him less than 2 minutes to get one out. I’m not sure why he was purposefully giving us very poor service in the beginning. Actually, even in the end when we requested a bag for our take out he just ignored us. My guess is that he expected crappy tip from my friend and I since we were students…
Basically, don’t go here if you’re a student.

Un service exécrable. Vraiment.
La serveuse etait blasé, arrogante, ennuyee de nous servir. Le comble est lorsqu’on lui a demande de prendre une photo pour nous elle a sechement repondu «Apres.» sans jamais revenir pour la photo (c’est quoi l’interet d’avoir une photo avec des assiettes vides et sales ?!). En revanche la manager etait beaucoup plus agreable «J’aimerai beaucoup faire ca pour vous»
Quand a la nourriture, c’est pas top non plus. La plupart des plats comprennent la soupe du jour, une salade (caesar ou garden0 et du pain a l’ail a volonte.
J’ai pris les spaghettis primavera pour les tomates sechees et le basilic indiques dans le menu et je aucun de ces elements n’etaient dans mon plat. En revanche, j’ai eu droit a une bonne dose d’huile (du coup les pates etaient super grasses) et beaucoup de poivrons. Les legumes (courgettes, poivrons, haricots plats) etaient croquants voire pas crus ce qui n’est pas forcement deplaisant mais je veux mes tomates sechees et mon basilic !! Les pates n’etaient pas tres cuites non plus.
Le pain a l’ail est mauvais, surtout quand on est familier avec la baguette francaise mais la salade etait tres bonne
Je n’ai rien demande a la serveuse, car honnetement si je peux eviter tout contact je le fais.
A eviter a tout prix a moins que vous fermez les yeux sur le service et profitez des entrees a volonte tout en emportant votre plat principal a la maison !

Ruined my experience … Never going to East Side Mario again!
Went for my daughter’s birthday and the server seemed very tired and stressed. The wait was long and when she brought water we were told that one glass of water is delayed as all glasses were in dishwasher. How can a resturant run out of glasses, c’mon. Salads were super slow and we were waiting. She left in between taking order and she took the sauce on my pasta wrong. I did not fuss but when brought to her attention she did not even have the courtesy to say sorry. I expected an apology as she was overly busy and in that she did not listen properly. I was not asking anything in return/​discount, the least she could have done was to say sorry for ruining my meal. Overall the tables and the restaurant was dirty. There was another server who kept whistling and that was very annoying. Anyways, I have been to better ESM’s… This may be the biggest but the worst I have been to.

Horrible service!
I definitely won’t return after waiting forever to order, get more salad, and even a water refill.
I wouldn’t suggest this location.

East Side Mario’s is always the same everywhere, but never have I experienced such low-​par service. I went there with a group of about 6 at around 3:30pm on a weekday. There was absolutely no one in the restaurant, yet we were kicked out within about an hour and a half and pressured to leave. The waitress also seemed upset that we didn’t want to get dessert. The food was good, but the experience was ruined by the fact that we had unacceptable service. Won’t be back to this location again.
Oh, and we also had unlimited soup and salad. The waitress didn’t bother to refill the bread when we were clearly done, and didn’t offer for more salad or soup.

It’s not really good. closest thing to cure that Olive Garden craving without making the drive if you don’t have time I would assume. Prices are steep for what it is, but the food is edible. Not the best, not the worst. Service is usually mediocre and everything all together is just OK.

I haven’t been here in a while, but it was average– nothing special. I went for an early lunch (around 11:45ish) so wasn’t busy or noisy yet. The hostess was nice and so was the waitress, but it was hard to get the waitress’ attention when we needed her. They have cheap lunch specials — not sure if that’s unique to this location since it’s close to UW and WLU (universities) — with a lunch-​size entrée and side for $ 10.

Near UW and Wilfred Laurier, there’s a lot of things to eat but very little that actually has a sit down focus. Seeing how it’s all students running about to classes, it makes sense. This East Side Mario is old when you compare it to other restaurants. Actually, when you compare the restaurant to the froshes, they’re practically the same age. Closest to UW and in the University plaza, this ESM has stood at the prime location for a long time. I guess it’s feeding the students and it’s families when they come for a visit to the campus. It’s old and worn and the service feels the same. There’s a lot of indifference.
This particular location gets a lot of traffic. You’ll have families of all ages and a lot of young frosh with their parents here. With ESM being a very common chain restaurant, finding something you recognize is probably great for parents who travel 4+ hours to visit their kids. Each time I’ve been dragged here (tally of 3 so far), we’ve had to wait even with a reservation. It drives me nuts. The worst wait for 20 minutes even with a reservation! Once we’re seated, you can feel the grime on the floor boards. The menu is the universal heavily sauced, cheese laden, and breaded American Italian. This place executes quickly on the mediocre dishes. It’s one of the few things this place does well… it moves dishes very fast. Lasagna, grilled chicken salad, and bread was dropped off at our tables within 10 minutes of ordering. The food tasted like it was just re-​warmed in the oven from being in the freezer. It’s no better than McCain at the local grocery store.
As I mentioned, the service is subpar. Perhaps it’s the cheap tipping by students or that it’s a really tough job with such a high turn over of tables, but they really don’t care. Refills are requested and forgotten. Forks are not given. Servers barely look at you and they mutter instead of speak clearly. There’s not budda boom budda bing to their step.
There’s a lot of great eating places in Waterloo and this isn’t one of them. If you’re a student, venture to any of the other restaurants at the plaza. The vegetarian and Taiwainese places are good starts. And if you’re a parent visiting and shell shocked from having a kid in university, drive out to King St (north or south) and you’ll find great options to feed your freshmen.

We found this location to be too noisy. The bread they brought out was freezer burnt. When we mentioned it to our waitress, her response was such that we caught her trying to give us frozen bread when they «make their own» so she brought the manager over. We mentioned that the bread we had was freezer burnt, although the manager didn’t seem to think that was possible, we were delivered more bread, but that too was freezer burnt. We didn’t mention it again, but left it to the side. The chicken parm I had was a little on the dry side.
I like East Side Mario’s and will continue going there, but not this particular location.

I’ve always had a great experience at this location, but I’ve heard so many rumors about problems when ordering chicken. Considering this is an Italian restaurant, it is recommended to get the pasta.
LOVE bottomless salad and garlic bread. Garlic bread sooo good.
I love the caeser salad here too!
Price range is good, food is good, experience is good, I would recommend to pasta lovers.

I am from LA and I was Visiting a business client. they suggested this place stating that it had good Italian food. the place is worse than olive garden. The food is below average and tastes nothing like Italian. Definitely not «Home maid»

East Side Mario’s is a chain of Italian-​American restaurants that is part of the Prime Restaurants empire. You’ve probably seen or heard the commercials promising «A taste of Little Italy» and «Hey Budda Boom Budda Bing» from time to time.
Favourites of mine include All-​You-​Can-​Eat Italian Wedding soup and Garlic Bread, which comes with your entrée. My wife is partial to the Seafood Linguine, whereas I’m more of a Spaghetti person.
My biggest complaint about East Side Mario’s is the fact that the service and the food can be very inconsistent. This location is no exception. One day I can have excellent service and have excellent food, another day slow service and okay food, to other days when I can only say that everything was terrible.
Perhaps being in a location where there is high traffic (being located so close to two Universities) allows this restaurant to rest on their laurels. I think this restaurant could be better if the quality could be more consistent.

Whenever I visit Canada, East Side Mario’s tops my list of places to eat, as we don’t have them in The States. Unfortunately, this location isn’t one of the best.
Italian Wedding Soup and bread are my must-​have appetizers. We dined here around 7:30pm and the soup arrived tasting thicker and saltier than normal. The waitress informed us they only had bottom-​of-​the-​pot soup left and would not be making more. We sent the soup back and had salads instead. The bread was piping hot, but took forever to arrive. When we needed a refill, the waitress disappeared for fifteen minutes before bringing more.
Since the soup was a bust, we ordered the spinach dip appetizer with pita bread. This was delicious and devoured quickly. For my main, I had Spaghetti Primavera with shrimp. A beautiful array of vegetables mixed in with the pasta provided me with both dinner plus leftovers for lunch the next day.
While my main was delicious, the slow service (we were one of four tables) combined with the soup incident gave me no choice but to bump this down to two stars.

What can I say? This is a very typical chain restaurant. Sure, you can enjoy a meal there, but for the price, you can probably find something better. Their service is spotty. I have been greeted by the owner of the place once, but that’s when the place is almost empty. When it gets busy, that’s another story. My soup, which was supposed to come before my main course, came after it. Not only that, the waitress tripped and spilled water all over the table. I’m not blaming her, but they should really hire more people to accommodate the high seasons during school years.