Vince’s Spaghetti Restaurant

–10 rating! Worst Italian food I’ve ever had! I honestly have to say Italian food out of a can is a step up. Maybe a restaurant like this could survive in the 70’s through 90’s, but certainly not in this day and age where every restaurant is putting out great food and always evolving to stay ahead of the game. It was just a matter of time till this restaurant went under. As mean as as it is to say, this restaurant kind of set them up for closure with horrible bland sauces, overcooked pasta, dated & grimy interior and wheeling in food on carts they use to clear out dirty plates and silverware! Oh lord have mercy!!!

. This has to be the worst restaurant that I have ever been to. Glad they went out of business and its no wonder why. The old smell greeted you the moment you walked through the door and when you saw the old stained carpet you knew right away you were in for a bad time. Oh well, lets look past that and enjoy some delicious Italian food. Good food ??? Tasted better coming out of a can. Good bye Vinces and good riddance.

I visited Vince’s on the evening before the final day (it should be closed as of 09÷14÷14) for one last hurrah. Definitely going to miss this place!
One quick note — there are two kinds of Italian restaurants in the US. There is authentic Italian and there is Italian-​American. Authentic Italian is only just becoming widespread in the last 5 or 10 years and before that, all the country really knew was the other kind. Italian-​American is a hearty and simple spaghetti and meatball cuisine that we all grew up with because it dates back to the late 1800’s and early 1900’s where it was introduced/​developed by Italian immigrants. It is no less a real food than the other stuff. Vince’s is that type of place. Many of the reviewers on this page seem to have a total breakdown in anything even remotely resembling logic, thought, and/​or a developed human brain and seem to be personally offended that such a place exists. I would challenge a potential diner to accept the difference and accept what you’re getting for what it is supposed to be. Are you the ignorant person who pisses and moans and gives 1 star for a $ 250/​head (before you even order wine) tasting menu because the dishes are tiny and you leave the place still feeling hungry, or are you the intelligent person living in the real world who judges the restaurant for what it is and what it sets out to be? I would challenge you to answer that… except the place is closed and your whiney or realistic opinions don’t matter one way or the other! Ha! Moving on!
There were only a couple of negatives in the evening, the first was the service and the second was the dinner salad. The service was understandably slow, the house was packed and there were less than the normal complement of servers because of the impending close date. No worries! The salad, on the other hand, was a very sad and weepy salad. It was standard with just chopped lettuce and a bit of carrots but the dressing was kind of runny like it had been out a while. So sad.
The rest of the food was right on the money. The meals, by the way, are a reasonable $ 14ish and come with soup and salad, 2 garlic or cheese breads, and the actual pasta. The portions are big, as in, you order lasagna and you get two separate slice of lasagna, each big enough for it’s own dish. There aren’t any sides or any of those «vegetable» things, that’s what the soup and salad are for! As for the pasta, they have spaghetti, lasagna, ravioli, a combination of any two, or all three. Meat sauce or marinara. You can get the pasta a la carte as well.
The minestrone soup was a relatively simple and standard soup that tasted fine. I got the lasagna and spaghetti combo for my entrée to go out with a bang, with their awesome, homemade, cooked-​long-​so-​the-​flavors-​explode meat sauce of course! The lasagna was made with a pretty strong cheese (ricotta, I guess?) that packed in the flavor. I love strong cheeses and it made the lasagna stand out whereas most places use boring cheese. The spaghetti noodles were cooked fine, no issues there. I didn’t finish my food because of the large portion size but I filled myself up. On the plus side, it was delicious, but on the minus side, I had no room for the crazy looking spumoni ice cream they served! The bowls were piled high with the stuff, it looked awesome.
Overall the meal was darn good. The meat sauce made the spaghetti, it would be just like grandma used to make if my grandma was Italian-​American. The staff were all friendly when they weren’t rushing to feed all of the hungry mouths. The décor, which is set up as if you’re dining under the stars in a house’s courtyard or on cobbled streets between buildings, is something that will definitely be missed. I’m sad to see Vince’s go, but I’m glad I had one more meal here!

Good food, great prices. The sauces they use are very delicious. The staff was very attentive even though we came in fifteen minutes before the kitchen closed. Good salad and soup. Although I should mention, I totally took the chocolate without donating ;)

Horrible! Boyfriend now teases me cause I HATE this place.
I wanted Italian food one day and he suggested this place as he has been going there for like 100 years!
Let me start off with I’m sorry if I upset anyone with this review — but it is my opinion and mine only.
It’s a good thing that this place is for sale. This place SUCKS! From the minute you walk in you are overwhelmed by the «old» smell. And it was all downhill from there.
We were seated and looked over the menu and I decided on a Moscato wine — nope. They took it off the menu even though I was reading it from the menu. hhhmmm. So i said ok — just a Diet Coke — nope but I can have Diet Pepsi instead. Does she not understand Diet Coke people do not like Diet Pepsi?
So now time to order food, which comes with with soup, salad and «garlic» bread. Soup was from a can, so I only ate 2 bites, Salad was drowning in dressing, so I sent it back for a new one with less dressing — yeah that did not work out too well either. Got the «garlic» bread which was basically buttered toast. I ordered spaghetti — um — nasty! I had maybe 4 bites and stopped eating.
My boyfriend is so nice, when the waitress asked me if I wanted a box, I said sure and he said no — she won’t eat it. She asked if I liked it and I said Nope — she did apologize and took it off the bill.
She asked if we wanted dessert and I said sure — I’ll have the Tiramasu — NOPE — don’t sell anymore. I said can we just get the check please?
I needed to get out of there quickly and to a drive through so I could eat!
I will NOT be back there ever.

Vince’s serves comfort food style spaghetti. It’s got plenty of meat sauce (not chunky or fancy, but there’s just something about it I love, and can’t get enuf of. Nice to sop up with the garlic bread.
I love to get take out sauce for my dad because he can’t have gluten, so I make him gluten free pasta, and treat him to Vince’s sauce.
The wait staff is typically young, but friendly and efficient.
But you know what really sets them apart? The ice in their drinks. I love their ice. Silly, right? But no one has ice like that. It’s small, crunchy, aerated.
For the time being, they are open, and hopefully will stay that way. If not, I may have to order a barrel of sauce!

Sorry that you’re leaving Vince’s, but some things that we experienced that might have helped you last longer:
1) One of the members of our party (granted we had a big group), did not get a plate, even when the bread was put out.
2) Your dishes are okay (not necessarily THE greatest), but for the price, you leave something wanting. Three small pieces of lasagna (maybe 2×3″ each) with 2 salads, 2 soups, and 2 garlic breads for $ 26? At least when we ordered the multiple family meals for spaghetti and ravioli the plates came out full, not with 3 pieces of lasagna and the white space covered with marinara sauce to make it SEEM fuller.
2) I understand we had a big group, but when you drop food off and don’t check on us, and someone in our group doesn’t have a plate – they can’t eat. Especially sucky when they have to wait til one of the serving platters is almost empty so they can use that as a plate.
3) Has anyone seen our waitress?
4) We’re still waiting on that plate.
It was incredibly difficult to find our waitress and try to call her when we needed something (like a freaking plate). This was only my second ever visit, and I was not that impressed. My BF tried to order alfredo. they don’t have any. If its not red sauce, they don’t have it. And just because everything is cooked with red sauce, don’t expect your food to come out quickly either.
Overall, good luck to the owners. You guys are getting a lot of money for your property!
PS if you are looking for another Vince’s Spaghetti there’s another one in Rancho Cucamonga off Route 66/​Foothill.

Definitely enjoy picking up our Italian cravings here. We love the food, I always get the lasagna/​ravioli and my boyfriend gets the same or the spaghetti/​lasagna with the garlic bread. We’re the type of people who always greet with a smile and love it when the atmosphere is just as nice.
The food is legit. The food is delicious and hearty and when you sit down to eat, you’ll get bread, salad and/​or soup along with your entrée. I am really glad we’ve had the chance to dine here before it officially closes their doors.
The lines have been long due to that reason, but we just order our food for pick up and the quality and taste is still excellent. Try it out before it’s gone. :)

Since this restaurant is closing soon, the wait has always been extremely long. You pass by it while driving down Hawthorne and wonder why there is such a big crowd of people standing outside! We probably waited 30 – 40 minutes for two people.
I ordered the spaghetti and ravioli combo meal… A meal dinner comes with soup, salad, bread and your entrée… aka a whole lot of food! But after waiting for so long, I was probably at my hungriest level that I could have been at.
But everything was delicious. I did not want to indulge too much on the salad/​soup/​bread because I wanted to save most of my tummy space for the main dish. It was tricky too, because the ravioli and the spaghetti were all hidden under a giant bed of meat sauce. I stuck my fork into the mix and was not sure what I was going to catch under there. Now… I LOVE SAUCE and their sauce was delicious. Definitely tasted like a home cooked spaghetti meal. And there was a lot of food! My mind seemed tricked by the plate sizes but nooo, there was a ton of spaghetti and raviolis under there!
The restaurant is so homey too. It literally felt like I was dining in someones dining room– judging by all the decorations and the layout of the restaurant.
I heard that they are pretty booked reservations wise until they officially close. So if you do come and do walk in, good luck. Dont be too hungry either because you will be starving by the time you are seated haha! Im so happy I was able to try this place before they shut down tho!

Overdue review update. I haven’t done any dining in after my last review except picking up orders here, but I would like to give them a shoutout for their nice takeout service. The ladies at the counter are very nice, and easy to talk to. They are very patient with questions and my preference for placing the salad dressing and meat sauce on the side or mixed-​in.
My son loves their minestrone soup, so I normally order one or two large containers of them to go. We also get their spaghetti, lasagna and garlic/​cheese bread regularly. Their truffles are crowd pleaser in this household too.
Although take out is fast and easy, but I wish they can use some better material for the soup container. The styrofoam soup container is just not practical for their large soup which is 1 quart. It can hardly hold the heavy content and the taped down flimsy lid just doesn’t do much other than giving a jerry-​rigged appearance for the whole assembling plus it adds more work for us to take the tapes off. I get frustrated with the sticky tapes every time, last time I ended up spilling the whole thing while lifting the container with lid on. Also I wish they still put the spaghetti in the tin container instead of a Chinese take-​away box. Their price has gone up quite bit, so I think they should upgrade their packing materials too.

I know the food here. It’s basically safe American Italian. I do like the garlic bread. We had a poorly trained waiter. Ray can’t seem to know if he can split a bill or not. His own words, «we’ll see how that goes». Got our bill to find they couldn’t. Honestly Ray, be honest and just say no. You’ll get tipped better.
Anyhow, after waiting 20 minutes for Ray to pick up our credit card we gave up and took the bill to the front at which time, we learned they have no problems spliting the bill.
Thanks Ray.

We had a large party and and were originally planning to go to the Olive Garden (which isn’t my favorite place either, but I wasn’t organizing the night’s events). The wait was about 2 hours, so we decided to have a drink and then go across the street to Vince’s, where there was no wait. I had never been there, but people in our group had and they were raving about it.
We arrived just before closing (they close early), but they were very nice and did not rush us at all. The server was friendly and helpful. So that’s where the charm ends…
The food choices were very basic: spaghetti, lasagna, or ravioli only. I think the server was surprised when I asked what the ravioli was stuffed with. I can get lobster ravioli from Trader Joe’s, for example, so imagine my disappointment that the only option was cheese. I had it with the meat sauce and it was downright bland. A little garlic and basil really makes a difference… they should try some. I have made better with frozen ravioli and a jar of sauce. The salad was pieces of lettuce with dressing, nothing else. The soup was OK. I didn’t eat the bread.
I did notice that weird smell in the front that others have mentioned. At least it was cheap, but I won’t be back.

I walked in here with my aunt & cousin. There is this horrific smell when you walk in the door. It’s absolutely disgusting. It’s really old looking. Food sucks. This place should be shut down. I don’t know how it’s even running. I literally sat down & lost my appetite. This place SUCKS!

My wife and I went here on a whim and were very happy. The atmosphere and service are wonderful. The food selection is sparse (only spaghetti, lasagna, or ravioli), but that’s part of the charm. They are what they are, not a full-​fledged Italian restaraunt, but a spaghetti joint. And that’s just fine. Food isn’t five stars, but it’s tasty, affordable, and comes in generous portions.
I can see this as a great family place.

Should I be embarrassed to give this place a 5, given what it is? No way, because I am not going to judge a place by everything that it’s not. This isn’t an Italian restaurant. Sure, the dishes it serves are under the Italian category, but because of the limited items it serves, this is really a spaghetti and lasagna restaurant. That’s it.
Salad? They have it. It’s nothing special, but then again, you’ll never convince me that a raw bowl of vegetables is amazing (I’m quite the carnivore). The Italian dressing goes well with the theme of your meal.
Soup? I actually quite like their soup. It’s not something I rave about, but it’s good.
I really like their lasagna and spaghetti. It’s not like you’re eating at a 5-​star restaurant, but they get really good flavor into their meat sauce, which is always appreciated. Topped with plenty of parmesan cheese, it’s delicious. Really hits the spot if you’re in the mood for lasagna and/​or spaghetti. It’s great with some of their delicious cheese bread too, though if you have heart or cholesterol problems, you might want to stay away from the breads.
Really kind of a landmark restaurant these days. Haven’t been in a while, but then again, I haven’t been in the South Bay much recently either. I’ll definitely find my way over again if I’m back in the area.

Last night was my first time back in over 15 years. My wife has never been here before so she had nothing to base her opinion off.
We both had the Lasagne and Ravioli with meat sauce dinners. The beef veggie soup is still the same and a salad is a salad to me. We both got garlic bread with our meals. The lasagne was ok, I remember then it would show up with a nice fresh baked slice of cheese on top. Not anymore. I also ordered a meatball and sausage ala cart. The meatball was bad at best. No better then any frozen crap you can get from Costco. The sausage had good flavor so that was a plus. On to the Ravioli, well I could go either way with it. Honestly the total meal was forgettable.
I really don’t see myself coming back again. Absolutely nothing was special about our meal. I’d give it a 2.5 stars and nothing more.

I will provide an update after I eat here a few more times. There are still a couple of dishes I want to try.
So far, I’ve had:
Hail Caesar salad $ 8 — probably would not order again. It was a decent salad, the chicken was tender, but it was ordinary and let’s face it, they are not known for their salads.
bruschetta app ~$ 6: this is a new item. I had a half order which came on garlic bread slices (the bread is really good). Probably would not order again. The tomatoes were not fresh. They were almost pickled, like salsa…
Chicken Vicenzo Sandwich $ 6.75 Friday lunch special: This was really good. A little messy but the bread was great, and it came with a small cup of sauce. After tasting the sauce, I realized that I had been ordering the wrong things. The sauce is definitely where it’s at.
This is a full service restaurant. You can’t beat their lunch specials. I am definitely coming back to try the lasagna, the roast beef sandwich, the spaghetti and the meatball sub.

I used to come here all the time with my family when we first moved to Torrance. Granted, I definitely had no standards for food whatsoever. I just liked the cheesy, meaty goodness that was the lasagna.
I went back for the first time in years, and I remembered why I stopped coming here. Service is good, the people are nice…
But the food just isn’t good.
I ordered the lasagna dinner combo. It’s not the worst lasagna I’ve ever had, but it just seems like something I could put together at home. Nothing special. The salad was also something I could put together easily at home.
Not worth coming back. I just feel like if it isn’t REALLY GOOD Italian food, it’s not worth paying money at a restaurant for it. I don’t even go to Olive Garden unless the group with which I’m dining chooses to go.

What can I say about Vince’s that hasn’t already been said? I love it. I grew up with it. Even though I don’t live in Torrance anymore, I often crave Vince’s whenever I’m in the area. I always get their Spaghetti with meat sauce, cheese bread, minestrone soup, salad and root beer! It’s a simple menu with an old recipe that should never be changed. You can get the food to go and it will be ready for you in 5 minutes flat!
There is also a Vince’s Spaghetti in Temecula, which is somehow related to this one but not nearly as good.

Less than ordinary. Honestly I was so embarrassed when I took my wife’s family here. Thank God they are all Mexican and have no idea what Italian food is.
The menu is pizza, ravioli, and lasagna. That’s it. No Alfredo sauce, no linguine or gnocchi or even frozen tortellini. The meat sauce has floating balls of hamburger, and that distinctive «from a jar» flavor. All the pasta is obviously frozen and probably par boiled and sitting in a vat under a heat lamp.
If you love Italian food, do not go here. Please! Go to Bucco de Bepo, or … Pizza Hut for heaven’s sake.
The photos are accurate. Notice how small are the plates. It only looks like big portions. What, too cheap to have real plates?