The Old Spaghetti Factory

I can’t believe their review is this low! I had a great experience here. First of all, don’t expect a cute Italian trattoria or Olive Garden. They have a very simple menu with not a lot of fancy choices. However, the food is solid.
I’ve always love going to OSF growing up, there are tons on the west coast. The interior décor is very old time classic, and there’s a section of booth that are actual train booths — what kid doesn’t love that?!
Food: you can’t beat their 3 course all inclusive deal. You get a soup or salad, main course, and my favorite, spumoni ice cream, all these for ~$ 12!!! I tried their new dish — spaghetti vesuvius — if you like spiciness in your food, I recommend it. You also can’t go wrong with their classic meat ball. Their house salad dressing — pesto ranch, is also great.
I see lots of reviews mentioning their bad service so I was a lil’ scared when I came. On the contrary, our waiter was so attentative and gave great recommendations. He checked on us regularly. He even told us he felt like ours spaghetti didn’t look right so he asked the chef to whip up a new batch. How sweet of him!
Definitely a great option if you’re in the area and are craving for some good, reasonably priced spaghetti!

I decided upon having my wedding rehearsal dinner here. They were able to accomodate 25 people an hour and a half before closing. I was very impressed with the level of service from the phone call I received to confirm my reservation details to the waiter and his service. He handled all 25 of us with ease and had great recommendations on food. The food here seems very simple when looking at the menu, but the flavor is top notch. I enjoyed the new sausage ravioli i believe its called. I woukd recommend this for large groups or an intimate dinner for two.

Great place, never knew there was so many different kinds of spaghetti. .always clean inside with friendly people

Hannah R was our server. Upon sitting down with another couple at the restaurant, the table right next to us had several kids one of which was screaming at the top of her lungs. My friend which is going thru some serious medical issues came out for the first time to eat after being confined to the house. He spoke with the server and asked for us to be moved. Although the restaurant appeared half full, she told us that there was no place else for us to sit. Fortunately, the child was handled by parent and all was good. I had spicy spaghetti Vesuvius which was outstanding. Everyone appeared to enjoy there food. I had to wait 15 minutes to finally receive a beer with my dinner I asked for and my wife couldn’t find the server to get a refill on her water. A little disappointed in the service, normally it’s a nice experience however seemed a little off this time. Food great, will definitely be back.

Agree with reviews. Service would give 1 star: took 10 min for drinks, took 45 min for main entrée, bread was served without plates to put it on. Forgot one of our entrees. She forgot to put an order for it. That’s as bad as it gets! Their excuse: try have murder mystery. It should not affect the quality of the service. I may understand the food coming slower, but the expected checking on you, taking empty plates, remembering to put order for entrée should not be affected by an event in the next room. Manager looked for excuses for the poor service instead of addressing it. Not coming back.

My husband and I went to this location for the murder mystery dinner. People raved about the murder mystery show and the food would be better because of the location.
Based on the murder mystery dinner package!
No. 1 — food choices or selection for the food, is terrible. Choices for vegetarian is the one and only pasta and tomato sauce basically-​or in simple English! Nothing to rave about. And the other choices are spinach tortellini with Alfredo sauce. Both of the other choice have pork in in. Why can’t we just get chicken?! Or just chicken salad? Anyone with specific diet basically are forced to eat the vegetarian meal!
No.2 — the murder mystery show itself is… Boring. Some guests who were appointed to act, doesn’t have the theater voice, can’t hear them! Some doesn’t share the information that was supposed to be shared and the actors from the murder mystery company themselves are just… okay.
No.3 — we were offered to purchase the «gold tickets» totally NOT worth it! We get the food last, we sat just like everyone else, sharing table with everyone else, cramping location with everyone else, and nothing special came with it! Just pictures? We got two pictures in a cardboard that saysurder mystery company. Sure, but the picture wasn’t clear/it’s blurry and not professional. My phone did better with pictures. And we both are married, we got two sets of the same two pictures. What!!! Nothing fancy or special or acknowledge with the «GOLD tickets»
No. 4 — let’s go back to the «3 course dinner.» This has to do with spaghetti factory itself! The salad for is watery!!! I don’t even know what kind of dressing was that. Some kind of ranch but has no taste like ranch at all. The main course, as I mentioned before, no choices. Stocked with angel hair and tomato sauces. Dessert? They pun a table mat of cakes dessert and all we got was a scoop of Neapolitan ice cream! Seriously?! And we have to pay and order upfront. And oh, drinks wasn’t included in the tickets priced we have purchased in advance even with gold tickets!
I have went to spaghetti factory in Louisville, way better. This one, I am sorry but my bad experience. I will not encourage anyone to go for the mirder mystery dinner. Not a date. Not on anniversary either. For the experience, sure.

Subpar service. No one bothered to pick up my check. No came to my table to check on me and my family have celebrated my anniversary here for the last 4 yrs. this was my anniversary. Not pleased. Never plan to return.
I would advise you not to go.

I give this place 2 stars just because the bread was good… Everything else was just ok!

We went on a cold and snowy night before a Bourbon Tasting at Jungle Jim’s and the service was amazing but the food very poor. We enjoyed the bread and salad and dessert but the entrees were not delicious and not even up to Chef Boyardee. Skip this restaurant!!!

Spumoni ice cream is really the only reason to go here. (If you’re reading my review because I’m vegan, don’t get excited, it’s not for us). The spaghetti is pretty much all I can eat here and it’s acceptable. The bread is decent. But the trolley car is fun. Especially after having seen a trolley car on a trip to the museum. It’s like a theme.

This is a solid choice for this area. The server was great. We ordered the spinach cheese ravioli and the seafood ravioli. I love the sauce they use on the seafood ravioli. BONUS: You get a little cup of Italian ice cream at the end.

This place is so good, when we come to Cincinnati we usually eat here. Our friends went with us for there first experience and they really liked the food. We always go to the one by Bass pro shop so we can walk off us being full :).

Forget that my friend went her entire meal without a drink. Forget the ambiance and décor. The food is why we go out to eat; not the cool lighting. I had the «famous lasagna». It’s famous indeed. You can find it in every frozen food section of every grocery store. It’s Stouffer Lasagna.

I have been to the old downtown Cincinnati location and this one several times. Haven’t been in about 9 years and it didn’t take long to remember why. Or rather, it did take long. Our party of 7 was told 30 – 40 minutes to be seated. We agreed that we would wait. Hour and 10 later we were seated. This place has a HUGE party room, it was nearly empty, and rather than seat us there they made us wait until they could Tetris our party into their seating plan. Wow. Manager would not budge, and it took them almost 15 minutes to clear and move the tables and reset for us. I watched while they did it, slowest bus people I have ever seen. EVERYONE was seated before us. We were the last party to be seated and we were there before 6pm!!! Party of 4? Right this way! Party of 5, 10 minute wait. Party of 14? No problem! Party of 7? Um…
The manager slash hostess told me they only seat larger parties like 13 in the back room. They had their murder mystery thing the same night, you would think they would have a few more servers on a busy Sunday early evening.
Salad was soggy, server was annoying, the clam white sauce was pretty good. The meatballs I ordered on the side tasted like dry and bad meatloaf, I sent them back. I do like their browned butter sauce, but for the most part this place is a trap. Kitschy, with a real trolley car and you can dine inside. None of the charm and mystery of the old place but it was knocked down years ago. Sigh.
So if you have a party of 7 – 8, tell them you have 15 and you will get seated right away. Do watch what you order, some of it is pretty good. On par or maybe a little better than OG, so know what you are getting into before you commit.

I came here for a Murder Mystery dinner party so the food wasn’t really the star of the night, but figured I would write a review anyway. First off, I think they definitely oversold the tickets. The back room was packed and was very difficult to walk around in, which made it hard for the wait staff to walk around for drink refills, delivering food, etc. The dinner party came with a salad, pasta, and then a dessert. The salad had some great dressing, definitely nothing special though. The pasta was quite a disappointment. I got the manager’s special or something that had two types of sauces. It was a gigantic plate of spaghetti with one spoonful of sauce on each side. By the time I got it all mixed together the sauce BARELY covered the noodles. It tasted kind of like I was just eating a huge plate of plain pasta. I would have much preferred a smaller portion size with better flavor and more sauce. And finally, the gourmet dessert they decided to serve us was a tiny bowl of neopolitan ice cream. Pathetic.
The murder mystery was a lot of fun though, and the food wasn’t the worst I’ve ever had so if you do have tickets to that you’ll still have a great time!

This is not Olive Garden or some other kind of Italian restaurant — Read the Name People!
OSF is a tradition for many people — a unique dining experience.
Imagine your family passing down some great pasta recipes and turning that into a restaurant based on several great pasta dishes.
Their Mizithra Cheese & Browned Butter is awesome! Not something you should eat very often, but I would drive a couple hours to get some — when the mood hits!

I went to this business, and I have to say that I really appreciate the way their General Manager assisted, but the experience was not good.
We stood around waiting for a hostess for about 5 minutes before anyone addressed us (multiple servers and bartenders walked by). The service was mediocre, the food was pretty horrible. Honestly, tasted like frozen Budget meals that were microwaved… badly. The kicker was that I got sick afterward, not to be too graphic, but I didn’t leave the bathroom for 3 days. I did get a very concerned call from the GM when I wrote about it, and they provided a full refund, for which I was thankful. Maybe someone else’s experience will be better… Hopefully.

Despite having lived right up the street from this restaurant for nearly four years, this was my first visit to The Old Spaghetti Factory.
Having never been I was flabbergasted by the décor. For the part of town, the interior was surprisingly eclectic and upscale. I’m not totally sure how they sustain themselves on $ 10-​$ 15/​plate of pasta at all. Especially only being open for dinner. Double especially since each entrée comes with a dessert.
The server was peppy and totally on her game, constantly refilling drinks, dropping by occasionally to check on my date and I and offering to-​go cups refills after we paid our check. A good tip, she did get. (I’m forgetful, and don’t recall the name, sorry.)
We started with the Sicilian garlic cheese bread. While I’m not usually one for cheesy breads unless it’s pizza, this was pretty darned good.
I ordered the White Clam Sauce which is a fettuccini base with a clam based alfredo sauce and copius quantities of clam in the mix. While a bit heavy it was tasty and filling.
My date ordered the garlic shrimp fettuccini and completely enjoyed her meal as well.
For dessert we had the Mud Pie which had a very good coffee ice-​cream to make it a-​la mode.
While we obviously didn’t take advantage, they do apparently offer some gluten-​free/​paleo dining options here.
For a cheap, mostly quiet and still date-​worthy meal, check this place out.

The Old Spaghetti Factory ended up being my birthday destination this year. I’d been to one in Indy before, but it’s been a few years. I had had the Mizithra Cheese & Browned Butter last time, and this was my dish of choice this time around as well. It’s flavorful and unique. Honestly, nothing else really looked appealing. My husband had fettuccine alfredo, and it was rather bland. Your entrée comes with a side salad, bread, and a scoop of ice cream (vanilla or spumoni) for dessert, so overall, it’s a pretty decent deal.

I know Unilocal!prefers us to refrain from cursing in our reviews, but f**k y’all who don’t like The Old Spaghetti Factory. People, what are you expecting? You see the name, right? You get a good look at the place while you’re in the front waiting for you table, don’t you? If you’re expecting anything more than a family-​friendly place that’s loud and easy-​going with good food that doesn’t take itself too seriously, set your GPS for Olive Garden.
The OSF is great. To be fair, I was a non-​believer. I scoffed at my wife when she suggested we go here. I mean, look at the name! What a goofy place, and I’m sure the food sucks. Ha! Man, was I wrong. We had a terrific time. Our waitress was very personable, relaxed and attentive. We had an app — spinach artichoke dip (blah, I know) but with a special added ingredient — shrimp. It seems so basic, yet no one else is doing that and it was delicious.
Our meals were good size without being crazy huge. No leftovers. Our lil one enjoyed her meal, too. When she got loud, it was no big deal at all. There were easily a dozen other kids her age there. That’s not to say it was all families. I saw a decent variety in the clientele — old, young, black, white, big families, couples, etc.
We shared a carafe of wine, which was moderately priced. Everything was pretty easy on the old wallet, actually. Dessert comes with each meal — choice of vanilla ice cream or spumoni. We dug in, as both were quite tasty.
We will definitely be back here many many more times.