Marra’s

The waiter we had was so awful it ruined the entire experience and I will never go back here again. My boyfriend asked for a Coke three times and the man never brought it. He also failed to check on us even once or refill our water. I did however see him showing the bartender things on his phone and laughing with him the entire time. When we asked for the check he made a joke about us. Then the check came and naturally he managed to charge us for the Coke he never actually brought. Awful.

Best gravy and pizza in Philly. Large portions, great waitstaff and South Philly feel make for a great experience.

Marra’s has gone downhill. Don’t waste your time or your money. The food was awful, the service was poor and it was ridiculously overpriced. With so many other places to go, choose somewhere else.

Pizza had a nice crisp crust, and the pizza itself was not soggy or greasy. Good ratio with the toppings

My favorite pizza place in Philly!
The tray (I’m from Scranton — we say tray, not pie) I consistently get is: large pizza with clams, fresh garlic, mushrooms.
It is incredible! Just trust me!
Sauce isn’t sweetened. Cheese –sauce ratio is on point. Crust is great, chewy, charred, crisp.
I heat it in the oven if I get take out to crisp up the crust.
Broccoli rabe with garlic is a great appetizer.
Décor is very old school South Philly. It’s charming.

Just had another amazing dinner! Best stuffed ziti and chicken parm I’ve had since the last time I ate Marra’s! Keep it up!

Marras used to be my favorite pizza in Philadelphia, the last time I ordered pizza it tasted like cardboard no flavor whatsoever. Tonight I ordered white pizza with Ricotta cheese (my favorite) and I could barely eat a slice. The ricotta cheese smelled and looked like it was over a year old. It was yellowish green color and you could tell it was not fresh whatsoever. Very disappointed.
Used to be my go to pizza spot and now may never order again:/

The true Italian landmark I think it’s been around longer than I’ve been alive. The décor is from the sixties maybe even from the fifties but if you like brick oven pizza done traditional style in a nearly eight hundred degree brick oven this is the place. We always order 2 large different topping pizzas and Caesar salads made with anchovies yummy. My friends come from Merion, we meet once every 6 weeks at Marra’s. A recent review in the local paper made me realize that the critic had probably gotten up that morning on the wrong side of the bed. Marra’s has good food, good service, and that’s on a Friday night. I’ve been there dozens of times and never see people sending their food back or looking PO’ed.
Passyunk Avenue has changed for the better. And worth coming there to walk the strip and see the shops all the new restaurants but I hope Marra’s continues its old world tradition.

It’s classic Italian
It’s classic South Philly
It smells insane.
Pluses for outdoor seating.
Plus that the water already came with lemons.
The pizza is great. I love that the sauce is cheese free and the dough is eggless and you can create your own. Veggies galore. I built my own with broccoli rabe, tomatoes, artichokes and garlic. It was perfectly crispy.
My daughter’s pasta with fresh tomatoes and oil was great. Fresh and I like that they have eggless gluten-​free options. I had a bite. Luckily they didn’t catch me because there is a $ 3 sharing fee which I hate.
The table like the Caesar salad. My hubby liked his meat lovers pizza.
Negatives: Our waitress sucked. She arrived at the table. «Are you ready?» Oh hi and how are you today? Ugh!!! I think she was a relative as I heard her calm someone Uncle something so perhaps she feel like she can talk to the customers like family. I don’t know. But we had to ask for water refills and oil twice. And to go boxes took forever. Luckily there was a man near the front door kind of over seeing things who helped out. The loud speaker was a buzz kill. And $ 3 for a kid’s chocolate milk is steep.

Pizza is okay, at least I thought so until I saw the bottom half of a bug in my pizza. Upstairs is incredibly dirty, you can see the dust bunnies on the ceiling fans. Service is bad, at best. I waiting for approximately 15 minutes for a drink refill. If you come maybe you will find the top half of the bug that was missing from my pizza!

I will NEVER eat at Marra’s again. I was there about 5 years ago with my husband. Bad food served with a side of attitude. Nuff said.

Four stars for food. Zero stars for service.
We arrived around 6 on a Wednesday evening. Only one other booth was occupied. The bartender seemed to be either drunk or downed out.
I ordered a beer that took about 20 min to arrive, either because the waiter was outside on his phone or because of the aforementioned bartender.
The meals, seafood Alfredo and shrimp diavlo, were very good. Pasta tasted fresh, sauce was great, and the seafood portions were plentiful.
As we were finishing, the waiter was outside talking to someone in a car. We waited for him to come back in, and finally gave up and asked the bus boy for the check.
Again– great food, terrible service, possibly drunk bartender.

You’d think that with so many restaurants opening in East Passyunk Av in the recent years, Marra’s will up their game to remain competitive. I have seen this place slowly going down. This last (definitely last) time I visited was the worst experience in it. The service was slow. When some gentleman noticed that my husband and I were seating in one of the booths, he called one of the waitresses. I saw them having a rather unfriendly exchange, then she just came to our booth and asked «What do you want?», no hello, no «Could I start you with a drink?», nothing. And all employees seem to be hanging out and having personal conversations (even occupying one of the booths) in front of the patrons.
Fortunately we already knew what we wanted, so we ordered our meals. 5 minutes later some guy throws some cold dry bread on the table. Then a few minutes later out of nowhere the waitress returned and says «Do you want something to drink?» The restaurant was almost empty, though it was on a Saturday night it was pouring rain, so there weren’t that many patrons in the restaurant.
We ordered Caesar’s salad and stuffed mushrooms for appetizers. The salad was ok, but the stuffed mushrooms we used to love were horrible! Cold, and with some kind of weird liquid around them. They were poorly presented too.
Our entries were the Veal Alaska and Flounder Francase (pardon my spelling) Special. «Alaska» did come to mind when my husband tasted the rather cold veal. Seemed like it was cooked the day before and put in the microwave defrost a minute before it was served. My flounder was insanely overcooked and topped with a giant layer of (once) melted cheese. Under the cheese was a ball of spinach that looked pre-​chewed by another person. And the plate was cold too. I paid an additional dollar for the «treat» of having my flounder with ravioli. Again, cold and the sauce was mediocre. The only thing that was warm was the beer I later regretted ordering.
Once upon a time this place had better food and definitely better service. In the past I’ve had good pizza, warm bread, hot meals, cold beer, and better tasting and better presented stuffed mushrooms, not to mention better service. All that seems to be a thing of the past. With so many other restaurants in the area, many of them with a diverse choice of Italian food, there are better choices with better service for a better price.

I wanted to love this place as much as I love all South Philly Italian joints. Came here for the pizza so I cannot speak to the dinner menu. Started off with mozzarella sticks. Eh– too much breading and the cheese wasn’t melted all the way. On to the margarita pizza. It was very well done, which I am OK with but the crust was too burnt to eat. Sauce wasn’t very flavorful either. I prefer Slice or Santucci’s.
I will say the staff are very friendly and always checking in. I enjoyed the wine as well… but that’s hard to mess up.

Terrible, extremely slow service, calamari tasted like a mound of salt had been added to it, pizza was less than stellar.
We will not be coming back

Marra’s has had many interesting visitors over the years, Sinatra, Travolta, Conan O’Brien, Rollie Massimino and just plain folks like you and me. The business was started in 1920 and is still run by the Salvatore grandchildren, the original owner and founder of the restaurant. The food is typical Neapolitan style cuisine done very nicely, with no surprises which means it is consistent each and every time. The prices for a restaurant located in a major city are more than reasonable and I have found the service always to be very good, often your servers are members of the family. The inside is dark wood paneling with soft lighting which adds to the overall warmth and charm of this little ethnic eatery. The pizza is solid as are their entrees most recently I had the veal parmigiana with sauteed spinach and spaghetti. The veal was pan fried to crispy crunchy gold perfection topped with mozzarella and sauce. The sauteed spinach was beyond my wildest expectation, it was just downright fabulous with lots of garlic and just the right amount of olive oil, I mean this was a total blow out explosion of deliciousness. This was my fifth visit to Marra’s, it will not be my last and will remain on my list each and every time I visit Philly!

Marra’s is pretty good. It oozes Italian tradition from the décor to the overall atmosphere and feel of the place. You can bring your dog if you sit outside. The Chicken Supremo personal pizza is a personal favorite, the pasta dishes look great too!

Although it’s not terrible, Marra’s is not a place we will likely be going back to anytime soon.
We had been there once several years ago and had just mediocre food (watery ravioli’s and a very dry chicken parm) but decided to give it another whirl recently. I wish I could say this experience was better, but alas.
We ordered from their special menu which was a decent value for the portions – $ 12.95 for a salad and an entrée. Unfortunately, size isn’t everything. ;)
The bread that came to the table I will say was some of the best I have had in a while. Soft but crisp and so flavorful (at least as far as bread is concerned!) The caesar salad was either really fishy or the dressing was on its way out. Either way, not so good.
My mom and I had the Penne Ala Vodka with Chicken. It was just OK. The sauce was really thick and didn’t seem to have been freshly prepared. Maybe if it had been heated up more it would have thinned out (like soup from a can). It tasted OK but not much better than stuff I could make at home. My husband had the Shrimp Scampi which he said was pretty bad. He is not one to complain but the sauce was watery and he said it lacked flavor.
The other big bummer was the wine. We ordered a carafe of Pinot Grigio for $ 13. It wasn’t cold and, from what we could tell, came from a bottle of Barefoot which retails for about $ 8. It just felt like a ripoff.
Oh well. Sorry Marra’s! Maybe next time?

Pizza tastes good but is very oily and pretty expensive.
Quartto gusto tasted delicious with prosciutto, artichokes, and mushrooms, but it was drenched with oil. When we finished the pizza, there was a while pool of oil.
Also a small pizza (8 slices – 14inched) came out to be $ 21 bucks which wasn’t worth it.
Service was okay. The employees were all standing around talking really loudly.
So many amazing pizza places around (stogie joe’s and birra) that are better, I don’t think I’ll return.

I’m so sorry to write a less than stellar review for Marra’s, because I was very excited to try this place! With an adorable storefront that had been there since 1927, I had very high expectations which were not met.
My friend and I decided to go for their special «Sunset Menu» so we could each try a soup or salad with an entrée for $ 12.95. Not a bad deal at all, especially compared to all the higher-​pricetagged places popping up along East Passyunk.
My friend had ordered some wine… beware: you don’t choose a label — you simply choose «chardonnay» or «merlot», etc. The wine carafe tasted like watered-​down grape juice and didn’t pack much of a punch; obviously from a box or gallon jug!
We were given some stale white bread and butter while we waited for the meals to served, but the salad and soup were actually really tasty and were a nice starter.
Finally, the entrees. My friend’s shrimp scampi was well-​presented and she did enjoy it. My crab linguini though, was nothing close to the «lump meat» that I pictured from the menu description. The crab was, instead, little shreds of white flesh that were speckled with shell pieces. I had to eat very carefully to make sure I wasn’t swallowing pieces of shell with each bite.
While we were eating, we noticed the server dining on his own dinner up at the bar. He didn’t even bother to eat his food back in the kitchen, but out in the open! At one point he came over to our table while he was still chewing his bites. Gross.
The décor of this place seems like it hasn’t changed too drastically since the 1920’s. I’m not sure if it’s endearing or just too outdated.
Once again, I was really hoping for a stellar experience here, but I’m glad I tried it.