Romano’s Macaroni Grill

Came in at 4pm, pretty empty, there was only 3 tables and one waitress on floor. Took FOREVER for her to come to our table to take our order (20 min later) !!! This restaurant used to be our fave, but it has really gone downhill~ my last visit!!!

I must say Macaroni Grill has really gone downhill. I was never a huge fan, but it wasn’t bad before, now it’s really not good at all. All the pastas I’ve tried here have been terrible, so the only thing I’ll eat here is the scallops and spinach salad. Well they added bacon to the salad, which is not listed on the menu, which I don’t eat so that was annoying, but the salad itself was not good either, it used to be cooked spinach but now it’s half cooked, half raw, weird. The scallops themselves were tiny and way overcooked, like crusty and burnt up. I hope to not have to go here again honestly, however, the hubby does like the chicken parmesan, he claims it’s their only good dish, so I guess they still have that going for them.

Not bad for an italian chain restaurant. We had excellent customer service (5 stars for our waitress Ruby). Pasta is average in flavor and texture 3 stars. The eggplant by itself 4 stars. I didn’t care for the breading on the fried mac n cheese bites. The fried calamari was good, but I’ve had better. The rosemary bread was delicious 4 stars (minus a star for too much salt on the crust).
They are running a great lunch promotional beginning at $ 7.99. Definitely worth a try.

I’d never complained about the foods but today’s service was the worst since I walked in. Must lower expectation from hostess, waiter, and waitress here

Came here for a business lunch during a weekday. Was totally acceptable for that. Nothing fancy but nice enough.
Had the chicken parm — definitely was good but not memorable. Wasn’t the best I’ve had but decent. Came with pasta w marinara as the usual side and again, not bad but not amazing. Portion size was good for lunch, I eat a lot and it filled me up.

i love it here it’s in the neighborhood it’s friendly an it’s were torrance golks come for great drinks and italian food !!! but dont order the fried macaroni its horrible!!!

It’s awful that so many people haven’t enjoyed their experience because our time was excellent! My auntie met with my mom and I on Friday night to have dinner. Auntie ordered a new dish, the pork roast with vegetables and roasted potatoes.
(She said it was as delicious as it looked.) Mom decided on the spaghetti and meatballs. (She claimed Olive Garden had the better sauce. I loved Macaroni Grill’s much better.) I selected the Penne Rustica, a creamy dish with rosemary, prosciutto, chicken, shrimp and Parmesan. It was fantastic. I usually get the Bolognese but that night I ventured out and I am glad I did. I finished my supper by sharing a cheesecake with strawberries. Auntie liked the strawberries but not the cheesecake. The whole experience for me was lovely: a hearty meal with people I love, my mom and my auntie.

Ruby was pur seever amd gave the best service to our table ever! Will request her table everytime amd will recommend her to everyone. Someone told us about hervand we will always and only eat here during her shift and request her section!

I came here on a Sunday for lunch, it wasn’t crowded, but our food took a very long time. When the food finally came it was good & hot.
Our waitress told me that the kitchen had gotten the orders mixed up!
I’m still giving them 5 stars because the food was great, Andy, our server was great, and the manager himself came to our table to apologize and see what he could do to make our visit end on a sweet note!
I would definitely come back here and recommend this Macaroni Grill to others!

The new $ 7 menu! Amazing… and they claim that if you don’t get your order in 7 minutes it’s free! We ordered the prosciutto grilled cheese (goat cheese) and the spaghetti verdi (pesto). It was surprisingly filling… Great job mac grill!

ugh, the wife likes this place, but even she said the food has let us down the last few times we’ve gone. i have to say i dont like it here. Aside from having some real bad service, i never leave this place liking my food or thinking i got good food for the money.
Take our dinner last night, i ordered the chicken parmesan with steamed broccoli. The chicken didn’t have much flavor, i got a big portion, but over all it was not very flavorful, so not memorable. the veggies were cold but i ate them anyway. i also ordered a long island drink from the bar and ive had the same drink in the past and they were served in a tall glass, for $ 11, this time i got a short bucket glass and the drink was real weak. honestly, anyone whos had a long island knows you taste the alcohol. this one didnt even get me buzzed, it was more ice and soda than anything else. so big fail for the bartender.
my wife ordered the build your own pasta bowl. she said it was ok, but the eggplant was breaded, and the last time she got the same dish it was not breaded, and that it was more breading than eggplant. but she said it tasted ok. nothing special.
we got kids pizzas and that came out hot, very hot. the kids had to sit for 15 minutes to let them cool. they seem to have a ball of cheese in the middle of the pizza and not much out near the edges. so the kids ate the center of them and that was about it. i had a slice and it was more bread and cheese and almost no sauce. but tasted ok. so i’m on the fence on these.
we did order two appetizers and they were good. the zucchini and mac n cheese fill bites. both were good and come with sauce that was good.
so over all the food was 4 – 5 out of 10, its not bad food, just ok. service on this trip was fine so thats helps the star rating. over all we probly wont go back often…

DJ was out server who did a great job!
The food was delicious! I had the chicken parmigiana which is on special right now for $ 11.50 and its a huge portion. Got a salad to go with it for an extra $ 3 and it was wonderful. The bread was amazing as always.

A classy atmosphere, but you can draw on the tables with crayons?! Yes. Macaroni Grill offers a variety of new and classic Italian dishes inspired by trattoria cuisine. From the architecture to the Italian singers, details such as these are really what creates a great atmosphere.
Parking:
The parking lot is huge, but it is shared by all of the other businesses in Rolling Hills Plaza, including the movie theater. Because of this, it can get pretty full, especially in the evenings.
Service:
Good service. Our waiter was attentive and returned with requested items in a timely manner. He was very nice about getting us more fresh bread and keeping our water glasses filled. It did, however, take a while for our food to come out. He was apologetic about the wait and told us that the kitchen was a bit backed up, so he brought us more bread to tie us over in the meantime.
Food:
— Fresh bread with olive oil and balsamic vinegar — I always look forward to eating this when I come here! Bread is warm and soft, and it soaks up the oil and vinegar well.
— Parmesan-​Crusted Sole — Lemon butter, capers, and sun-​dried tomato orzo. They give a large piece of fish, and the sun-​dried tomato orzo is really flavorful! Large portion… I usually have leftovers to take home!
— Shrimp Portofino — Jumbo shrimp, capellini, spinach, mushrooms, pine nuts, lemon butter. This dish is very tasty! The lemon butter is light, but coats the pasta well and adds just the right amount of flavor to the dish.
*Tip — Join their e-​mail club and get $ 5 off your next visit!

This place is FANTASTIC!
The location was pristine and so beautiful! The service was amazing, they were so kind and helpful and made us feel like home.
The food was delicious and exquisitely presented and cooked. I could’ve have asked for a more perfect meal.
They have a fantastic singer, Mora, singing in italian. She brought tears to my eyes at how beautifully she sang. It made our evening that much more perfect.
I will definitely be back ASAP!

My hubby and I came here after wandering around the Rolling Hills Plaza shops looking for a place to eat. For a Friday night, we were able to find parking really quickly, which is rare there. We finally settled on Romano’s Macaroni Grill because we had a Gift Card and we hadn’t been there in ages.
We were seated promptly, and were placed at a table in the very back corner of the restaurant. Somebody’s gotta sit there. LOL It was a little tight to squeeze through the chairs to get to the chair I was going to sit in for dinner.
Our waiter, Alex, wrote his name on the paper in crayon. He was very polite and was almost as good of a waiter as he could be because he was very busy. As usual, we were left to try to flag down anyone we could for what we needed. He did check up on us a few times, but we were ok, it was only when he hadn’t appeared back for a while that we found we needed something else. Isn’t that how it goes? Or you have a mouthful of food and can’t talk?
Alex got our drink order and came back with bread and poured olive oil on a plate and added freshly cracked pepper. We started off with a Pomegranate Iced Tea and an Arnold Palmer. The iced tea was very tart, but I should have expected that. No refills were given or asked if we needed them. Hubby got up and looked for sugar, but couldn’t get any, but he finally found someone to bring us some to the table.
We ordered a House Salad with Vinaigrette. It was pretty good. It had a bitter something in it, I am thinking it is Radicchio, but I don’t know for sure. It looked like a reddish cabbage/​lettuce. I ate them, hubby avoided them.
For our entrée, we shared the Cremini Pork Shank. It has a good sized pork shank cooked with Marsala Wine Sauce, Caramelized Onions, Mushrooms, Garlic, Carrots, Celery, and Rosemary Potatoes. It was really a great dish! It came in a ceramic casserole type of dish. The food arrived to the table warm, not quite hot, as I would have preferred. It’s a lot of food for one person! Even with us sharing it, we had a little bit of pork leftover, but finished the veggies. I asked for an extra plate because we were sharing and the only plates that were on the table were small ones, the ones you use for your bread. Well, we were brought extra plates and they were the exact same sized plate! Hmmm… I guess they don’t use any plates that are larger for dinners. I mean, The Olive Garden has big dinner sized plates. Oh well, it didn’t really matter, it’s just an observation.
Alex was kind enough to give us a fresh bread to go although we asked for a bag to take our leftover ½ bread home in. I don’t think there is anything on the menu we’d really go back for. It may be a few more years before we give it a go again. It really was an enjoyable meal and place to dine. Give it a shot!

Came here for a friend’s going-​away dinner. I’ve never been much impressed with the food here but on this occasion the service was quite good. There were almost 20 of us and we had two servers. They were great at getting the drink orders, recommending some appetizers, getting the food orders and keeping our drinks full. The servers were great & I wish I remembered their names so they could get some recognition b/​c they really knew how to handle a large group. One of the servers was a heavier set gentleman with a beard & he spoke at least a few words of German; excellent server!
I had one of the margherita flatbread pizzas & was not impressed. All I remember was that they had poured too much olive oil on it so the flatbread was just super soggy & limp. Had they not poured so much it might have been ok. I didn’t finish mine & decided it wasn’t worth trying to take the leftovers home.
My one big complaint: there were almost 20 of us and we had a reservation (so they knew how many people were coming and at what time). The tables they pushed together just barely fit all of us (it was a very good that we were all fit & that there were several children in the group b/​c they REALLY squished us together… there were several people sitting on the corners of tables). I think at least one more small table added to the end would have made it more comfortable spacing.

Sometimes a place does not deserve all the negative reviews that it gets due to personal taste or just an off day. But after reading all the negative reviews for this place and experiencing it first hand, I can certainly say this place deserves all the criticism. The mistakes and unprofessional attitude shown by the staff were pathetic and laughable.
Let me just list the major things that went wrong:
1.We had a confirmed lunch reservation for a corporate birthday/​anniversary celebration, but upon our arrival, our table was not set up even though there was hardly a soul in the place. I guess most people know to avoid this place.
2.The place reeked of gas. A lot of people were complaining they were having headaches from breathing in the foul smell. Perhaps the staff like the smell as they appeared to not be bothered by it. They might have actually been getting high off of it.
3.The soup that we ordered was cold. We told the waiter who exclaimed, «oh sh*t!!!» and took it back. When the soups came back, they were still cold.
4.This may be a normal practice but the waiter used a crayon to write down each of our orders on the table next to each person. They didn’t have a system to indicate who order what.
5.When a coworker mentioned she couldn’t find chicken in her dish, the waiter got really defensive and firmly told her, «Oh there’s a little piece in there…» then proceeded to do other things and ignored her.
6.Another coworker wanted parmesan cheese. They gave her the parmesan alright. Right onto her lap! The grater was lifted so high and with such bad aim that it showered her lap with cheese.
7.When he was done passing out all the entrées, he shouted «boom» done. (How professional is that?)
8.When refilling a coworker’s water, instead of saying excuse me he poked her arm. (Um…Sexual harassment???)
9.When one of the manager jokingly asked if he could sing the happy birthday song, his response was «Helllllllllllllll no, my dog could sing better.» (I think we were all beyond speechless at that point.)
10.Finally, when it was time to have dessert, the plates the waiter handed out were wet and one of the forks looked like this (Need I say more?)
Note: The reason I’m giving it 2 stars instead of 1 is because the dessert was actually pretty decent.

Romano’s Macaroni Grill are my nephews fave place to go when they’re in town. Granted, they are 6 and 8 years old. They like to get the mac and cheese off the kids menu – correction, they LOVE the mac and cheese off the kids menu. However, there is no consistency in this place. Usually their bowl is about 2/3−¾ full. This last trip, it wasn’t even half full. When a 6 year old is complaining that they gave him less than last time – what the heck? Me and my sister ended up giving the kids most of our side of fettuccine alfredo to get them full.
We ordered their special with the skewers (comes with appetizer, side pasta, and 2 skewers). The shrimp on skewers was chewy. The 6 year old tried it and said «ew» and refused to finish his piece – yes, THAT chewy that a 6 year old wouldn’t eat it. Learn to cook shrimp please – even I know anything more than 3 – 4 minutes on a BBQ grill even on U16 shrimp is too long. And I spent an extra $ 1 for those 3 overcooked pieces? Gross. The steak skewer was nothing special, a thin piece 3″ piece of meat cooked on a skewer (oh that was $ 1 more too).
And we asked the kids food to come out first, great. Then 5 minutes later me and my sister get ours. And 10 minutes AFTER that my boyfriend finally gets his fettuccine alfredo. What the heck? We got our sides of fettuccine before he did! Someday, we might eat together.
Anywho. My sister still can’t find anything she likes on this menu, and we come here every time the nephews are down (and we’ve tried at least half the menu). The only redeeming value is the balsamic + olive oil with bread while waiting to order/​waiting for our food. We still don’t like the place. As soon as we can find someplace our nephews will go to instead, we probably won’t be back.

The menu is for the burbs © 2013 Randy Berger. It’s in a weird sub-​category, because it’s put together nicely with presentation and décor… priced right, and overall a good quality product. But it’s missing anything special, it’s not true Italian, or quaintly owned/​run by an Italian family. It’s better than Olive Garden, and not as fun as Buca. So for me, sure — I won’t turn down a free dinner (thanks to Mom’s beau), but I wouldn’t normally choose to come here.
Last night, I tried the chicken parm ($ 13). Well-​priced for CP, but it’s because it’s smallish: 3 pieces, 2“x3″ pounded thin (perhaps 1 breast total?). Taste/​flavor was just ‘okay’, and served with a side of angel-​hair with little sauce.
Overall, nice and attentive service by our waiter, parm cheese-​grinder guy, and pepper boy.
Happy Hour: twice per day, everyday. $ 5 pizzas and 4 choices of $ 3 – 7 drink specials.
Parking: stinks. Shared with other restaurants, and the big AMC movie theater, your lucky to find a space on a first or second pass. Be prepared to walk.
One big and odd occurrence worth mentioning (especially to the management):
With my party of 3, we arrived at 455pm. About 75% of the tables were empty at that time of check-​in, yet we had to wait 15 mins to be seated. Told it was because «we don’t have enough servers, and trying to control the flow.» Well, my dears, that’s why we went so early… so we wouldn’t have to wait to be seated. Can we find a resolve for this? Don’t make that staffing issue my issue.

Happy Labor Day weekend lunch via @MacaroniGrill.
Romano’s Macaroni Grill had a great deal this Labor day when a buy one entrée, get one free entrée offer for just this weekend came via email. What a perfect way to celebrate the long weekend.
I came here for lunch with my friend. It was a semi birthday celebration birthday for us. My friend’s birthday was just this last week and mine is coming up. I got the pollo caprese and my friend got the grilled chicken spiedini. We both wanted something healthy and this was perfect because both entrees came from Macaroni’s Lite menu with the lighter calories. The pollo caprese is a dish with grilled chicken breast, capellini pomodoro and arugula salad. The grilled chicken spiedini comes with grilled chicken, roasted vegetables and lemon oil.
I liked the presentations of both dishes. They both come out on long white dishes. My pollo caprese had the arugula salad to the side, a grilled chicken breast in the middle and the pasta on the other side. My friend’s grilled chicken spiedini came with a variety of roasted vegetables and two chicken kabobs.
I really liked the pollo caprese. The arugula salad was excellent with it’s light dressing. The chicken was nice and tender. I would not mind getting this dish again. I think I will also want to get the dish my friend got. The roasted vegetables had eggplants, squash and bell peepers. It looked really great!
As always both meals, came with the famous Macaroni grill that you dip in olive oil. I loved that the bread they gave us here was nice and warm. It had just come out straight from the oven. The waitress asked if we wanted another one but then forgot to bring another one out. She eventually did when we asked.
One last note, no free birthday cake here although the waitress knew we were celebrating our birthdays. (Kinda strange because I’ve gone to birthday lunches before at the El Segundo location and there is always a nice chocolate cake paired with a birthday song ;). Nevertheless, the lunch here was good, we were full and had leftovers and so we would of barely had room for dessert anyways ;).
The whole lunch because of the buy one, get one free entrée coupon came to $ 11.42. What a great deal! Thanks Macaroni Grill!