Frankie & Benny’s

Starters ordered: Mushrooms with Garlic and Cheese, Bacon Cheddar Potato Skins
Main Courses ordered: New York Calzone, and Chicken Penne Romana
Desserts Ordered: Cinnamon Waffle with Blueberry Ice Cream, and Hot Brownie with Brownie Ice Cream
Cost (Lunch Special): Starters £2.50, main courses £6.95, & desserts £2.50
This is an American-​Italian restaurant… comparable to an Applebee’s back in New York. Eaters can find a selection of starters, main courses, and desserts. It is a casual diner with friendly service– our waitress was very accommodating to our needs. The mushroom starter was SO GOOD… like I used the garlic sauce from this for my potato skins… it’s obsessive. The Chicken Penne Romana was decent. It had bacon, pepperoni, chicken, and arugula. I love all the the ingredients listed so I enjoyed this. Everything else was just average… The taste of the food was alright, without the lunch special prices the food would be super over priced!!!

I stopped in to get gift vouchers for my grandparents Christmas present. This is what they ask for as they really like Frank & Bennys (not his specific restaurant)
I was a bit taken back that they only do paper gift vouchers, not a pre-​loaded card. And they only do them in £5 denominations.
It took about 10 minutes in total which as fine, but when the manager came back with the vouchers, they were loose and not in a card or envelope, it was just a bit like the least possible effort.

It’s just an average restaurant.
The waiter was nice and polite. The atmosphere is just as any other American restaurants.
We have a group of 6 so I can taste 6 different dishes in one time.
«Spaghetti pomodoro» was not as good as I thought. The tomato sauce was very dry. There isn’t even sauce in the plate. The flavor of it was light. I wasn’t very sure where the tomato flavor is.
«Spaghetti carbonara» was better. But again, the dress is very dry. I couldn’t see what dressing was in the plate again. Even if we added much cheese on top of it, can’t really add any flavor of it.
” ham and mushroom pizza” was the best of the day even if the scorched a little bit.
All other pasta taste really the same. I guess the main reason is that the dressing is too dry.
The hamburger was not juicy. Another thing was that the waiting time was sooooo long. Go there if you really have time.
There are a lot of restaurants near there and taste almost the same.

Terrible food, terrible service. We ordered a burger, chips and onion rings. The burger was so over processed it resembled cardboard, the only decent food was the chips. The wait staff was slow even for European standards. We had to practically tackle our waitress after ½ hour of trying to get her attention to pay our bill. Last time I’ll try this chain,. anywhere.

This is one of the times I wish I could give a negative star!!! After waiting waiting for 6 min. 38 seconds (yes I time it when I walk up to hostess station unmanned). We sat our selves at the bar just to find out the bartender was going on break and after our drinks were done. Then he pulled up a char next to us. I can’t brave this place is so poorly run!!! Food was ok but I would never come her nor give it another chance.

Expensive food. Below average service.
I stopped into Frankie & Benny’s for a mid-​evening dinner and I have to say that I walked away pretty unimpressed. When I came through the door no one was there to greet or seat me. After about a minute of standing around like an idiot, I was just about to turn around and walk out when the bartender actually came out of the bar to reluctantly seat me. How nice of him to do that, but somehow don’t think that is how it’s supposed to go.
Anyway, after sitting down I order an appetiser and a soft drink while attempting to connect to their «free wifi». After a few minutes of fiddling around with it, I realise that they want not only my email but a password and login I.D. in order to get the wifi service. Annoying. But, because I got the feeling I would be there a while, I give in and do it. And the wifi was slow and unresponsive. Of course.
The appetiser was garlic and cheese bread. It was good. The dinner was a calzone. That was good as well. The time needed to get those items? Over an hour. Yikes! I’ve got time for dinner, but not 2 – 3 hours for it. *Just a side note: They were NOT busy.
Not to delve into too many details, this was by far my most expensive meal while in Edinburgh. And not nearly good enough service or food to justify the expense. Also, this place had a very corporate/​cookie-​cutter restaurant atmosphere, which doesn’t feel authentic Italian or New York at all. Not that I actually expected that.
I cannot see a scenario where I would come back and eat here. I certainly would not recommend Frankie & Benny’s to any of my friends either. In fact, they would laugh at me if they knew I went here.

Well, if you comps this place to both American and Italian restaurants, this F&B’s can hardly compete against them. After having few pizzas and seafood, it was clear that F&B tries to compromise between these two kitchen styles without succeeding in neither. There are definitely better pizza & pasta places out there, and seafood seemed to be typical frozen stuff that food industry is pushing into home freezers. In summary, the food we had was nothing special that I would not be able to cook myself. Regretting that we ate in this place as there were better places nearby.

I have been to Franky & Benny’s before — normally I find them A-​OK; nothing much to write home about in the general sense, but occasionally some great dishes (anything with Italian herb potatoes was a good shout) and decent value for a chain Italian.
However this visit to this location really let the whole side down. Wow. The day after Boxing Day, it was of course busy with shoppers hitting the sales or folk like us popping in for a bite to eat before a festive-​season movie. However you’d be forgiven for thinking the staff had never seen it busy before — I find that hard to believe in a location is central as the Omni Centre in Edinburgh. The kitchen (where we were seated near to) seemed to be struggling to get dishes out, whilst the waiting staff stood about seemly unable to realise that their customers were experiencing some of the worst service they had seen in ages.
Admittedly, our service was not terrible — they did get our food out quickly, but it took an age to take our initial order, and trying to get the attention of any passing waiter for the bill took 20 minutes in itself. I was extremely close to missing our movie so was tempted to simply leave an estimated amount. When the food did come, it was a mixture of overcooked and not-​too-​bad-​actually. Meh indeed.
But we were surrounded by groups having a far worse time than us. The mother and daughter beside us had been waiting for their appetisers when we arrived, and were still waiting on their main when we left over an hour later. At least they received a number of apologies, which is more than can be said for the group of 4 in front of me. They had actually got up to leave when their main courses finally showed up; they sat back down to eat but were none too happy about the situations. I obviously can’t speak for F&B’s in terms of saying what was causing all the issues, but the staff didn’t seem particularly bothered enough to stop standing around chatting to one another by the tills, avoiding eye contact from the unhappy patrons.
Must do better.