This restaurant is on 22 out in Murrysville. I had not been there in years and was always unimpressed. I figured since it is still open it must have improved. Wrong! Truly awful food and service. Skimpy salad, very poor bread for an Italian restaurant, and I have a seafood fra diavolo with tiny, tough shrimp, tiny, very tough langostinos and some decent scalops. The sauce was too thick amd dull. We ordered a bottle of wine which still had not arrived after the salads. On being reminded the waitress went to get it, came back about 10 minutes later to say they were out of that wine how about a carafe? At this point in the meal I thought, sure why not save a few bucks. Well when we got the bill a carafe of Riunite was $20! Actually more than the decent bottle we had asked for. Truly bad experience. So sad that we were recently at Jamie's On the Square and had an excellent meal with great service and the place was nearly empty while last night Spadaro's was hopping. What are people thinking?
Pittsburgh, PA
Spadaro's
Jim M. wrote: >With the number of _really good_ family-run Italian Restaurants >in Pittsburgh... Why do people insist on frequenting the Olive Garden? >YUCK! > Probably because it's a) close by and b) a known quantity. I've been to an Olive Garden two or three times, and it's a reasonable place to get a decent meal. I agree there are much better places. I haven't gone back to the Bethel Park one since I discovered Tomatoes, which is even closer to my house and much better. But, for many families, if the choice is a 5 minute drive to the Olive Garden (which is often next door to a mall they are shopping at anyway) or a 25 minute drive into Bloomfield, the Olive Garden is their choice. This isn't just a Pittsburgh thing, by the way. There is an Olive Garden at one end of the River Walk in San Antonio. The River Walk is basically a long stretch of good, interesting restaurants (mostly non-chains, other thanPlanet Hollywood and the Hard Rock Cafe), several of which are very good. There are at least two good Italian places (and good Tex/Mex, steaks, sea food, etc.) But the Olive Garden still typically drew a pretty big crowd. Jim Mann