Went with a gift card we had received. Why on earth someone who knows us well would give us one to this place is beyond me. We have only been here once in all the time it's been here.

OK- pizza way too small for the price. Flat small rectangular pizza was $14.

Pastas were not bad for what they were - certainlly edible but not memorable nor high quality.

We waited a long time to be seated. there were at one point 25 people waiting to be seated. During the 1/2 hour or more we all waited MANY tables were left empty and unbussed. There were also set tables that were not being used while we waited. The only thing that made up for it was the ton of free bread, all you can eat and they kept brining more. It was good with the garlice butter, but really not expensive.

I would not go there again unless I had to

I had heard about this restaurant chain from friends before I went. My husband and I were very disappointed. The food was very bland, very salty and not a good value. I had pasta in a cream sauce which was very heavy and seemed like pasty pasta. Very little ingredients aside from the cream and pasta. The shrimp was the typical kind that restaurant chains have -- kind of small and chewy. There weren't many shrimp either. In terms of overall quantity, there wasn't as much as compared to other restaurants that serve pasta. Even then, I couldn't finish it and didn't bother taking it home and I love pasta! My husband had a chicken dish which was disappointing as well -- bland and unremarkable.

The ambiance was good as was the service. We have been there once and won't return again though. Sorry.

My wife and I recently had an early dinner at this restaurant. We had previously eaten there a few times and each experience was okay. Our server was quite attentive, refilling our water, salad and bread constantly. I had the pasta and unlimited salad and bread special for $9, added some italian sausage to my rigatonni ariabiata for an extra $3.50. My pasta came out hot, cooked al dente and the sausage and sauce was quite good, nice and spicy. Sure it's not the best pasta that I've ever had, in fact, I've made much better...but with all you can eat salad and bread, it's a pretty decent meal. We only went there, because Rosa's Cucina in Port Moody happened to closed on that Monday.

for her 30'th birthday, her mom told her it was a good place for pasta. we got there early evening there was only a few people there. The music was so loud we had to yell to talk. About 10 minutes after we were seated another family came in and were seated and promptly had a drink order taken. Before we had our drink order taken that family was already being served soup and salad, not happy about that we were very thirsty. Bread,soup and salad took forever to get to us. I had the wedding soup nothing special about it at all. The plates and bowls were still on our table when our food was brought to us and were left there. It was so cluttered I cleared the table myself and put everything on the next table over. Then we realized the kids had no cutlery.....waiting....waiting...I could go on for another half hour but i wont. The service we experienced there was terrible and the food tasted like it was fresh from the freezer. Now we know why there was only a few people there on a friday evening.

They have free soup or salad with every order of entree. The soup and the salad are both very good also. And it's unlimited!! That is the only reason why we go there. Because that makes the value unbeatable. Their prices are already on the low side for a restaurant, have three bowls of soup and your entree is like $2.

However, their entree dishes are mostly not that good. Pasta dishes that lack flavours, chicken parmesan that makes you question where the rest of the chicken is. Had their new pasta dish last time. Suppose to be the winner of their cook off among all their chefs. But it was very very disappointing to say the least.

After all that is said and done, i would still go back. Come on, who doesn't like free unlimited soup that is delicious :)

So disappointing that I will not return.

We ordered a wide selection of dishes and really all of them were awful except the bucket of salad and the bread. The chicken dish that I orderd was palatable but way too salty and too spicy for my taste yet we were starving so all shared my plate. The service was decent but I think the server got slammed, we never even got a quality check or drink refills. When we complained the Manager was attentive to us and corrected the problem financially but she didn't encourage us to come back and admitted that it wasn't a stellar night for the restaurant. This place is about bulk and it is obvious from the clientelle as you look around.

I went here with my family a few weeks ago, after shopping at coquitlam centre and we were not impressed :( We went there expecting just a casual place with good clean comfort kinda food ( something like boston pizza or montanas). The menu did have alot of variety and the stuff we ordered sounded really good in the descriptions, unfortunatley when we got our food we sent one plate of pasta back because it was undercooked and the other pasta we kept was somewhat unappetizing and was served really sloppily... We also ordered a fig salad which just tasted like plane old lettuce with bits of fig thrown in :| Another big turn off was that we were served water in cheap diner/ buffet type plastic glasses...and even though our server was pretty nice, I'll never eat there again.

Well...where to start. After a busy day shopping my husband and I were starving, and didnt want to settle for food court food. So we recently saw an eastside mario commercial on tv, so we decided it must be decent. WOW was I wrong! It was a tuesday night. We got greeted by nice hostess, and was seated in a booth by the bar. They only had a few servers on, but the server we got had about 5 tables-which is ridiculous, running drinks/food etc. Needless to say we waited about 5 minutes to be greeted. Started off with calamari. Worst Ive ever had. I dont complain either. It was the rings, tough chewy, and the marinara sauce was cold. I then ordered the chicken tettrizini which was there 'favourite'. The alfrado sauce tasted like processd cheese, no flavor what so ever. My husband had spagetti and meat balls. Pretty basic? They cant even do that right! GROSS! the only good thig was the salad. The washrooms were pretty poor, the soap despenser was hanging off the wall, and the foset was all wobbly. The thing that topped it off was walking by the 'bella pizzera' seeing the DIRTY horrible cutting board. It was litterly black. Once I saw that I needed a peak of the kitchen. It was VERY bad. Not to mention the young kitchen staff goofing off. After that, I went home sick to my stomach-not because of the food, the filth in that place.

What the f***. I have never been as disappointed in a dining experience as I was at East Side Mario's. 10 min for the waitress to greet us,10 min to get our drinks and over 45min to see our food. On top of that, washrooms were filthy, food was dismal at best and the server could have cared less about us. In fact when I asked how much longer for the meal she replied "Wow, someone is in a hurry" in a very rude tone.
I could understand if they were busy but there was only 2 other tables in the whole restaurant, and now I see why.
I have tried the location in Calgary and it was fantastic, not sure what goes on here... might be the management.
Last time I was in the area I tried the Montana's and it was excellent, that's where we'll be next time.

On weeknights we'll often take the kids here. Its great fun, and good food, with punctual service. It's not "real" Italian food as people like to critize the food, but it's family friendly food. It's easy to get a nice cheap pasta dish for the family.
The servers are good at helping to deal with the kids, a lot of restaurants get really impatient with big families, it's nice to actually have the help. All our kids are teens, but still they can be a bit of a headache sometimes.
The food is very good, it's like my mom used to make in the old days when we would actually have family meals every night around the family table. That is what I feel like at this restaurant, I;m able to have a proper dinner with my family.
Thank you East Side Mario for helping to bring family together, especially in such a family friendly atmosphere.