Market Basket: A peek inside Villa Macri

I have had the opportunity to sample some of the food that the Villa Macri will be serving in the Toscona Park. The authentic itallian cuisine will be unique to the Main Street- Grape road area. And I could not believe the beauty of the facility.

Everyone will love the Villa Macri

Absolutely beautiful. You all will love this facility. It feels as if you are not even in the same city.

I just experienced lunch at Villa Macri's. I will agree the facility is beautiful, however, the staff lacks the grandure the restaraunt presents. Hostess staff on duty during my experience lacked professionalism. The food was generaly good considering it was from the deli menu. Our server provided slightly less than average service.

I went to the Villa Macri's on Sunday evening. After arriving at 7pm we did not recieve our food til after 8pm. My husbands pasta dish from the new menu was cold, the meat was luke warm. My dish the gyro came out hot but with hardly any sauce when I had ordered extra on the side. The waitress said they ran out, yet still tried to serve it instead of just informing me earlier they were out.
Needless to say, all this after an hour we didn't stick around to wait to get better food, and I agree with last post that the service was slightly less then average, I probably won't be back for a while.

David wrote:

I have had the opportunity to sample some of the food that the Villa Macri will be serving in the Toscona Park. The authentic itallian cuisine will be unique to the Main Street- Grape road area. And I could not believe the beauty of the facility.
Everyone will love the Villa Macri

Villa Macri appears to be a beautiful restaurant from the outside, but I like others, are reluctant to dine there. Unfortunately, the Macri restaurants have a reputation for painfully slow service and customer and let's face it, only slightly above average food. What they need is a top, experienced chef who believes in giving good value for your money as well as excellence.

I have a friend that is working there and the wait time from opening day to now has been corrected. It's pretty simple. The staff was unprepared for the opening. Waitresses were telling people that they were out of things that they did actually have. Like I said, I heard that it's all been taken care of now. Everything seems to be running smoothly. It's a beautiful place and the food is top notch! Personally, I can't wait to go back and I'll be the first to reply if there's any issues.

We are longtime patrons of the old Deli, and figured we'd try the new place. We had relatives come in from Portland, Oregon and took them on Friday evening. When we made reservations, the hostess didn't ask, and we didn't know we should have requested a specific room. Thus, they placed us in the "Sports" room (nothing special) and right in front of the arcade room door. That may have been fine for the family with kids who were planning on eating off the old deli menu, but we were four well dressed adults who were planning on a much different dining atmosphere. Attempts to change dining rooms and tables were unsuccessful, stating that "those tables are for other reservations" - apparently not ours... so if you decide to go - completely specify you don't want the sports room !! Food was nothing special - go to Sunny Italy for real Italian - this was average. We were expecting better and even ordered a bottle of vino at $38.00, only to enjoy the wine the most - good luck Macri family ! Not sure we will be back unless we get a hankering for the Veggie Pita and the Gyros !!

lovely setting, but the food is not worth going back for.
we had 3 appetizers while waiting for our carry-out order of 9 entrees.
the zucchini was greasy, the thai chicken bites were awful, but the shrimp was good. to our dismay, when we arrived home, we discovered both entree salads were missing the meat and fish. no one ate the portobello ravioli, and no one said their meal was anything but mediocre. big disappointment.
great stop for a drink, but for good food, stick to uptown kitchen.

I can't believe I paid for that meal! I ordered a 7oz.filet,medium rare. What I received was about 2oz. of burnt garbage. I couldn't eat it. They brought me another one, after a long wait, it came medium rare, but still lacked any flavor. Very, very dissapointed.

Beautiful atmosphere, if only the food was. Find a good italian cook and the place may fly. Service was mediocre at best. Won't go back.

Made reservations twice. Confirmed twice. Marcri's lost twice. This confirms the rumors of horrible service.

LMy wife wanted to take me to lunch. Villa Macri was the place she wanted to go, as it has just moved and is in a new building. Villa Macri has several rooms where it is possible for the hostess to sit a customer. One is a sports bar type setting, another is a large sunroom facing south, the bar area, outside patio and I guess, the Martini room, which we did not see. the hostess sat us in the sports bar without asking us our preference where we might want to sit. It was a dark and not a pleasant room ( well maybe when the sky is grey, snowing outside and college football is being played). We ended up moving ourselves to the patio, outside the sunroom area, to enjoy the sunny day.
Our waitress did not know the beer prices, telling us they were priced from $4.00 to $8.00. I ended up having to go to the bar and find out the price of beer and order my own beer. It was apparently to much for her to do.
Prior to moving this spring of 2008, Macri's was a casual sports bar type setting, with decent food and reasonable prices. It is now trying to be very upscale without the servers, food or details to warrant the increase in prices. The old Macri's had much more friendly and knowledgeable servers. The sandwiches my wife and I had were the worst sandwiches we have eaten in years. Subway or McDonald's does a much better job. The cold slaw that came with the sandwich was runny and nasty. Cigarette butts littered the ground on the patio. The microbrew I ordered was starting to go sour. Between the Buns, Mancino's, Martin's deli or Legends at ND is a much better value and the food is better!
Save your money and enjoy yourself and go elsewhere!

My food is balls. My servers don't be knowin' what they be doin... and my ability to put together a viable retail strip sucks... however, one ristorante in the subdivision is worth the wait and the price - one clue- it ain't a-mine-a

They suck. Really wanted the food to be good. They suck.

I am from the East Coast and took my family for lunch. Again no direction as to what room to specify . They put my 87 year old mother and aunt in the sports arena. We were looking for a quiet lunch for the 8 of us. The food was awful service was worse. The tip was reflective of this. An old line South Bend restaurant family should be more careful what they put their name to. Roccos and Sunny Italy continue on in the same place and you get what you expect. Open a big new venue and you do not get what you pay for or expect. They did send a coupon good for one entree...hardly equal to what the lunch for 8 cost!

I am sad to read all the negative comments above. A friend from NC and I were at Villa Macri for dinner in the middle of July for dinner and had a wonderful meal, excellent service and a beautiful room to dine in. It seems to me if you are about to be seated in a room or area you are not pleased with, you would have the good sense to request other seating. Also, I would not hesitate to ask for an owner or manager if my meal was as horrific as some described above.

Maybe my friend and I were just lucky the night we were there. I hope that is not the case because I will be dining at Villa Macri twice in the next week.

Linda - Elkhart IN wrote:

I am sad to read all the negative comments above. A friend from NC and I were at Villa Macri for dinner in the middle of July for dinner and had a wonderful meal, excellent service and a beautiful room to dine in. It seems to me if you are about to be seated in a room or area you are not pleased with, you would have the good sense to request other seating. Also, I would not hesitate to ask for an owner or manager if my meal was as horrific as some described above.
Maybe my friend and I were just lucky the night we were there. I hope that is not the case because I will be dining at Villa Macri twice in the next week.

I have to agree with Linda. My wife and daughter ate there in late August and enjoyed the food and environment. Without prodding or asking, the hostess gave us a complete tour of all three areas of the restauruant. The food was delivered in a timely fashion and the server was very attentive and courteous. We'll go again. Out of curiosity, what is the name of the other restaurant in the same development that the previous post (Papa Macri) was referring to?

A recent visit to Villa Macri's was very enjoyable! Contrary to the above multiple bad comments, the hostess was pleasant and efficient, the server was prompt, courteous, and helpful with any questions about the menu. The selections at our table were diverse and there were no complaints about the quality. In fact, there were positive comments on the presentation of the meals. So, not only was the ambiance of the facility exquisite the general consensus was there would be return visits!

Peter wrote:

<quoted text>what is the name of the other restaurant in the same development?

It's Uptown Kitchen http://www.uptownkitchen.net/ in the row of buildings between Villa Macri and Martins. Nice place.

As a big fan of Carmela's Restaurant downtown I thought Villa Macri would be Carmela's in a new building. Lets just say I will never go to Villa again. I quickly discovered that both have different owners but are brothers. How could one be soooo good and the other be soooo bad. Momma Macri must've forgot to teach Jerry how to cook. He should've stuck to Macri's Deli. Downtown Carmela's is great though. Don't change what isn't broken. I'll never make that mistake again.