Spaghetti Factory

OK Here's my rant. I know I can take my money and go elsewhere, and I will in the future. This is a trend in restaurants that pisses me off.

No matter when I go the Spaghetti Factory in downtown San Jose, they tell you 20- 30 minute wait, maybe an hour maybe 2. Was there July 31 at 5PM. Give the hostess our name get the pager, and say to my son, let's look at the street car. Well the whole F'in room is empty! What are we waiting for. We look at the cable car for a second or two, and see there is ONE occupied table in the street car.The street car is cool and old fashioned we all agree. We ask if we can get a table there. WELL, that will mean a longer wait. What do the need to maintain their inventory of empty seats. Do they think our dining experience is enhanced by waiting! That's my rant, and I feel better.

This post has been edited by andy on Aug 1 2005, 04:37 PM

Funny that you just posted this.

I was down there on Sunday (for the races) and suggested The Old Spaghetti Factory for dinner. One of the people that I was with said "skip the place -- no matter when you go they will tell you two hours wait. They want you to spend money at the bar."

I did skip the place -- walked down to Gordon Biersch and ate in the patio. 45 minute wait and it was well worth the wait -- very good!

I suspect that is TOTALLY it! When my DBF went down there for the last time, now over a year ago, we got our pager, were told 30 minutes. Granted, there were some people in there, but it wasn't that crowded. 2 different couples walked in 20-30 minutes after us, got their tables and we were still waiting. Guess they figured they were too old for the bar. Oh, they claimed they called us... but out pager never blinked and we were sitting on the bench directly in front of their stand, so we know they lied when we called them on it.


But why would you want to go to a place that professes nice food and then serves you a salad of browning Dole iceberg lettuce and cartos slivers? I mean, I could do much better, um, anywhere!

i haven't eaten there in a long time but the last two or three times i went, the wait wasn't that long (maybe 10-15 minutes tops). i remember when i first started going there about 10-15 years ago, the wait was over an hour (!). i haven't experienced service that's any worse than at other places. it's sad that they are trying to drive customers away.