The Old Spaghetti Factory

Had to ask a waitress to be ours. Salad was good, bread was fantastic but the meals were not. Crab ravioli was decent at best and the angel hair was not good at all.

Always good food here. You do have to pay for parking but it gets validated when eat inside. Also has good lunch specials and make to go orders as well. Good customer service and they pay attention to detail.

Great kids place.. My ten year old graduated from meat balls to spinach & cheese ravioli here. We never leave hungry. The waiter was eager to bring us a second loaf of warm bread. With salad & spumoni included dinner for three was like sixty dolars before tip. Classic American comfort food.

So we tried out the new location here… Much improved over the old location! They now have valet parking, the lounge area is much larger, and the waiting area has more seating!

Not real Italian food… More chain. The service was good and lovely place. Not place for authentic Italian but good for groups/​parties.

after reading a few of these reviews, i feel it’s time to educate some diners on what to expect from ye olde spaghetti factory.
first of all, it’s an inexpensive, family friendly throwback to italian food from 1960s america. the red sauce is so-​so, the salad is iceberg, and if you stray from a basic spaghetti meal, don’t say you weren’t warned.
what they do have that’s all their own, and the reason i’ve been coming back regularly for 40 years, is the mizithra cheese spaghetti. it’s salty, buttery, sharp and satisfying in a way cacio e pepe wishes. it’s what i order every time, and you’d be wise to follow suit.
now, let’s get to the bare bones. the spaghetti factory has always been known as a bargain, and it still is. 11 dollars for a large plate of spaghetti, oven fresh sourdough bread with garlic butter, salad, and dessert. (once upon a time this also included a beverage…) all served on real plates with real silverware and glassware. by a person. are you seriously going to tell me somebody else offers that for less?
take out??? i’ve never done this from OSF, and can’t imagine why you would. a few reviewers knock them for poor take out, but who cares. sit down and eat, for chrissakes.
i was impressed with their new digs on pacific ave. the bar area is much larger, which is important when the place is crowded and you’re not with kids. the service is good (though you have to nudge them sometimes), and the quality hasn’t changed.
leave your «foodie» hat at home, order a liter of cheap white wine, and enjoy yourself!

My first time EVER in this place. The décor is very new and up to date, we ate in the bar because the wait time was super long. The bar staff was super friendly, and informative. I had the cheese and browned butter sauce, which was amazingly great!!! the dept of the browned butter (not burnt, a plus) mixed with the cheese, and pasta made for an interesting and palatable experience. The salad dressing was great, the creamy pesto was very flavorful, and had that awesome pesto experience… it’s not for everyone, I know. But it’s worth a try even if it’s just once. The bread and garlic butter was great, the bread was always super hot, and we didn’t have to beg the bartenders for more. Can’t wait to go again and try the other sauces.

I visited with a group of about 8 people, and it took us 30 minutes to be seated even though we had a reservation.
When we finally got seated, it took another 30 minutes to get our food ordered, and our salads never even showed up. After waiting a total of an hour and a half, we finally received our food. I ordered the garlic shrimp pasta, and the sauce was so bland and thin that the whole dish only tasted like the noodles, including the very tiny frozen shrimp used in the dish. One of my friends ordered the vesuvius pasta, and it came out half cold and half hot, most likely being microwaved.
There are plenty other local businesses nearby, that are much better. Eating here is a 2+ hour affair. Don’t spend your money here.

I have many fond memories of the old (aka old location) spaghetti factory. The new location on Pacific is updated and quite lovely, still that classic charm with a modern touch. Atmosphere was great and everyone seemed to be having a great time.
The food, however, was less than desirable, as 5 of the 6 people at my table agreed. It was very bland, over sauced, almost as if from a can– and not an expensive one either, as they’d like you to believe. There are much better food options in Tacoma if you’re after tasty Italian food. But if that doesnt matter so much and you’re just out for a good time, the OSF would be fine.
3 stars.

Went here with our cousins tonight. First visit to the new location. Props on the décor. Can’t even tell the place used to be a grocery store. We sat in the old trolley car. So glad the trolley car moved with the new location. Everything was great as usual. Mmm love that mizithra cheese and brown butter sauce.

Take out Order Review Only
This was my first experience making a take out order at this location. The girl on the phone was nice and helpful. The parking was a bit of a nightmare but it’s downtown, so I expected it to be. The restaurant has an area just for take out orders, which was helpful and made me feel less in the way of other guests. The food however was disappointing. We had three orders and all of them were very tiny compared to what I’m used to getting in the restaurant. One of our orders was a salad that was the same size as the side salad that comes with the meal, except it was 10 dollars. I ordered extra dressing and received about a tablespoon total, maybe that’s because there was barely any salad. I received no butter for our bread which was a total let down, cause that’s the best part of the meal. The other two meals were super tiny and look like they were prepared for a small child, plus they were messy and the lasagna was drenched in sauce. Now for the worst part, they only gave us two ice-​creams that were not even half way filled, it was maybe a bite. I always feel rude going through the food at the counter but even if I had, I would have still been disappointed with lack of, and presentation of this meal. I am a long time fan of the Spaghetti Factory but I will not spend my money here for a mediocre meal that wouldn’t be served to me like this if I was dining in. What a let down :(

Not a terrible experience, but no thank you, I will not be back.
I haven’t been to the Spaghetti Factory since I was a child. I came for lunch and some drinks one afternoon with a friend to celebrate my belated birthday.
Parking is difficult, even on weekdays. We sat in the bar area because the dining room seemed like the preferred area for little old ladies. We ordered cocktails and off of the lunch special menu. My menu was splattered with red sauce. Gross. Our cocktails from their specialty menu were way too sweet and seemed to contain just a fraction of alcohol. Our starter salads and spaghetti entrée were good. It was nice to have bread delivered with the meal, but not so fun trying to slice it ourselves with a dull knife. During our ordering and meal I noticed a fair amount of people picking up to-​go orders. They must have known better than we did.
Our server committed one of my biggest pet peeves in restaurants: delivering our ticket before we were done ordering. We would have ordered dessert and another drink (this time a call beverage) but instead we left because the ticket arrived. Very irritating to feel ushered out, especially when no one was waiting for our seat.

My first time at the Old Spaghetti Factory was last Saturday. They were super busy. The wait was thirty minutes, but we waited. The lobby was very large & I don’t even think we waited a whole thirty minutes when we got a text message that our table was ready! We sat at a two seater table in the trolley/​train car. It was a tight space, but it was cool. Our server was super sweet. The atmosphere in the restaurant was very neat with the fancy lights & chandeliers. I loved their vanilla drink that comes in a glass (clean glass) that you can take home, fresh bread, salad with the pesto house dressing, angel hair pasta, & spamoni ice cream. I tried my significant other’s sausage & it was super good & I’m not a meat fan. The price was reasonable & I would definitely come here again! P. S. Had to buy spamoni ice cream at the grocery store cause it was good.

These guys recently moved to a new location and I was pretty impressed with what they have going on. From the outside, you might not think this was an Old Spaghetti Factory as it’s in a very bland and basic building in the downtown Tacoma area but, once you walk inside, you will recognize all the normal décor and ambiance. Our group of ten had a wait a while to get a table as it was unexpectedly busy for a Sunday night although it ended up being not nearly as long as we were initially told so no big deal.
The service was all around, I would say, above average, although they could have done better with keeping drinks filled. The food all came out looking exactly as you would expect and they did a good job of keeping track of those pesky customized orders although there was a wandering sausage issue that was quickly resolved… don’t ask. haha
This is a great place to bring a group just look for there to be a bit of a wait to be seated and you’ll be fine. The food is good, the prices are reasonable, and the service will not disappoint. Oh, and there is a pay parking garage in the same building and the restaurant will validate the first two hours.

Sunday around 3pm should be a slow time for restaurants but not this one.
We parked in the osf parking since I knew we could get validated from the restaurant.
If you take the parking lot elevator to level 1 you will be right in front of the restaurant.
We followed other guests and walked out of the parking garage onto the street and passed the street entrance for the lounge, then went in the street entrance to the restaurant.
The new location coupled with the lack of family friendly restaurants had this place bustling with people. The estimated 10 to 20 minutes ended up being 40 minutes.
We were seated near the entrance to the banquet room. There were several rounds of happy birthday singing in the restaurant followed by awards and clapping from the banquet room. One member of my family kept covering their ears to shield from the excessive noise.
The service is typical osf, meaning they are great at customer service.
I like a good chain restaurant. You can always rely on them for a certain level of ambiance, quality of food, and service.
Most of my party had spaghetti with meat sauce. I had minestrone soup, it was delicious. Rounding out the meal was iced tea, and spumoni at a very reasonable price.
Maybe a little loud, and took a little longer to be seated, but we will be going back again.

Wow… Coolest Italian/​Spaghetti Restaurant around… I had forgotten how cool this place is and being that it started right here in the Northwest (Portland, OR), I really need to get out to it more often, Always a Memorable experience.
They are in a new location in Tacoma, but has all the same look including a historic Trolley Train Car right in the middle. I also got to go with my whole family cause with a big family it’s just cool sometimes to all sit around a big table. My party of 18 had to wait for a bit but it was well worth it. The food is always plentiful and delicious… I’m excited to visit this restaurant again, So much Food so little time. Staff has always been courteous and helpful.
Thanks for the Memories Old Spaghetti Factory, I will return !!

My friend and I came here for a lunch date yesterday, right when they opened at 11:00am.
Our waitress did her job very professional and great!
I ordered the managers favorite? Half marinara and half clam sauce. It came with a salad and I also ordered the fried ravioli as an appetizer.
My friend got some kind of chicken salad, looked really good!
Overall experience was great!
The new place is nice; very modern with the same old look of the train thing in the middle where people can dine as well up high.

New place but the same great food! Great service, as well! Gotta go home and take a loooong nap after this meal!

Good for franchise pasta restaurant. We come here because the kid likes it; however, it’s probably the best Old Spaghetti Factory restaurants we have been in. The service was OUTSTANDING and food met expectations. There may be better Italian restaurants out there but validates parking and satisfies a kid’s desire.

great service, very friendly staff. food was definitely as delicious as I remember it. I always get the mizithra cheese & browned butter pasta but I can never finish between all the bread, salad, pasta, and spumoni.

Interesting location in Pacific Plaza on the first floor. I’m not sure if parking is free for customers because we parked on the street.
My coworker and I placed a Togo order for a late lunch. The woman at the to-​go stand took our orders and she explained that ice cream only comes with dinner. My coworker ordered a dinner entrée and I ordered a lunch entrée.
We got our food within ten minutes and drove back to work. They didn’t give my coworker his ice cream! So we actually drove back just to get it and the woman just said sorry and put it in and said she thought she did put it in initially. We get back to work and check the ice cream. It is flat and frozen, and also icy. Check my picture. This means that it melted and they froze it once again to keep it cold and hard. This did not taste good at all, it tasted like it had freezer burn.
Next, they don’t give us any utensils or napkins! This is a to-​go order! At work we didn’t have any utensils and couldn’t find any and also couldn’t find anything to make makeshift utensils. We literally ate with our hands. Our food was cold and soggy by then.
We didn’t have time to check our to go order because we were on a time crunch plus going back to get ice cream made us even more late for our shift. I used to go to this OSF all the time and also get to go orders, but if they’re not going to do a decent job, I won’t be back at this location. :(

I just had an order to go from here. It was super busy and lots of people waiting. Even so, they were friendly and efficient. The food was nicely packed up and was spot on! I had the meat sauce with Italian sausage… YUM! I’m glad to have this as another option in the downtown area. I’ll be back (a lot).

We went to the old location many time. We like this location a lot. The menu seems like there are more items. The staff is very helpful and attentive. We will be back often.