A Midwestern chain with a few locations in every state, the Spaghetti Shop seems to favor suburbs and rural areas, and the business premise is simple: pasta. Lots of pasta. The shop specializes in Italian foods in the most convenient method of delivery possible. No really, you can actually order a bucket of spaghetti at the drive through. It’s a convenient concept, but there’s next to nothing in terms of flavor.
The 64-ounce bucket of pasta goes for just under $15, and it comes in a few options, all of which are equally average. The spaghetti is served with a plain meatless sauce with a strong kick of oil to go with it. The stuff stains anything it touches orange, almost like it was made with food coloring. It’s the thin kind of sauce that reminds you of the elementary school cafeteria. The fettuccine Alfredo is about the blandest I’ve ever had the dish. Is it just the starchy water that came from boiling the pasta in the pot? It might as well be, because there’s no flavor of cream or cheese in there at all. It needs salt, it needs pepper, it needs all of the Parmesan cheese packets that come with the meal. There are subs on the menu too, and maybe they’ll impress a little more.
The meatballs are good, though, the meat is seasoned a little which adds to them a lot. They come in marinara sauce, so you’ll need them for the spaghetti. The garlic bread seems to be a popular snack; it’s a footlong sub bun basted with some thick butter and seasoned with, of all things, sugar. It was the best thing I had at the restaurant.
Well, there’s a convenience factor, I suppose, because nowhere else have I found that you can get a 64-ounce bucket of spaghetti at a moment’s notice. But the flavor’s just not there. The people are nice enough, the food comes fast enough, and you can feed a family of six for $30 and that’s a tough thing to beat. It’s passable though, I suppose, and I know this is the kind of place people love for the emergency factor of needing to feed lots of people with minimal cost and effort.
Recommendations
- The 64-ounce buckets of spaghetti feed about four, and they come in a few options: spaghetti, fettuccine, ravioli, rigatoni and lasagna.
- Maybe some of the locations in the chain have a different level of quality but I wasn’t impressed by what I tried in Findlay, Ohio.
- Also, they cater.
Another Food Critic 