The Old Spaghetti Factory

The Spaghetti factory catered our work luncheon and it was great. GREAT SERVICE. THANK YOU STACY G.

For the length of time they have been around and the volume of pasta they burn through this place has their model figured out. Our staff of 20 had reserved dinner recently and all went smoothly in a very short amount of time. The only drawback is parking. The overflow parking, which is necessary on a regular basis given the size of the restaurant, requires crossing a dark street. Watch for people, ingress and egress of cars, and falling branches. The spumoni ice cream also lost its chunks for everyone who ordered it. Either a bad batch or people who love real spumoni are keeping quiet.

Every year when we come to Portland, we take our family to the Spaghetti Factory, normally the downtown one but couldn’t get in this year. We called the Clackmas one and they told us if we came 20 – 30 minutes before we would like to get in, they would make it work. There was 13 of us.
Excellent service by Newton and food as usual, great. Thank you.

Perhaps a few of the reviewers aren’t aware that The Old Spaghetti Factory is a chain of restaurants and have reviewed this establishment based on some sort of high-​end idea of Italian cuisine, because I’m utterly bewildered as to why this location got such a low rating.
First off, I am a long time fan of OSF (at least 20 years) and I appreciate it for what it is; affordable, uncomplicated, tasty pasta meals in a warm and lovely atmosphere. All of those elements are delivered, to my delight, by a friendly and eager staff, beginning with the host (ess) greeting when you walk in the door. We’ve been several times in the last month, alone (partly because I’d been without OSF representation for several years, we were awaiting our cooking gear from our move and ultimately because I had just introduced my husband to the restaurant, which he immediately put on his «let’s go at least once a month» list). We had two moderately negative experiences. The first was that it took our server over fifteen minutes to reach our table to begin our ordering process. Granted we had come in at peak time, but she also happened to have two large parties that I could see needed a lot of attention (once she arrived and apologized, everything was quick and she was perfectly attentive). The second was that one of the servers kept bringing the wrong things out to my husband. He’d ask for a coke, he’d get diet. He asked for sherbet instead of spumoni, he got spumoni. These are annoyances, yes, but when the rest of the meal is hot and delicious, there’s not really *that* much to complain about.
All in all, if we’re talking about averages, OSF has been exceptional in guest experience. I was excited to learn that my favorite dish (Browned Butter with Mizithra Cheese) was every bit as delicious as it had been nearly a decade before, and that their blue cheese dressing was still one of my favorite restaurant dressings. My husband has been pretty happy with the Italian Sausage and the Ravioli.
If you’re going to have a large party, definitely call ahead and make sure you lock down their process for events. Otherwise, we’ve never waited more than ten minutes to be seated.
Can’t wait to go back!

Great Lunch. After many years of «planning» to visit the Old Spaghetti Factory, I finally made good on that plan with a lunchtime visit with co-​workers. We were seated right away, in what is evidently the desirable «dining car» section. From the Pasta Classic Entrees section of the menu, I ordered the Italian Sausage with meat sauce. I’m not sure why, but I was surprised when my order came with, well, exactly what I ordered, spaghetti with red sauce and an Italian Sausage link sitting next to it (for some reason I assumed the sausage would be part of the sauce). The menu describes the sausage as «zesty» and I would agree — it was a very flavorful, well-​seasoned sausage. The meat sauce was also quite good. One of my favorite parts of the meal was the salad, delivered separately in advance of the entrée. I chose the bleu cheese dressing, my usual option, and in the world of bleu cheese dressing it was «all-​star» level, with nice chunks of cheese and a wonderful flavor. Our server was friendly and I left with a plan to come back soon.

I love coming to the spaghetti factory but we’ve always had some pretty crappy service at the one in Hawaii. After we moved to Oregon we decided to try the one by Clackamas town center and our waiter dustin was just amazing! Everything was on point with this man, drinks were always filled, everything came out so fast with him! If yall ever eat at this location make sure u go to dustin’s section! U won’t be disappointed with him!

What a treat to have this restaurant close by! My husband and I threw my 60^th birthday party there and they made everything so easy and convenient! I asked the manager, Cody, about reserving a room and he reserved it immediately. Then during the party they assigned about 5 servers. They made everything so convenient and had the room looking so beautiful! Their food too is so yummy! If you want to throw a party this is the place to do it!

Cody, Thank You for looking so earnestly for my daughter’s lost ring. Your attention to this matter was bar none. Thank You so very much.

My first time here and was very exited about the garlic shrimp fettuccine Alfredo. First the bread was outstanding and I could not get enough. Lily was awesome and very good at her job. The shrimp was AMAZING and I will be coming back for sure and the art work they have on the walls is just as great

Best waitress and manager and yummy vittles. I didn’t remember ever tasting shrimp in the artichoke dip (so gross… to me) and when she asked if I enjoyed it I replied with an emphatic NO and told her I hadn’t ever had it with shrimp and asked if that was new. I wasn’t upset — I simply responded with the truth, when she asked. I just didn’t expect the gross fishy taste. Just my thing kids — me and fish — not good. I never expected the manager to come over and let us know he took care of us. He also showed us that it was his pleasure to insure our experience by kidding around with us. I really appreciate people who are focused on providing a good customer experience. Bravo!

I make excellent spaghetti at home either with a delicious meat sauce, or to die for clam sauce. And I have yet to find spaghetti in Portland or elsewhere that meets my standards since (RIP) The Chat n’ Nibble on N.E. Sandy Blvd; Or Lido’s on 10^th & Belmont closed. You old timers in the know are nodding and weeping in agreement as am I.
However, once in a while (birthdays, graduations, etc.) we will go to Old Spaghetti Factory for dinner. The salad with house dressing (pesto/​ranch) is very good, warm bread & butter compliment, and I always order the managers special with mizithra cheese & brown butter sauce/​meat sauce combination. I start out eating the spaghetti with each sauce individually, but end up mixing the two together with lots of black pepper and parmesan cheese. My daughter likes the Mizithra/​clam sauce combo. Both are pretty good. In fact the best restaurant spaghetti I’ve found since (sniff) my old favorites went to pasta heaven.
And I always look forward to the scoop of excellent spumoni. BTW, It’s Carnation. I asked.
(More whining) Why don’t they sell it in the stores? Inferior brands yes but Carnation no.
Great atmosphere too. Although I prefer a hole in the wall place serving great fare over a fancy shmancy place serving gruel. OSF has both good food and great décor. Love the street car! Wait staff does get overwhelmed at times but no real complaints from my visits.

I spoke with the general manager after sending an email. He apologized and offered to reimburse my bill. He also assured me that managers should have responded with greater attempts to compensate for the mishap. My faith in OSF is restored.

I attended a no-​host reception, following a relative’s funeral, at the Clackamas Spaghetti Factory. Before dinner bar bills flowed easily to us in the dining area. The limited wait staff for our large group managed much better than expected. The bread was hot and the butter cold. The green side salad was crisp and the blue cheese dressing flavorful. (Though, there was WAY too much dressing on tmy Caesar Salad! My leftover salad the next day turned into compost! I’ve taken out leftovers before including Caesar Salad but not from here). Together we had Spaghetti and Meatballs, and Gourmet Jumbo Crab Ravioli. Both meals were excellent in flavor and reasonably priced — even more so when you consider that we took home enough leftovers for lunch the next day. The Spumoni ice cream was the perfect ending to a great meal.
Negatives: She was late getting my iced water to me. Everyone are eating their salad. For $ 1 more, she mentioned I could get Caesar Salad, and because of that, I was the only one who didn’t come with a salad. We have to flag her again. She did came back, with another loaf of bread, that was a plus!
UPDATE, 2^nd check-​in:
DH had the platter combo of spinach/​cheese ravioli and spaghetti with meat sauce. He said both were wonderful. He also raved about the minestrone soup. Can a better one be found anywhere on earth? The bread was hot and it’s always fun to wrestle with the loaf and a serrated knife to get a slice of it. The Old Spaghetti Factory has perfected what they do and I expect really good tasting food when I come here. I have never been disappointed.
Negative: I went to use the restroom about 1PM. 1^st stall both TP & spare empty. I moved to the 2^nd stall, both TP & spare empty! I finally tried the 3^rd stall, the one by the door, lucky I was the only one there, I didn’t bother to put my pants up, I thought that would just be a quick stall trip! I didn’t know I’d be hopping from stall to stall.

Everything lacked flavor. Used to love coming here. I will think twice before coming back.

I don’t usually have high hopes for chain restaurants, but there have been times when the service surprised me in a good way, so I was cautiously optimistic about what my experience would be like at The Old Spaghetti Factory. Sadly, the service was worse than I expected.
We were seated immediately, but it took several minutes before someone came to take our drink orders. The young woman who came to take that order awkwardly removed two of the place settings (we were seated at a table for four). I wondered as we were taken to this table why we weren’t seated at one of the many tables for two we passed on our way.
We received our drinks but not the hot loaf of bread that is normally provided (we had ordered as an appetizer the cheesy garlic bread, and it was explained to us later that servers do not bring out the hot bread if a customer orders the cheesy garlic bread, unless it is asked for. This makes sense, although in past visits they did bring out both without us asking).
I ordered the Sicilian meatballs, and my girlfriend the Mizithra cheese and browned butter entrée. She also ordered a side of broccoli. My dish was okay, although the meatballs were overcooked and not very tender. My girlfriend’s entrée, on the other hand, was a different story: the pasta was sitting atop a puddle of melted butter. This is her favorite dish, and had never seen it served like this. Our server came over to check on us (and at this point it was a different person than the person who had taken our drink order, so there must have been a shift change) and we asked if the dish was supposed to be served like that. He kind of shrugged and said it was.
After that, we tried the broccoli only to find it mushy and overcooked. At this point we asked to speak to the manager. He came over and we showed him the pasta dish and the overcooked broccoli. He apologized and took the dishes away, saying he’d take off the broccoli from our bill (which wasn’t taken off when we got the bill). He also offered us a free desert, which was nice, although taking the value of the desert off of our bill would have been even better. In fairness, the plate of Mizithra pasta that was brought back to our table was prepared properly.
At the end of our meal, we had several to-​go containers on our table. Our sever did not offer us a bag to carry them in (we had to ask). And when he brought the bag, he just tossed it on the table. As someone who has worked in customer service on a supervisory level, I’d have to say that going the extra mile (such as placing our containers in the bag) would have remedied much of the disappointment from this night. I’m not sure we will be back, and The Olive Garden is just down the street with better food and better service.

We live pretty close to this place and we love coming here. The food is always great and the ambience is second to none. They have a faux train in the middle of the restaurant with booths that is awesome if you get to sit there.
The price is middle of the road comparatively to other restaurants around here.
The menu isn’t huge but they have many different pasta options to choose from. Spaghetti and meatballs, clam sauce, baked lasagna etc. The entrée comes with your choice of soup or salad but i definitely recommend the salad as the dressings are amazing and they make them in house. You also get unlimited bread. The portion of the entrée that i got last time wasn’t that large but it was still filling.
Overall i definitely recommend if you’re on the area!

So, the food here is decent enough, I thought… not fantastic, but not bad. However, my five-​year-​old daughter got a small ball bearing in her Italian soda, which I’ve posted pictures of. Fortunately she didn’t choke on it; I believe it was small enough that it could have gone up the straw, so I guess she just got lucky.
I contacted the manager (Kent) about the incident, and acknowledged that the ball bearing came from the machine they use to make the Italian sodas, and apologized and offered me a gift certificate to make up for it. Not a bad response… except that the gift certificate never came and I never heard from him again. This was three months ago, so I gave it plenty of time before writing this review.
So, yeah… foreign objects in the food, no response from management… probably won’t be going here again.

I had heard about people getting food poisoning from Old Spaghetti factory and had never experienced it. I’ve eaten their food many times with my family. I ate there tonight. Food was good, service was fine, but the food poisoning sucks.
The mizithra and pesto ranch are awesome though. Just be careful!

My husband and I went here for a date night, thinking we should check it out as some of his coworkers had recommended it. I was really disappointed in the food. True to it’s name, there really isn’t much else here besides spaghetti. That would be fine if their sauces were excellent. They were not!
First off, the greeters at the door are ok, friendly, but they made me give them my cell phone number so they could text me when a table was ready. I was a little put off by that. Then when a table was ready, they didn’t even text us, just yelled out our name.
We were seated and the place is like a dining hall. There really isn’t any ambiance to speak of. The tables are close together and the booths have no privacy, no high backs or anything, so it was very noisy and I felt like I was in a cafeteria.
We peruse the menu and I ordered the Pot-​pourri which is spaghetti with their four signature sauces so I could try them all and see what I liked best. We ordered salads for the side, and an appetizer of spinach/​shrimp dip.
The appetizer was pretty good. Besides having a consistency of being frozen and reheated (I’m pretty sure it was), it was tasty and came with tasty bread. If it wasn’t for that, (and the prices) I would have given this place 1 star.
The salads were nothing but iceberg lettuce and a couple cherry tomatoes. Boring. If I order a side salad at a restaurant, I’m going to be pissed if all I get is iceberg lettuce, which I was. I might as well eat air.
The spaghetti came and all I can say is that at least they cooked the noodles correctly. The sauces were all bland and waaaay too greasy. Where is the flavor?
Oh, and the spumoni ice cream was nasty! Tasted like dog poop.
We won’t be back. It was gross.

I don’t understand all the negative reviews for this OSF… it is in a great location with plenty of parking or you can even walk from the Courtyard across the street as I did.
The atmosphere is very nice, the staff is polite and helpful… they actually project the image that they appreciate your business!!!
The food is fantastic… I try various items on the menu but seem to really enjoy the Managers Special… either getting mizithra cheese and clam, or meat sauce. I love the warm bread and butter, and the salad with blue cheese. Usually I only get an ice tea and water for my drink.
What else can you say about the OSF… it is spaghetti friends!!!