Its not right to set amount of tip by the amount of your total ticket without the concent of the coustmer. Iwill not use your place of business being the macaronigrill, bakersfield ca date 1/21/2011. I willbe sure to let other people I know obout how business is done at the macaronigrill.

My family went to celebrate my wife's birthday on Christmas eve. The food and table service was great. However, when the bill arrived, we tried to remit payment using a gift certificate given to her for her birthday the day before. Much to our surprise, the waiter came back and said the card was invalid. I suggested to the waiter to call the number on the back of the card to ensure validity. The waiter did so and said the card was not activated. There was another number for us to call and that we would have to pay the bill now using another method of payment. I informed him that this was not going to happen, that the Macaroni Grill should honor the card as it was purchased in good faith. The manager was brought over. Apparently customer service for the gift card was not available that night. So, I ensured to the manager that it was a good card, to please hold it and get it activated when customer service was available. I had been to the same restaurant several times before with no issues. However, the manager refused to accept this, said that I had to pay the whole bill or to never come back. So, that is what I am doing. I've never walked out on a bill before, but I did that time because management gave me no choice. They have the card; I am sure that they will get their $50. But for the life of me I don't understand why they wouldn't let me pay the $12 difference and insinuated that we were thiefs; instead they have ensured that my family will never again attend one of their restaurants.

Every time I go to this restaurant (which I try to avoid but it's by my office and people always choose to go here for birthdays and lunch meetings etc.) I find they WAY over-charge for things, and they give you MEASLY serviings.

I ordered the caprese salad. Probably paid at lease $7 for it, for lunch. Usually I love this kind of salad, but theirs was bad because it was maybe 5 simple slices of tomato with one blob of mozzarella on top and a tiny sliver of basil and balsamic. The mozzarella is supposed to be about as big as the tomato circle. And it's supposed to be chilled, so you can even cut it. Theirs was a small dallop and it started becoming soft and warm and losing its shape. Needless to say, I was still hungry when I left.

Then I asked for coffee. They gave me a small mug of coffee and it was just like a normal size one, but it was $2.19!!! And it got cold really fast, and the server never stopped back over to our table to ask if I wanted so more. If I'd known it was costing that much, I would have had at least 2 more refills.

All in all, my total for LUNCH was over $12, for nasty, poorly executed dishes and service.

Last evening, my dining companion and I decided we would enjoy a little pasta and vino, so we set out for Macaroni Grill in Mt Laurel, NJ. The restaurant was suspiciously empty, but we thought perhaps it was because it was the last long weekend of the summer. When our waitress arrived, she began to spout off the names of soft drinks, in an effort to get a beverage order. We told her we were ordering alcoholic drinks, and she informed us that the "company" had made the decision not to renew their liquor license. I was shocked. The waitress said that business is WAY down now. She said they were trying to "get it back". We opted for some refreshing, flavored iced tea. My dining companion ordered spaghetti and meatballs, which is always quite good. I odreded lobster spaghetti, after conferring with the waitress. She told me it was "amazing". While we waited for our meal, she brought out bread. The bread HAD to be leftover from lunch. Macaroni Grill's "bread" is made from their pizza dough. It has a very short wondow of freshness, and it is easy to know when you've gotten stale bread. The entrees arrived. As I said, the spaghetti and meatballs was good...which was a given. HOWEVER...my lobster spaghetti...which at $17.95 was one of the more expensive dishes on the menu, was pretty bad. The little specks of lobster sprinkled throughout the dish were pretty perfectly cooked. But, there was a hall small lobster tail on the top of the pasta...still in it's shell. It was tough, rubbery and flavorless. I DID tell the waitress that she should inform the chef that this was not a well executed dish. We quickly got the check...paid and made a hasty exit. I am pretty sure that Macaroni Grill will no longer be on my list of places to go when I'm in the mood for Italian food.

I had a problem at the Macaroni Grill near Greenville South Carolina when I visited friends there. We were in a large group of people and the waitress was doing a great job of keeping everybody happy.

The only problem was with the manager named Smiles or Smiling, who was a total jerk the whole time. He "helped" us a few times by berating our waitress when the waitress' assistant brought out an order for another table, and by making her get more silverware to replace a set that was dirty. We were embarrassed for the waitress because of the way he was treating her, and we could tell that she was near tears a couple of times- for no reason. She felt the need to apologize constantly for messing things up even though she wasn't!

We were the biggest group in the restaurant so the manager felt that the had to stand around us almost the entire time, which was very annoying.

When she brought out our check my wife tried to console her and told her that she did a great job, considering the size of the group, and that she didn't think the waitresses' manager needed to browbeat her the way he did. The waitress told us that his wife had a baby recently which might be why he acted the way he did.

All in all, I would consider going back to that location when in town, as long as that Smiling guy was nowhere in the building near us or our waitress.