I've seen Marion's Piazza being built from ground up, having passed by there often. Both during its construction and immediately after its completion, I had no idea what this place was. Was it a place of business, a marketplace (hence 'piazza'), or a restaurant? At no time did I see any signage outside giving even the slightest clue that this was a restaurant, no grand opening, no nothing. Giving into my curiosity, I looked it up on the internet. Much to my surprise - it was a pizza (sandwich/pasta) restaurant. This gross oversight, of any real advertising and announcing to the public at large that they are a restaurant and open for business, perhaps spells a bad omen. It is definitely neither a great first impression nor putting their best foot forward.
Having read the (unfavorable) reviews, I resisted the urge to visit Marion's Piazza for many, many months. Finally, this past week I decided to take the kids and try it out. My philosophy - you have to try everything at least once because at worst, you can check it off the list and never return and at best, you may be pleasantly surprised.
The restaurant inside is very much a piazza-type atmosphere, or at least that's the attempt. The walls have archways and painted within the archways are murals giving the impression one is looking outside. The lighting is good. The tables and chairs, however, give one the impression they are outside at picnic tables. There is no host(ess), you're only greeted at the ordering counter and it is self-seating. To order your food, it's the usual fast-food style: walk to counter, place your order, pay and receive your receipt with order number. When your order is ready and called out, you pick up your food from the counter. Ordering drinks requires a separate visit to the beverage counter, where another order is placed and payment made.
The service we received was an A+. All our questions answered and all help needed with the process was promptly given. The manager was fully engaged as she was constantly busy helping at all stations as necessary.
Now we come to the painful part: the food and the quality. We ordered two large pizzas with two toppings each, a small mushroom pizza and a dinner salad. The salad is basic - so we'll toss (pun) that one out first - no complaints. It's a salad - easy, right? The pizzas are only thin crust. If you're a deep-dish fan, you'll be greatly disappointed. If you're a thin crust fan, you, too, will be greatly disappointed. The crust is bland, very bland. The cardboard crust does nothing for your palate. Both of our large pizzas had onions and sausage. The sausage, too, was insipid. Adding insult to injury, my kids and I commented on how the sausage resembled, in some grossly twisted way, rat droppings due to its very small size and cylindrical shape. No, it was not rat droppings, just in case someone misunderstands my comments. It was food - just not pleasant to the eye and very insulting to our taste buds. The small mushroom pizza was just barely better due to the natural flavor of baked mushrooms. Our entire pizza experience, sadly, was akin to a $2 frozen grocery store bought pizza.
If the dreadful pizza wasn't enough to cause long-term damage to our sense of high quality food, the inflated prices kicked us while we were down. The total cost for two large (13") pizzas with two toppings each, one small mushroom and a dinner salad was $41.37. Where is the justification in that pricing model? At this point, that $2 frozen, store bought pizza is looking more like manna from heaven.
Most will agree that breakfast is pretty hard to mess up. When it comes to pizza, my theory is much the same: one would have to work hard to mess up pizza. Come on - it's pizza after all - how much simpler can it be?!? Whatever formula was used in Dayton, OH, to make this place successful and encourage it to branch out is a curious mystery. The food crowd in the Mason/West Chester area is sophisticated and therefore very demanding, promising little hope to Marion's long-term survival in this area. Marion's Piazza is certainly an experience. If you are adventurous, by all means, visit this place at least once. Sadly, nothing about Marion's Piazza urges me to return - ever! read more