No. Absolutely not.
Mangia, which is Italian for eat, is not something I would do here ever again.
There were four to our party and we arrived in time for their $8 lunch special.
We enter a desolate restaurant... literally no one sitting in the dining area, and the hostess tells us to wait a second for a table. This seemed particularly curious since, again... the place was empty.
Then she said, "Well would you guys want to sit by the window? Or you can wait a few minutes for us to clear a table..." She pointed to the separate room by the bar. We were hungry and settled for the window table.
We were seated and handed menus. Then the waitress walked away. We read the menu, and five minutes later the waitress pops her head in from another room and says "I'll bring you guys some water in a sec." Automatically, turned off. Why couldn't you have done that after you gave our menus? Or come to our table instead of yelling from the steps?
Then she brings our waters and asks everyone what they wanted to drink since fountain drinks or iced tea were part of the $8 deal. We order drinks, and then she comes back with them.
Then we order our food. Three paninos with fries and a pasta dish. After taking our orders, she left and returned with bread. The bread was ok, soft, caraway/rye tasting with a kalamata olives and garlic oil mash/pate. (I was quite confused of what it was really supposed to be.) The flavor was good but I wished the bread was fresher and warm.
So we wait... we wait... we wait....
FORTY-FIVE MINUTES LATER... we still haven't gotten our food. The waitress came to fill out waters what seemed like 100 times and kept saying, "Your food will be out in a few minutes." There was one annoying incident where she roared in laughter, right in front of our table as she was pouring our waters... a laugh that echoed throughout the empty dining room and was quite frankly very piercing to our eardrums... then she decided she wanted to share the inside kitchen joke with us... None of us laughed, since we were beyond cranky and hungry.
Finally, our food arrived. Well, three of our dishes, the three sandwiches... The pasta dish,(which simply was penne with garlic and oil) Â did not come. The waitress said, "I'll bring out the pasta and some ketchup and cheese." Seems like all of this back and fourth could have been alleviated if she'd brought it during the forty-five minutes.
The pasta arrives, and it looked peculiar to me... there was dark specs and as I asked my friend what those specs were... I took a harder look and saw that it was BURNT GARLIC. COME ON PEOPLE! Do you know what happens when you burn garlic? It becomes bitter. And it sucks. Just like their service.
I ordered the Mozzarella Panino with fries and the fries were over-fried... over-"well done," and over greased... it was fried to the point that these white potatoes were not golden brown, they were close to brown-black. The Mozzarella Panino was mediocre.
But again... what the hell took them so long? It's lunch, shouldn't all your ingredients be prepped? There was no reason that our orders should have taken that long to come out. And then to butcher something so simple like a garlic and oil pasta dish... it's all wrong.
As we all chomped down our meals since we were super hungry after the wait, we decided that we had to go and wanted to asked for the tiramisu (that was included in the $8 lunch) to go. But it turned out that we couldn't even do that!
We looked for our waitress. No, not just the bobbing your head around type of looking... actual searching on foot...like we might as well have brought our flashlights, maps and walkie-talkies. One of my friends got up and looked around for her, she was nowhere to be found in this desolate restaurant. She said all she heard were people in the back (the kitchen).
When my friend sat down, I couldn't deal with the atrocities we just experienced any longer... so I ended having to go to the back to get someone to tend to us.
I found another waitress upon the entrance of the kitchen and asked her for our checks and our 4 tiramisu-s to go. And the response I got was.... "I don't know where your waitress is, but I'll be with you in a minute..." with a full blown attitude. Now, I'm not sure if she was snippy because her co-worker was missing, or if I had just asked her to do something out of her area, but that was confirmation I needed to vow, "They will not be graced with my patronage again." And, kitchen staff looked like a bunch of teenagers.
Then our waitress came, we asked for the check and tiramisu-s and her phone goes off. She comes back with the checks and desserts and later says, "Sorry about my phone, that was my boss texting me." Yeah, ok lady... shouldn't that be put on vibrate or silent while you are working?
Sure, $8 lunch is a deal. But it's not worth the wait... and the food isn't even worth $8... and no, the tiramisu wasn't good... no coffee/espresso flavor.
Eat elsewhere!
Lunch and happy hour here are great.
Service is way slow.
Sometimes they have the fresh bread, sometimes they don't. When they do, it's fantastic when fresh.
Outdoor seating is nice with good weather.
It's been hit and miss lately as far as quality of meal and service.
We come here often, and would hate to see them go, but they do need to work on the slow service and timing/consistency of the kitchen.
We happened on this place passing through town and looking for lunch. Â What a find! Â What a deal, too!! Â We went with the 8.00 lunch that included a soft drink, an entree and a dessert. Â My friend raved about his lasagna - it was excellent - he should know, he is a chef. Â My salad was fresh and tasty and I opted for some grilled shrimp that was not only generous in portion, but very tasty and cooked well. Â
The grilled chicken sandwich was dry according to another friend, but he liked everything else. Â The lemon sorbet was good and I heard good things about the tiramisu.
Will definitely return when in the area!
Mangia is Italian for eat. Â And this locally owned and operated restaurant serves fine Italian dishes. Â They do have a happy hour. Â They do have indoor and outdoor seating. Â The outdoor seating area is surrounded by an wrought iron fence. Most tables have an umbrella. Â On my first visit here I had the largest chicken Parmesan sandwich I have ever seen. And it was very good. Â I will be back here again, again & again.
Food A
Staff B Â (waitress was very helpful)
Decor C
Location C (not much parking around)
Health Inspection Grade 1 critical violation
Mangia was a great stop in my tour of Lynchburg dining establishments. Â First of all, it has a full bar with a nice selection of wine and craft draft beers. Â I went with a malbec - I know it's an Italian restaurant and some may say I should be drinking chianti, but I was in a malbec mood.
On the "specials" board, I saw "sausage", so I had to try it. Â When it came out, it was a very good-sized sausage sliced lengthwise on a bed of arugula sprinkled with gorgonzola crumbles and stuffed peppers. Â At first, I was hoping the sausage would be covered in marinara or some kind of sauce, thinking that all this meat would taste bland without it. Â Boy, was I mistaken - the flavor of the sausage was amazing! Â I came to find out that the sausage is produced at a local slaughterhouse, and it was perfect - spicy but not overly hot, with great flavor.
I can't wait to return for a full meal next time I visit Lynchburg.
I would like to give this place three and a half stars, but the service was slow and not very attentive, so I have to go with three.
My fiance and I went for dinner. The bread they brought out was fresh and wonderful, with an olive tapenade that we devoured.
The mix and match antipasto was tasty, we had the salami, prosciutto, mozzarella, and hummus. Not a very big portion size of the cheese but it did come with a large dollop of their delicious pesto on top. I also highly recommend the crispy chickpeas, we couldn't stop popping these like skittles (although they came out way after our other appetizer and about 30 seconds before our main dishes).
As for the main dishes, I had the penne with vodka sauce. The sauce was extremely meh, just tasted like regular marinara with no distinguishing vodka sauce sweetness. Fiance had the veal cacciatore, which he liked okay but also wasn't really as good as the price made it seem like it should be.
We ended with the vanilla gelato, which was really more just like vanilla ice cream than gelato (it lacked the intensity of flavor that true gelato usually has), and the chocolate espresso cake, which was quite lovely.
You know how you walk into a place and it's not remotely full, but you have to stand there way longer than you should have to just to get the staff's attention, so you can sit down and have some lunch?
Yeah. It was like that. I kind of hoped the experience would improve after that, but it didn't really. My Greek salad was really good, but I thought it was kind of stingy not to provide some bread (considering most Italian places bust out the bread the minute they seat you). My lunch came with a dessert - either berries or  tiramisu. Since I don't have much love for coffee-soaked squishy cake, I opted for the berries -- many of which were obviously past their prime -- dessicated and looking like they were going to sprout mold any minute.
Service was initially friendly -- the guy who (belatedly) seated me and took my drink order was friendly enough. However, he apparently abondoned me to a more dour waitress as soon as my iced tea arrived.
Maybe I'll give this place a second chance, I dunno. But my first impression kind of gives me pause.
If you go to Mangia, be prepared to have medium to EXTREMELY slow service. It's especially slow when you go in for the "late-night" menu and drinks on a Friday or Saturday night. Even if you go with just one other person, you will be waiting a long time for your food and drinks.
The food at Mangia is pretty good, but it's nothing out of this world. I think the $8 lunch menu is great! I like the salads and calamari appetizer. Their bread is fresh, and it comes with olive tapanade.
I do like the atmosphere and outdoor seating Mangia offers. They do take reservations for large groups, but like I said---you may be waiting a while for your food.
Mangia has a full bar with a good wine list, including a lot of Virginia wines. Their mixed drinks are good too.
Another great thing: After 10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, the have a small tapas-like menu of appetizers for $5 each if you're not drinking or $2 each if you are drinking. So that's great if you're out with friends and want to split some small appetizers. They're good! I just wish it were open past midnight.
I would recommend Mangia, as long as you're OK with possibly waiting a while for your food.
Okay, I've eaten waaay too many times here to allow a three star rating to continue! Â I love Mangia, especially the calamari. Â The service may still be hit or miss at times, but I can look through that for the food and atmosphere. Â Yes, I'm bumping up my rating, I owe it to my fan-fave in the 'Burg!
Review Source:I love the idea of Mangia... BUT it comes up way short. I've been wanting to try the place for a while since I loooove dish (both owned by the same people), but the food was absolutely mediocre.
The mussels had sat so long that they were crunchy inside their shells. We sent sent them back and asked that more NOT be brought out. Since both of us have worked in food service before, we know better than to eat something that we've complained about. (The only reason we returned them at all was our entrees arrived about 3 or 4 minutes after the appetizer and before we sent them back.) They "insisted" a new plate be brought to our table, but it went completely wasted. The app was comped and no harm done. The rest of the meal was OK, but not great. We did not however, experience the painfully slow service. It was a bit slow between the bread and the appetizer, but based on the condition of the mussels, I think perhaps the server forgot them under the warmer.
I hear the happy hour is great, so I may come back for a drink, but definitely won't be back for dinner.
UPDATE: Awesome happy hour from 5 - 7 with $2 apps just earned Mangia another star!
I enjoy going to Mangia, especially the outdoor patio in good weather. Â When it first opened, the high prices, slow service and overbearing seasoning on the food (capers!) turned me off, and i didn't know if it would suffer the same fate as the other restaurants in this location (which one would think ideal). Â Â In the last year though, i've had several good meals here and consider it a valid option. Â The entrees remain overpriced, but they have great happy hour appetizer deals and an a la carte menu with sensationally low prices. Â Â Mangia still suffers in comparison to its Italian food competition up Rivermont, Isabellas.
Review Source:My first dining experience at Mangia was May 2009. It was such a TERRIBLE experience (i.e. waiter opened and poured wrong bottle of wine despite being told on presentation that it was not the bottle that was ordered, CRUNCHY penne, cinnamon-dusted tiramisu, etc. and so forth) that I decided to chalk it up to the newness of the establishment and give it a couple months and try again.
Well...while the second time was much improved, it still was not anything to write home about nor will I be returning. They tout their ability to provide true al dente pasta (wait staff continually referenced this on both occasions), however this is only true of their spaghetti. The penne ranged from crunchy to gummy, so I'm going to assume this is a reoccurring incident (see above comments about first visit).
Moral of the story: If you want italian cuisine in Rivermont/Boonsboro, you will be MUCH happier with the southern Italian at Milano's or northern Italian at Isabella's.
Mangia recently opened in the site that formerly housed Rivermont Bistro/Vines Cafe/Shads/Trotter's and features "homestyle, home-cooked" Italian cuisine. Â It's owned by Dave Ellis and Melanie Chalmers-Ellis who operate Dish, a favorite of ours and other Yelpers. Â Their experience, in contrast to the "amateur hour" management at its predecessor, should shepherd the eatery to success. Â
A caveat to this review... we've not yet tasted the food here so the rating is merely a placeholder at this point.
Mangia is still new and the kinks need to be worked out. For instance, we recently visited on a weeknight without reservations. Â We were informed, however, that we could not be seated for thirty minutes - despite a half-full dining room - because the kitchen was backed up. Â We've heard rumors that the kitchen is the size of a postage stamp (perhaps that's the reason for the interminable waits for the food to come out at Vines). Â Should that be the case, then the restaurant should limit the number of tables because having half the tables unoccupied and being unable to keep up and serve patrons looks, well, bad. Â
We'll give some kudos to the hostess for being upfront and preventing a disaster whereby we wait forever for our order. Â OTOH, it's too bad she didn't think to offer us a seat at the bar until they were ready for us... Â Part of the job is sales - you got us to walk in, now think on your feet in order to keep us there!
The menu features housemade pastas and sauces, priced around $15 to $17. Â Specials that night included veal, snapper and softshell crabs. Â At first glance, many of the dishes seem "heavy" for late Spring/early Summer fare. Â For example, we just can't see having hearty dishes like pasta Bolognese on the patio during the sweltering heat of July; February, yes. Â Hopefully the specials (i.e., the softshells) better reflect the current season. Â
First impressions can be a mirage. Â And given the lovely patio and the quality of cooking at Dish, we will return. Â But with a reservation!
Mangia is open for lunch, dinner and brunch on Sunday.
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