"Visiting Mandola’s in The Triangle feels a little bit like walking into a movie studio for a film about an Italian restaurant in a big city somewhere. In one corner, there’s a little marketplace selling imported olive oils and dried pastas, in another, there’s a long bar stocked with Italian wines next to a sign that reads “A day without wine is a day without sunshine” with a caricature of an old Italian chef with a pinched fingers gesture. If you were to ask an AI generator to spit out an image of a classic Italian-American restaurant, it would probably show you Mandola’s. photo credit: Holly Dirks photo credit: Holly Dirks photo credit: Holly Dirks There are close to a dozen Mandola’s locations across Texas and Florida, and from our experience, they’re all very similar. And we consider that a plus, considering the large menu of dependable and affordable dishes. Stop in during the day for a lunch-only personal pizza or half panini, or show up for dinner and choose from a greatest hits list of Italian-American classics including fettuccine alfredo, eggplant parm, spaghetti bolognese, and full-sized pizzas. None of it will blow your mind, but you’ll leave satisfied and with a small box of leftovers. photo credit: Holly Dirks photo credit: Holly Dirks photo credit: Holly Dirks photo credit: Holly Dirks Mandola’s has nailed the paint-by-numbers game of Italian-American dining, and they’ve copy-pasted that formula across the country enough times to prove it. Because while there are times you want to feel like you’re dining in a small, secret kitchen in an Italian villa, there are other times when you just want a giant plate of cheese ravioli and a scoop of gelato for less than $20." - Nicolai McCrary
