Old Spaghetti Factory (New Westminster): Not Much Changes Over Time

Over the years, I’ve spent more than my fair share at The Old Spaghetti Factory. And it’s not difficult to see why this place has remained popular by many patrons over the year. Their all-included menu is tempting with a price that includes appetizer and dessert along with your meal. The main problem that I have with this chain is the way it’s gone downhill over the years.

One of the things that probably draws most people here is the “sameness” factor. When you walk in here… you know what you’re getting. Their menu rarely changes much (although they have jumped on the bandwagon and have started serving Beyond Meat items now).

I started out my meal with a Spinach Salad (which has a small surcharge to your meal price).

Then I moved onto my main course which was the Spaghetti with Browned Butter and Mizithra Cheese and added a side of Meatballs. They describe this dish as a salty cheese that’s grated over the spaghetti and then drizzled with browned butter. Overall, I found this dish to be fairly dry and flavourless. I didn’t detect much browned butter either. It’s probably a good thing that I added the side of meatballs as the sauce from the meatballs did help somewhat.

The meal ended with some Spumoni which was probably the highlight of the meal. While it’s not like a traditional spumoni that contains candied fruit, I actually do like their version.

Some of the things that I noted on this most recent visit is that we weren’t provided saucers for our tea cups (this created a bit of a mess on the table when trying to pour the tea), service was a bit slow (but we’ve come to expect this considering how busy they seem to be and how few servers they have), and I still miss the bread that they used to serve a long time ago.

On the plus side, they have room to fit large groups, the price point is fairly reasonable, and most of their pasta dishes are okay.

50 8th Street
Metro Vancouver, BC

www.oldspaghettifactory.ca