I never write reviews like this (mainly because I’m busy taking care of my sloth), but I had to say something. Mario’s Italian Restaurant on Euclid is the rudest, most disrespectful, and dirtiest place I’ve ever been and I’ve been to many simple roadside Peruvian diners while procuring sloths. The restaurant would tell you that a lot of my experiences were colored by my sloth, but I disagree. This could happen to anyone, even the slothless.
For instance, the waitress was so rude when I simply asked for grated cheese, more Diet Sprite, and some cecropia leaves, the primary diet of my sloth. Of course, I wouldn’t expect an Italian restaurant in Central Iowa to have cecropia leaves on the menu, which is why I brought my own. However, I wanted to ask to make sure they weren’t available because if anywhere in the area does serve cecropia leaves, I definitely want to support them. I was then told I could not feed my sloth at the table, even though I agreed, without too much of a fight, to eat on the patio because I brought a “non-service animal.” I made a reservation for two at the bar three weeks ago, but no big deal.
Again, this is about the restaurant, not my sloth. As for the food, the vodka sauce was way too creamy and tomato-based. I don’t usually order vodka sauce because I don’t like the taste of it because it’s way too creamy and tomato-based. And I didn’t order vodka sauce at Mario’s either, but I ended up being forced to buy it after my sloth grabbed some off another table. (Sloths have low visual acuity and rely on smell to find food—it would be unrealistic to bring a sloth to a restaurant and expect the sloth to not grab food!)
Price is another issue. With the cost of gas and sloth enclosures these days, it’s hard to justify paying $17 for an appetizer Caesar salad. The portion sizes were decent, assuming you have the normal metabolic rate of a mammal of comparable size and your resting body temperature is above 30 celsius. Personally, I don’t assume these things about my dining companions.
Let me tell you: the two-for-one martini happy hour has a lot of restrictions. I’m not going to go into what these restrictions are because I don’t want to make this about my sloth again, but let’s just say this: Mario’s Italian Restaurant on Euclid doesn’t serve martinis to sloths.
I will admit the location on the lake is beautiful, but there’s no way to access the restaurant from a kayak while your companion swims along because they are more stable in the water than walking on land. In this way, Mario’s Italian Restaurant on Euclid is very similar to the Peruvian diners I mentioned previously. It feels like no one’s really considering this issue anymore.
Lastly, I have a right to my privacy. I don’t need every waiter, busboy, and patron asking me “is it even legal to have a sloth as a pet in Iowa?” As I’ve had to tell people ad nauseam: Iowa allows captive-bred pet skunks which many be interpreted to mean sloths, although they are not specifically allowed or barred. Geez. I sound like a broken record!
In conclusion, I will not be returning to Mario’s Italian Restaurant on Euclid. I’ll probably just keep going to O’Charley’s. No one even notices my sloth there.