Joe's Italian — Restaurant in Alabaster

I have heard lots of great things about this place. One common feature has been people saying it “USE” to be great. Past tense. We got a kid free evening to ourselves and thought what about a quick little date night? Went in on a Saturday night, barely anyone there so seating was lightning fast. That’s about the only highlight.

Took almost 10 mins for a server to come over and get a drink order (and bring bread). We just ordered waters. We ordered Lasagna Bianca and Chicken Piccata. The tomato soup, he was happy with but to me it just tasted like vodka sauce. But hey, if he’s happy I’m happy. I got a salad with mine. Was told their house dressing was Italian dressing mixed with ranch dressing— odd. Especially for an Italian joint. But hey if it’s what the people like…not my cup of tea though so I got just Italian dressing. The salad was a plate of lettuce, a slice of cucumber, and a single cherry tomato with dressing drizzled on top. …. Well even if it’s a sad salad, I’m here for the main dish not the side sad salad.

He got the lasagna Bianca. Keep in mind he has been here before but it’s been about 8 years or so. Said he use to order this every time and it was his fav. It came out as this tiny cut of lasagna in a bowl of “cream sauce” and topped with broiled mozzarella. There was more sauce than there was actual lasagna. I even tried it and all I could taste was cheese. They charge nearly $22 for this. In this economy??? Honey, no. Not even worth it. He was really disheartened. Said the portion size use to be a lot more generous, to the point where he would have to get a to-go box. I think he ate the cut of lasagna in 4 bites…. Even for that little amount it was not out of this world great that would make it worth half the price.

The chicken piccata… just no. The portion size, great. But the sauce was NOT right. Tasted more like mushroom sauce. No white wine or lemon zest flavor in sight. The breading on the chicken was soggy, even the top of it not touching the sauce. I understand it’s pan fried, but even then not a bit of crisp or flavor to it. All I could taste was this earthy mushroom flavor throughout the whole thing.

We were pretty bummed since we don’t get to go out together very often. We thought “PLEASE let dessert be decent”. We got a slice of strawberry cake and a slice of the triple chocolate cake to-go. We just wanted to get out of there. The chocolate cake was VERY good. The strawberry cake… meh. The icing was more like wedding cake icing and not so sweet. It wasn’t dry, so at least there was that. Massive portion size. 2 people could easily split a piece, maybe 3 people. (My overall 2 star rating is just for the fact the cake was decent)

Just a waste of a date night and ~$95 (included 21% tip)

Atmosphere - too dark, too much moving cold air (I get Alabama heat, but things were blowing off of our table because of air movement). There was someone singing and playing guitar, and even myself being 30 something years old it was far too loud to just talk to my date across the table — and there were less than 10 tables with patrons in the entire restaurant.

We will not be returning. They have the potential to be a great restaurant for a small town. I hope they are able to turn...

This review may be a bit lengthy but I feel like you deserve honest feedback. My situation is a bit unique so I want to fully explain, so here it goes:

I eat at Joe's with my family of 4 (wife, son, and daughter), about once a week, and have done so for the past 2-3 years on a regular basis. We usually spend about $75.00 per visit. The service is almost always great, and so is the food. There was a menu change this week that will make it hard to justify continuing to eat at your restaurant, so I wanted to explain the situation.

My son and I both have celiac's disease, so we were thrilled to find an italian restaurant that offered gluten free pasta in the Pelham area. My wife and daughter can order anything on the menu, but due to our allergies, my son and I are basically limited to the gluten free pasta + either marinara or alfredo sauce. Neither of us really cares for Pesto sauce or pizza. We were thrilled to try the Alabaster Scampi about six months ago because the sauce was so flavorful and a little spicy. This pasta was so much more flavorful than just a basic pasta + sauce combination... it quickly became our favorite dish.

I ate there tonight and was sad to find out that the scampi recipe has changed. In my opinion, the old scampi sauce was MUCH better than the new sauce, which has a strong lemon/onion flavor which is drastically different and a bit overwhelming.

I basically had 3 options to choose from previously due to my allergy issue, and now the far best option of the 3 is no longer available, so I'm down to 2 options, neither of which really motivates me to want to eat there. I'm afraid that this change will result in us no longer spending approximately $300.00 per month with your business, as my son will now push back about eating there and I don't really want to drop $75.00 on a meal that half of us won't really enjoy. I really hate to say this because your restaurant has been one of our favorite places to eat for quite a while, but this change just makes it hard to justify coming back.

I realize a lot of people probably aren't as affected by a change like this, but I would imagine if you get feedback from people who try the new scampi vs the old scampi, you may hear similar feedback. If at all possible, I would implore you to continue offering the old scampi, even if you also want to offer the new scampi. Adding a dish to your menu wouldn't hurt anyone, but taking one away certainly may cause issues that you didn't necessarily anticipate.

I hope you will consider this feedback and please let me know if this is something that changes in the future, as I'd love to be able to continue eating at Joe's on a regular basis. Thank you...

My husband and I were so excited to come here for dinner because we have heard nothing but great things about this place. They were busy when we arrived and we were promptly sat by the host. We were brought our drinks and some bread by the host as well. He said that our server would be right with us. We waited and waited and looked around for a server, but they never came by. Finally this lady, who I’m assuming is maybe an owner or manager, saw me looking and came by and said “do you need something?” I told her we were fine just wondering where our server was. She took our order. We received our appetizer which was delicious, and when we were done with that, the host that sat us came by and asked if we were ready for our check. We said no, we were waiting on our dinner. Our salad came out next, and we ate that, then when we finished our salad, the same host came by asking if we were ready to our check once again. We told him a second time we were waiting on our dinner. The manager/possible owner lady came by and told us that she had been in the back washing dishes and forgot the type of pasta my husband wanted. She went back to the kitchen and brought us back our entrees. I ordered the veggie pizza and my husband got the chicken Parmesan with fettuccine noodles. The pizza right off the bat looked way too cheesy. I picked up a slice and the cheese slid right off the crust with the minimal toppings. It was supposed to have roasted garlic, artichoke hearts, tomatoes, onion, bell peppers, mushrooms, basil on it, but all I could see was 500lbs of cheese, tomatoes, basil, a couple of mushrooms and that was basically it. The crust was raw in the middle and the whole pizza was inedible. The manager/possible owner came back to the table to tell us she was going to leave us with this other young girl to pay and then walked off. The young girl had our check and as she was cashing us out, I told the girl that the pizza was awful I didn’t even eat one slice. She said she was sorry and would tell the kitchen, but didn’t even offer to get a manager or take off the pizza from the check. We just left after paying and tipping 20% to who knows. I hope the host gets something because he was the one person who was looking out for us even though he kept asking us about the check. The place had so much potential, but fell flat. What a shame. We will...