Johnny's Italian Steakhouse — Restaurant in Altoona

I've been to Johnny's twice and the experiences couldn't have been more different. The first time was terrific, the second could not have been more disappointing. THE FIRST TIME: My wife and I had heard good things and were excited to try it. We walked in without a reservation and were told to expect an hour wait...no prob and should be expected on a Saturday night, right? We had a seat in the bar area, each ordered a drink, and within 15 minutes were surprised to find our name called to be seated....it was great. Food was good, service was good. No complaints. Fast forward a few months to THE SECOND TIME. Our first experience was so positive, we decided to go there to celebrate our wedding anniversary. Hoping to get ahead of at least some of the dinner crowd (again on a Saturday), we showed up a few minutes before 6PM. The hostess told us to expect 45-50 minutes. My wife and I sat down in the bar area and each ordered a drink and enjoyed some conversation...we decided to get another round at about the 40 minute mark....and continued to wait. It was now after 7PM and most everyone who was in the bar area when we arrived had filtered through to their tables and booths. I walked up to the hostess station and inquired about the wait. She told me we were SECOND on the list and should be seated soon. At the 7:35 mark, we flagged down the hostess and explained our situation. She asked our name again and said we were THIRD on the waiting list. How could that be? We were second a half hour ago. She said she didn't know but they were "trying their best to get us a seat". She then took a couple who came in WELL after us to their table. We asked to speak with a manager and explained that we'd been there 1:45 and counting. She said she was sorry and to pick out a free appetizer when we were seated....which happened a few minutes later. We sat down at our booth only to find that parmesan cheese was all over the table...as if it had been wiped down by a 4 year old armed with a dirty dish rag. We asked our server if we could the table cleaned off...obviously flustered (but not apologetic), he wiped down our table. We ordered an appetizer. We didn't receive any bread as the other tables had but didn't say anything, thinking it had to be coming. The appetizer arrived before we placed our entrée orders. I ordered the Prime Rib....only to find our a minute later that they were all out for the evening (I bet they had plenty 90 minutes ago). I ordered something else and asked if we could get some bread for our table. The waiter said he'd "just noticed we didn't have any"....uh huh. A couple minutes later he walked by, enroute to another table, and plopped a basket of bread on our table without breaking stride. I didn't want to read into it, but after the night we'd already had, it seemed totally rude. Our meal came and was just okay....it was maybe better than okay, but we were so off put by the whole experience at this point. To put some bizarre icing on the cake, the waiter refilled my water glass after I'd already given my card to pay and had declined a refill. It was 9:10 by the time we pulled out of the parking lot....3+ hours of dining frustration and a $100 bill for dinner, 2 drinks apiece, and a free appetizer. Happy Anniversary...arg. I think we're calling a mulligan and will be re-celebrating another weekend.

Sorry for the wordiness, but I don't give poor reviews without strong reason. Having such a good experience in our previous visit only compounded the frustration of our follow up patronage. We walked in the door thinking this is our new local "go to place" for a more upscale dinner, and walked out doubtful that we want to go back any time soon...solely because of...

Good morning- I will start by saying I have been to your restaurant several times and have never had an issue. I decided to set up a celebration dinner for my mother’s birthday this past Friday evening 630pm 4/21/2017 - the experience started poorly. After I made the reservation I was promptly contacted from your restaurant stating for large parties you did banquet style which I briefly considered until I look at the menu options. I responded stating I was not interested and the gentleman I spoke to responded "well I tried" making it feel like he was trying to pull something over on me. I moved on and was still excited for the evening as we have had great experiences at your location in the past. The night of the dinner was quite lack-luster, poor service, and poorly prepared meals. We had a larger party of 16 I believe - the waiters only addressed one end of the table and would quickly rush off before the other side of the table had a chance to be addressed when coming to check in. Most of the meal was fine but my filet had to be prepared two times neither was correctly prepared. I had asked for the filet to be cooked medium, the first time it was literally cold to touch in the middle and the second was similar but this time done on one end and not on the other the middle could not be chewed threw due to being raw still. The manager did comp my meal but seemed to be only slightly concerned coupled with his poor appearance barely tucked in shirt and no jacket I am having serious doubts if we will ever come back to this restaurant we normally go to 801 downtown Des Moines but wanted to give you guys another shot as it is fairly close to my mother's home whose birthday we were celebrating. Additionally my uncle ordered the scallops and he indicated the sauce was a bad flavor and mentioned the scallops were on the verge of being raw but did not complain as he did not want to add further disappointment to my mother's dinner party we arranged for her. The servers only took the desert order from one side of the table and missed taking my children's order for desert and the children were upset thinking they were not getting desert - being 6 & 7 years of age this was a huge disappointment. Overall quite a disappointing experience. I had wanted to come back for my birthday this summer to enjoy your beautiful patio with a large dinner party as well I have been planning - doubtful this will happen now. We went for pizza the following weekend at Old Chicago and sadly we had far superior service there. One would think a restaurant that is supposed to be in a different league than a chain pizza joint would have exceptional service. Sadly the only reason I am posting on Google is due to not receiving any sort of a response to a message I left on Johnny's own website - apparently they don't take pride in their customers' experience and satisfaction or the...

I had high expectations going in. Even if I had had none, I would have been a little disappointed.

Walking in was fine, and we were seated quickly with our reservation. However, we got a bad feeling when we were told at being seated that a waitress would be taking our drink order but a waiter would do our food order. Instead a waiter took our drink order and it was 15min before Hanah arrived to take our food order; just as we were about to ask what was going on, and had all confirmed our confusion about what we'd heard up front and what happened. Hanah was a professional and apologized for the wait and confusion while being personable and friendly.

The place wasn't busy in our area, but Hanah had to cover other areas, and a large group was being prepped beside us. It didn't seem like a lack of servers, just not good use of what they had available.

The food came out quickly...but that turned out to be a bad thing. Perhaps it was because of confusion before that they rushed to get ours ready; some, not all, of our dishes were....meh. Not bad, just not great for the price

Also, three spears of asparagus for a dish that is $39? That steak and shitake mushroom sauce was not worth that much...it didn't wow at all...barely noticed it. The baked potato was great but hard to screw those up. I've had a better steak from Applebees via DoorDash.

Hanah was very attentive and refilled drinks and checked in on us.

My sister and broinlaw have been here before multiple times and apologized as they had never had a bad experience like this.

Thank you Hanah for the conversation and attention you were able to give after the initial confusion. You saved the night.

I usually willing to try again, but not being from the area, might be a long time.

Hopefully my sister and brother-in-law are right; some communication/coordination broke down and we got the bad end of it. But that it should still be a food place to go.

Everyone else seemed to be having a great time and...