Johnny Carino's — Restaurant in Austin

Wow. Where to start. 😳

(Long review warning…)

When we arrived at 8:15 it wasn’t super busy, there were a lot of tables available - the problem was we waited by the hostess stand for about 5 minutes… no one came to us, I told my friend let’s give them 1 more minute and then leave. By this time, there were 2 parties standing behind us. My friend went to the bar and asked if there was a hostess, she pointed at a girl by the kitchen laughing with her obvious work crush, who didn’t even bother looking back at her station. Finally she saunters over with 2 large bags for the gentleman that was waiting before we arrived. Like ok fine, but you could’ve sat us first, then the couple behind us, grabbed the food, then the third party but no - get your flirt on, girl. Finally when she tends to us, she states that there’s a 5-10 min wait (?!?!) my friend said “um… there’s a booth on the bar side can we sit there?” The hostess said yeah sure and so we think she’s going to escort us to the booth. Nope. She stands there as we walk away confused “…. Um do you guys want menus?” (No, we’re just going to sit there hungry 🫠) At that point we should’ve left but my friend really wanted to eat here.

Our server was actually attentive however failed to clarify that margaritas came in different sizes and even though I had the menu with the specials and ordered the special margarita of the day, she charged me (twice) for full sized drinks. The weird thing she knew to charge me the special price for the meal I had but not the drinks? Anyway the food wasn’t great. The pasta nachos (too weird not to try) plate was PIPING hot and when I touched it to move on the table it burned me a bit. Also the ends (as seen in the pic) were very burned. Received no warning for this hot plate btw. The pizza was soft in the middle like it wasn’t baked all the way through or something. It was more like a flat bread.

My friends dish looked ok but the sauce was a color that made me think it had a skin on it (sitting on a stove all day) and she did not eat all of it (albeit, we were pretty full on apps and bread (also we weren’t immediately served bread, we had to ask for it - which came after our apps, I thought at this place you get that first with drinks like chips and salsa at a Mexican resto? Idk, I could be wrong)

Anyway, I’m being generous with 2 stars because aside from not really being clear on the drinks, you could tell our server was trying her best and actually working. And honestly it’s a chain restaurant so wasn’t expecting it to be super great.

This place needs better management...

Most horrible experience I have in a while. It is my roomie and I birthday and his boyfriend (a good friend of mine as well) wanted to take us here in celebration. First, The Mushrooms were so salty, they were inedible. My roomie doesn't eat salad so the waitress offered to exchange it for soup. The soup was so salty, it was inedible. We were starting to get worried. The food comes out and one of the orders were wrong. The waitress took it back and my friend and myself began eating our food. I ordered the chicken parmesan which was burned, not overcooked, literally black in several spots once I scraped the huge amount of tomato sauce to the side and the chicken was extremely dry. I ate two bites and was done with this restaurant. My friends food arrived and was wrong again, so back it went, again. When it finally arrived right, it too was covered in an extreme amount of sauce and, it too was burned black. The waitress asked if we wanted a to go box and we both said no thank you. It was actually my roomie who pointed out the food was burned. The waitress took the check back and removed the two dishes that were burned from the tab. On the receipt, we noticed it said "complaint discount." I personally find that offensive because we didn't complain, rather stated the obvious. She did not remove the mushrooms, extra charge for the soup or the substitution charge on the meal it took her three times to get correct; a meal that was not eaten. In all this time a manager never came to ask what was going on, what the problem was or certainly not to apologize. I rarely complain in a restaurant, as I am in the food service industry myself, but this was really, really bad!!! My roomie did say his lasagna was good. We all tried it and, yes, it was good. I still will...

Worst experience dining here ever!!! I am pretty certain that I will never take family or friends out to dine here again. To start the host seated a party the same size as mine before me, even though they arrived after me and were placed on the list behind my party. The waiter took our orders and brought out the appetizer followed by my 4 children’s meals in a timely fashion. The deciding factor of this becoming a terrible dining experience was the fact that after my children completed their dinners my wife and myself hadn’t received our entrees. This was a time lapse of approximately 35 minutes(I had to show the manager the 35 minutes of YouTube videos I watched @ the table). If I wanted to wait 35 minutes after my kids got their food I would’ve gone to the Denny’s restaurant next to the Austin airport. I asked to speak with the manager (she was also quality control for the food line), as soon as she shows up to speak with me the food we ordered magically showed up. Tried to have a professional discussion with her about the experience and she proceeded to blame the waiter. The waiter was Aaron H, and he was very polite. I defended him in saying that she was in charge of the food and not him, then she started to give me a unprofessional attitude and said “I might as well eat the food that is brought to the table otherwise they are going to just throw it away in the trash!” I responded with “I am not going to eat that food because my kids are ready to leave and I am not going to pay for a meal that might’ve been sitting underneath the heat lamp for a possible 20 plus minutes” I hope that Corporate reads this because that manager needs to be replaced!!! I am attaching a picture of my receipt to prove this isn’t a...