Papa Joe's Italian Restaurant & Pizzeria — Restaurant in Cape Coral

Three and a half stars to be fair.... I don't like google's rating scheme when I find a place that's "in-between". Visiting my parents from Maryland and they took us here for dinner. I love the family feel where you eat really close to other people and there are pictures of old customers on the wall, etc. Very very nice atmosphere. Our waitress was super nice and pleasant. Now lets get down to the food.... My parents rave about this place, and I'm a giant Italian food fan, but I have to say I was disappointed. Absolutely nothing wrong with the PORTIONS, but the taste - or lack thereof was what had me scratching my head. This establishment has all the makings of an amazing casual Italian restaurant, but after the first bite, I was really bummed out. I ordered the seafood pasta plate w/ Angel Hair and it was as bland as bland could be... I pulled out all the pasta onto a separate dish and loaded it with Parmesan cheese just to get some kind of flavor. Again, the portions were fine, but how do you miss with white wine, garlic and parsley? Like... zero flavor. My wife said the same thing about her red pasta dish - zero flavor... very bland. My mom got the sausage plate and couldn't finish so I tried a bite of hers. I know it's not my taste buds or the flight... I was saddened yet again because the pasta/sauce was so mediocre and I LOVE Italian sausage, believe me, but i took one bite and didn't even finish it. One thing I was over the moon for was the garlic bread. Fresh out of the oven finally made my taste buds tingle w/ joy as I sopped up the "broth" from my meal. On a side note, I did hear that their pizza was amazing and I watched a family sitting next to me devour two of them, so maybe I just ordered the wrong thing. I try to be as honest as I can in my reviews, so based on my experience only, if I ever come back here, I'm going to try the pizza and write hopefully a higher review. ...

It takes a reallllly horrible experience for me to take the time to leave a business a negative review, but to say my service was horrible is an insult to horrible service everywhere. Once Seated with our drink order placed our server disappeared for at least 10 Minutes before coming to get our food order. About 30 minutes (and two empty glasses) later we see her come out of the kitchen. I give her a dirty look and she approaches the table and claims the kitchen is behind up, yet tables who sat after us had been served their meals already and we hadn't even received our appetizer yet (garlic bread) she leaves without noticing our empty cups. Another 10 minutes goes by and a different server drops off our appetizer. Still ignoring the empty glasses, it became a game to see just how long it would be before someone noticed. Yet another server brought out pizza order to us about 10 mins after the appetizer, still ignoring the empty glasses. Once we were each about a slice in, our drinks were finally refilled and we didn't see our server again until it we asked for the check and a box Again about 10 minutes go by before she returns with the items so we can get on our way. total meal time for some less than spectacular pizza and garlic bread: 90 minutes. This once local favorite will not get my business again, we recently dined at nearby Maria's pizzeria (similar local favorite) and had a MUCH better...

We tried to get in on Friday, March 3th. The hostess was unpleasant to say the least, we walked in, she said "name" I said we have no reservation, so she just repeated "name", so I understood that she will put us on the waiting list and I said my name. We were waiting and waiting, seeing people who came after us, being seated, so after 20 minutes my friend went in and asked about our status, the hostess said "you are still on the list". After 30 minutes we went in, hoping that we could at least get some drinks, but there was nobody who would be able to give us even a glass of water, so after 15 minutes we gave up, we went outside again, waiting on the street. After one hour it looked that there will be some table available, so we asked again and the server said no, they need that table for a reservation, so we asked how much longer it can take and why nobody told us it can take one hour or more! We are standing on Cape Coral Pkwy for one hour - hungry and without anything to drink... we just left. We were there before, the food was good, but the service was not. They just couldn't manage the amount of people, they need more help. They need more help for people sitting inside and definitely someone who would be able to take care of people just waiting to be seated, because it's Cape Coral Pkwy, it's 4 lanes traffic,...