Franky's — Restaurant in Chico

We usually sit at the bar and enjoy the happy hour spaghetti special with meat sauce and the special wine of the day. Franky's meat sauce is great! Adding a meatball is a great value and makes a good sized meal. Comes with a little slice of garlic bread and a salad. They overdo it a bit on dressing, so ask for it on the side. The bar tenders and wait staff are friendly, helpful and competent enough. It makes for a nice, cheap early date. The atmosphere is okay, nothing to write home about. All in all, happy hour is a nice, early date at a good value.

When we want to splurge we get the lasagna with meat sauce. This is the best lasagna I've ever had, even better than my mom's, no joke! (Sorry mom.)

Other consideration: Happy hour ends too early for me, at 6pm, or else I'd go more often.

A ball game is usually on the two tv's over the bar, if that's your bag.

After dinner hour, the place often gets frequented by partying college students, not my bag.

Pizza is good enough and sold by the slice at a good value at the outdoor window. And it's open very late!, which is great info because late night food is scarce in this town. If I was a hungry college student in the hood, I'd be at that window several times a week! (Edit Note: I'm told that the window is no longer open late. I assume this is a Covid thing and will go back to regular schedule eventually, but I...

We did take out so I can't rate the service or atmosphere. Moved here from out of state and wanted to try local Italian. After eating their meatball sandwich and "special" Caesar salad we've learned where not to eat or go for Italian. The only good thing I can say is their sauce on the meatballs was good. The meatballs had so much bread filler that there was little meat taste. I'm assume this is probably a cost cutting measure, but the only problem is we'll never go back. The special Caesar salad, for which we paid extra, consisted of wilted old tasting lettuce, unseasoned croutons and a little Parmesan cheese on top. The Caesar dressing was good but didn't cover the old lettuce taste. I wanted to call them and ask about the old lettuce and etc but didn't want to ruin someone's day. Instead we'll just never go back or recommend to friends. If I want a cheaper and better tasting meatball sandwich, then I'll go to subway sandwiches. Sorry guys, maybe I'm spoiled by Spezia's Italian Restaurant in Omaha or Tavernetta's in Denver. But this is unacceptable for someone wanting real Italian and paying $27 for a half sized meatball sandwich and wilted unseasoned "special"...

We had been wanting to try Frankys since they started the radio ads rebranding themselves as fine Italian food. When we got there, service was great. Our waitstaff was attentive and fast. I ordered the Chicken Marsala, a favorite dish of mine. However, what came out of the kitchen was some weird tomato chicken stir fry that was nothing like chicken Marsala. I have made it better. Just a 2 second google searched recipe would be 10x better than what was on my plate. Chicken Marsala is a cream sauce, not a red sauce. It did not smell or even look appetizing. The chicken tasted raw, or old, not prepared right. I ended up discreetly spitting it out. Definitely not worth $20, I wish I had stayed home and cooked. We can only afford to do a date night once a month and this just ruined it for me. When I brought the leftovers home, we even asked a roommate to guess where we had gone, or what I had ordered based on what I brought home. He thought we had gone to Chinese food. Thankfully my partner's dish was easy enough for them not to screw up, fettuccini Alfredo. Franky's should stick to pizzas, this was not Italian cuisine. It is not all that they...