Louie & Johnnie's Ristorante Primavera — Restaurant in City of Yonkers

Up until about a month ago, this place would have gotten 5 stars because their food is very good. However, the last time I went there, someone added an extra tip on to my card after I had already signed and left. It took me weeks to finally get the manager John on the phone for more than a minute. When I finally did, he tried to feed me some story about my bank authorizing extra money in anticipation of my having left the tip on the card. Let's be clear... My bank NEVER does this... EVER. Let's be even clearer, I have used the same card here numerous times, and this has NEVER happened. When I explained this to the manager John, he became excitable. He defended his staff (as any good manager SHOULD do). However, he was very dismissive of my claim and even went as far as allowing himself to use profanity in his defense of the establishment. Having previously worked in the restaurant business for a decade I can appreciate a manager who defends his staff and restaurant. However, in his defense of the restaurant/staff he lost sight of one thing... I am the customer. I am a repeat customer. I come there often, and clearly this last experience rubbed me the wrong way. A good manager would have gone out of his way to fix the situation. Not John though... Instead, he doubled down and had the nerve to say, "It's up to you to call your bank and when your bank tells you they authorized your card for more money, you can come in and apologize to me." This is not how management is supposed to speak to ANYONE let alone repeat customers. A good manager would have offered to refund the extra $15 that was taken from me immediately via a gift card, or free entree.. even if he didn't agree with it... Why? Because a good manager would have known that a show of understanding, a show of good faith (which would have literally cost the restaurant pennies on the dollar) would ensure that I (or any customer) would return and continue to be return. Not John though. Instead he chose to berate me, raise his voice, use profanity, and then suggest that I would end up apologizing to him. CAN YOU IMAGINE?!?! My buddy and I would come here once a month for dinner (spending an average of $100 per visit). That's $1200 a year this restaurant will lose because of one managers inability to see past his ego. And while I will miss the Gnocchi Bolognese and the delicious Long Island Ice tea THEY make, I will happily order them at LaGrotta, or some other place where they actually know how to treat the customer, any customer with respect and dignity. Good Italian restaurant are a dime a dozen in NY. People/ restaurant managers like John should keep that in mind before they go out of their way to chase...

Today I had a wonderful lunch with friends at Louie & Johnnie's. If you are not familiar with them, let me tell you a little bit about their ristorante with "regional italian cuisine."

Louie & Johnnie's is located on Yonkers Ave right across from Yonkers raceway in Yonkers, NY. ( Yes I just said Yonkers three times in one sentence...lol) It's centrally located, between the Bronx, where I was coming from and a hop away from Westchester where my friends were.

Louie & Johnnie's offer indoor dine-in seating with waiter service, a dine-in self serve pizzeria cafe as well as outdoor dining. You can take out and have delivery too. There's parking in the back with a handicap access ramp leading directly into the restaurant. There's also a full bar as well which I almost forgot about because I don't drink but go ahead if that's what you enjoy! 🍷

Okay so now let's focus on the delicious lunch experience from today.

We didn't know that Louie & Johnnie's had a fabulous lunch special menu which includes a house salad, choice of entree with a side dish of pasta or potato croquette and a fountain soda. There must have been 25 dishes ( or more ) to choose from. The lunch specials are served Monday thru Saturday 11:30am-3:00pm. They range from $15.95-$21.95

We all chose from the special menu today. Let me say this...the food was spectacular and the service was amazing!

The bread was warm and comforting. We all enjoyed a house salad which included lettuce, cabbage, cucumbers, olives, tomatoes with their house dressing which was very flavorful.

For our main course choices we had the fillet of sole francese, the eggplant parmigiana and the rigatoni filetto di pomodoro all pictured below. I personally ordered the sole and it was so light and flaky. I tasted the rigatoni and it was outstanding. I didnt taste the eggplant but my friend was raving about it. She said "it was so delicious!"

We finished up with espressos cappuccinos, a cannoli and a warm apple tart with vanilla gelato and whipped cream. I put a dollop of the whip cream on top of my cappuccino...mmmmm. I'll tell you this, who needs to go downtown to Little Italy when you enjoy an exquisite lunch at Louie & Johnnie's.

I have been here many times before and can't wait to go again. I can not say enough wonderful things about this place. You MUST go there. I KNOW you'll enjoy it as much as I always...

Will never forget this birthday/son’s baptism celebration as my family and I were disparaged by owner and treated so badly because of their ridiculous arrangement. Upon us sitting down, my niece and sister heard him say “We were going to be a problem!” Apparently all because my party of 13 also wanted to order pizza in addition to entrees. This man was so rude as you will see in video that he had explained to my sister that we couldn’t order pizza if we sat on the left side of restaurant?? I still don’t understand. I said to him, “Your loss!” & he said, “No my gain!” I said, “No, you just lost money!” We just came in from church to celebrate and the absolute audacity of the owner to treat us with disrespect and contempt because of their ridiculous policy was undeserved. If you are not Italian do not waste your money here. We were not welcome. And the owner made sure that we knew it. My Puerto Rican & Sicilian family did not have a sign that said we were also of italiano descent. My family is of all shades and that might of triggered the uncalled racism we experienced. The disgusting behavior of this big older man is beyond shameful. We had my mother in law in a wheelchair and 2 small boys, who endured this man screaming at us that we should have known we couldn’t order pizza because he explained it 3 times!!!! How unbelievable that you have a restaurant and you can’t order a dish because you sat on the wrong side??? Is it 1960??? Was this a segregated restaurant??? Did we just enter Woolworth’s??? I’m so confused, disappointed, disheartened...