P74: The Downtown Paninos — Restaurant in Colorado Springs

Definitely not my favorite location. I frequent the other two and this was my first experience with this location. It was disappointing. I got home to find that I was missing my salad, they charged me $3 for extra sauce on my Alfredo (the other locations have never charged me), and the chicken wasn't breaded like it is at the other locations. In fairness, I didn't look at the menu since I order from the other two locations often so it's possible that it might have stated that on the menu.

Edited 4/28/22 - I did connect with Bobby from this location and he was great. He apologized for the mishap with my salad and we discussed the differences between the locations. Turns out that while these are family owned, they are independently managed; though they are going to communicate for consistency. Sounds like they are currently in a time of transition; which caused some of the differences. Bobby graciously provided me a gift card that completely covered my meal so I will happily give them another shot and provide another update after doing so. I increased my rating by one star due to the customer service response and will re-evaluate after my next visit.

Updated 6/25/22 - So, my family and I dined in last night. It was almost 8pm so we didn't expect much of a wait. We were told it would be a while (at least 20 minutes) and almost left since the kids were starving, but decided to wait. Luckily, it ended up only being a five minute wait.

Our server wasn't terribly friendly or helpful, but another gal kept helping out and she was fabulous!

One of the girls ordered a sweet tea and it was awful and definitely not sweet. When we mentioned it, we were told they recently changed their tea. Might have mentioned that when we ordered? She also asked about big drinks for the kids versus kids cups. We asked for big drinks except for the four year old. She ended up bringing two of the five kid cups; one of them our preteen. Whatever, more work for her to refill.

We ordered their fabulous breadsticks; which is one of the reasons Paninos is my favorite Italian. I ordered with Ranch. She brought Ranch and marinara. Again, whatever. Until I got the bill and saw I was charged extra for both!

I specifically asked if the chicken for the 'add chicken for $3' option to fettuccine Alfredo was breaded. (That option was on the menu this time!) When advised it was not, I asked to have breaded chicken instead. My meal came out without breaded chicken; which I noticed right away. When I asked our server about it, she suggested I start on my meal and they would bring out the breaded chicken. They did and it didn't take long, but it was a huge piece and she stated I wouldn't be charged. I was; though probably not what they would have charged for what appeared to be a full chicken parmesan serving. This is definitely not the lightly breaded chicken that is served at the other locations.

My husband ordered the BBQ panini with no onions. You guessed it... It had onions. And this is not like a burger where you can simply take them off. The food had taken quite a while to come out and he was starving at this point so he didn't send it back like we normally would have.

All in all, it wasn't a terrible experience, but it certainly wasn't great either. I will stick to the other locations (hopefully there will be a new East location since they had to shut down!). While there are a few staff members here that are wonderful, overall, they really could learn a lot from the...

Left very very disappointed. My husband was craving lasagna so we decided to come to Paninos. We ordered a strawberry mojito, a house bloody Mary, cheese sticks, ministrone soup, lasagna, rueben and kids spaghetti.

Our waitress amber was wonderful every step of the way. We had lots of questions and she was happy to answer all of them. Our drinks came and my mojito was delicious, fresh mint garnish, my husband bloody Mary was good as well, came with a garnish of green olive and pepperchini, something that should be noted is that the bloody Mary is very very spicy! They also offer to add hot sauce to it!

Then came our appetizer of cheese sticks, which is really just a flat bread with mozzarella cheese on it, it was pretty good, not really worth $10

We got our soups next, they weren't horrible but the ministrone was pretty bland, and over powered with its tomato broth. Very flavorless broth and tasted like it was made from tomatoes out of a can.

So out came our entrees, my rueben was pretty good, the meat wasn't dry like most corned beef is, only thing I would change would be a little more thousand. It was a little soggy but I'm assuming that would be from the sourkraut. Over all good, and worth the cost.

My husband's lasagna on the other hand was awful. The lasagna itself was piping hot like it just came out of the microwave and was drowned in an extremely bland very sad marinara sauce and it was very wet. We tipped the dish to empty the amount of water at the bottom. The lasagna itself wasn't bad. Made with what seemed like quality ricotta cheese but was also bland. Just ricotta and noodles no spices no meat really. He took 3 bites and I took one just to try it. Would never ever ever eat that again.

The spaghetti my daughter ordered was horrible she wouldn't even touch it not one single bite. The noodles were over cooked and rinsed because the sauce wouldn't stick to it and the sauce tasted like food pantry canned tomatoes sauce also heated in the microwave.

The waitress came back and asked if we wanted a box for the food we didn't finish and we politely declined. She could tell we were extremely unhappy with most off the meal and gave us a small discount to try and make up for it. Which we truly appreciated. The check still came out to be way more than what any of it was actually worth. Wishing we just stayed home and made spaghetti. As we were walking out the door I told the lady at the door that our waitress was wonderful she thanked us then told us next time to ask for less sauce on the lasagna. But the amount of sauce wasn't the issue, the quality of...

I just had my first visit at this restaurant, and I’m sad to say I do not think I will be returning.

A woman that was not my server took my order. She was very condescending and made a rude comment about how complicated my order was. She also wasn’t writing anything down. I said, “Should I just wait for my server to come and take my order, since you say it’s too complicated?” She was like no I got it, and left. Then my server came and was like, “Did someone take your order?” I said yes but I told him my order again. Unfortunately, the same woman was the one who brought out my food. One of my “complicated requests” was for the spinach that comes in the panino to be on the side. She tossed the plate of spinach on the table in such a way that pieces bounced off the plate and onto the table, and as she did that she sarcastically said “one side of RAW spinach”. She was SO RUDE and CONDESCENDING. When my server came back to check on me I asked him if she was the manager. He said she was. I said, “Well that’s unfortunate.” His reply (without any explanation from me) was, “Yeah she gets very irritable very quickly.” So she clearly has a reputation here. I then told him that she made me incredibly uncomfortable and because of how poorly she treated me (and the fact that she’s the MANAGER) I wouldn’t be able to return here again, even though the food was good. He apologized but of course his manager being a hot-head isn’t his fault. I just don’t understand how someone like that can make it to management in a service industry and stay there? The food was tasty and my server and the host and the other female staff member that brought me water were all fantastic. But the manager was a nightmare, and I’m honestly a little scared to...