Joe's Pizza & Pasta Italian Grill. — Restaurant in Fort Smith

Middle of the road Italian at top price is my biggest issue. We all know how cheap pasta is, so high quality ingredients are kind of expected to explain the cost. I ordered chicken tortellini miamodo. The chicken was colorless- the menu said sautéed, but the color, texture, and blandness really tasted like it was boiled. The dish is described as sauteed chicken over tortellini tossed in a wine sauce with tomato and broccoli- the latter i swapped out for mushrooms because broccoli tastes like it smells (sweat and methane.) I swear I didn't order soup- but it came in a bowl with a spoon and everything was literally floating in a flavorless wine sauce/chicken stock. I usually love tomatoes, and I know they are out of season and cooking them can remove some color, but they were barely blushing pink slicing tomatoes. Romas or on the vine tomatoes are much better options for cooking and still have color and flavor in the off season. If I'd known I was going to get faded beefsteak tomatoes floating in a taupe, cornstarched mystery liquid, I would've declined. Nothing special about the tortellini, not bad but not great; overcooked by about a minute. I haven't been anywhere that doesn't overcook pasta- with that said, my boyfriend's spaghetti noodles were the closest to al dente I've bitten into at any Italian place, so excellent job there. His dish was slightly more flavorful than mine. He got the chef's special sans artichoke (he's a hater, I guess) but had the same issue with his chicken- offputting texture and the only color came from the sauce. I tried dumping a hefty tablespoon of red pepper flakes into mine along with some powdered parmesan to give the dish some sort of flavor, but I couldn't save it. Red pepper flakes, how could you fail me like this? Once upon a time, I believed they could save any dish. I'll pretty much eat anything if it's spicy, but uh, not that, no thank you. I would've gladly washed the taste out of my mouth, but when I picked up my water cup, it was sticky, so I dunked my sticky fingers in it to clean them and cleansed my palate with the bread.

The bread was excellent, so good you don't need the oil for it, and the waitress was great, I was not going to insult her by returning my order since she said it was one of her favorites- to each their own.

Side note- the rare occasions i have returned food- maybe twice in my life?- that's a one way return, not an exchange- I do not want a replacement dish, lol.

I don't know why the other staff bothered asking how it was as we left; they brushed off what we said and closed as soon as we walked out- and before you think we're the type of special people who like to come in right before closing, we are not. We got there over an hour before their posted hours said they were closed and there were three other tables seated. We left about a half hour after we got there, we didn't linger. If people want to close early on a Tuesday, for real go for it, I have zero issue with that, but if it is a clean kitchen you don't want to dirty and that decision will affect the food quality, like- say something! It's totally fine, I would completely understand "hey, we kind of wrapped up the kitchen because it was a slow Tuesday, so things may be cooked a little differently," or "these dishes aren't available," or "this isn't usually soup so we discounted it since it was inedible," or even "sorry, we are closing early tonight," and then it's OK because we can make an informed decision on risking a bad but pricey meal or saying "thank you for letting us know" and going elsewhere like Taco Bell, where it's cheap and I expect to be disappointed, so it's not a big deal at all, like thank you for the information, I hope you have a goodnight. What is not OK is $45 dollars on something gross. Getting what you paid for is fair, and that...

My son ordered the Philly Cheesesteak Sub (plain). I told the waiter “He means meat and cheese only.” The waiter says “Oh..that has onions on it, is that okay?” My son said no, and I again said “meat and cheese only”.

We get our food and my sons has all the toppings on his sandwich. So we both waited for awhile until our server came back and said he had to ask his manager if they could remake it. Why would you need permission to remake a sandwich that was messed up due to either the server or chefs mistake? The manager allowed it.

We get the food back a second time and it was delivered by someone other than my server (manager or chef maybe). I saw meat and cheese sticking out so I figured it was fixed and he leaves. Long story short, it still has onions in it. I had to flag down a server (who was not mine) and tell him the issue. Then my server and the manager/chef come to our table to see what was wrong. I had to reiterate meat and cheese ONLY like 10 times.

That man proceeded to ask me if cooking it in butter is okay….I never once mentioned butter? So again said “He just wants meat, cheese, bread. That’s it.” At this point I’m visibly annoyed. My son has autism and will absolutely not touch certain foods- onions, mushrooms and peppers are on that list. So now I’m having to tell the staff, which embarrassed my son.

Mind you; the whole time my food has been sitting in front of me getting cold because I’m not going to eat in front of my child until he has food as well. So we got everything to go.

Now, I don’t work here so I’m not aware of how things come packaged/prepared so I’m assuming the onions, peppers and mushrooms are all separate things added to the steak. If not, the waiter should have said “There’s no way for us to separate that/it all is made together etc” that would have been fine and my son would have ordered pizza. Again, I’m not sure why it was such an ordeal to only get meat and cheese on some bread. It was just a weird &...

This had the be worse dining experience EVER!!!!! We took my mom here for an early Mother's Day celebration. Now the owners wife is really nice the son was nice until I told him the dining experience was because my party was BLACK. We came and was sitted outside (party of 10) that was safe since it was so many of us. We waited 30 minutes before anyone came and asked us for our drink order. This was the 1st NONO the I was asking about buying a couple bottles of wine and the waitress just went passed me when I asked for her recommendation. She then came back to me and asked what kind of soda did I want. ( so I'm thinking maybe they aren't selling wine but then beer was served) Next we ordered and it took an additional for our food to come out. The waitress forgot our salad and just said Oo I forgot. She also stated Yeah as well. She ten didn't ask if we needed any drink refills. She was terrible. I see her asking the other tables about their drinks as well making sure their salads came out. They order after we did came after we did and order came out 10 minutes after our food was a hour late. She couldn't remember who order what. I then told the owner son after we paid about our concerns. He stated they were busy at that time they were but not when we had come in... I never was nasty to the waitress. Opener when I voiced my opinion that we got this service because we were BLACK the son got upset and walked off... I WILL NEVER spend ANY MONEY...