Tony's Italian Kitchen — Restaurant in Greenville

4 of 5 stars for Tony's Italian Kitchen. This was out first and last time here since we are traveling across the country.

DAY/TIME: We visited on a Sunday at 2pm. The church crowd was gone and the place was pretty empty. Please check out the pics and click the HELPFUL button if this is beneficial.

OUTSIDE: Simple. Old. Fading. Converted from something else. Mix of gravel and blacktop parking. It's in need of a face-lift. The curb appeal and luster of glory days are gone.

INSIDE: Clean, organized, Italian themed, quaint and simple. Italian background music will help create ambiance. The storage room to the left (entry) should have a door to hide the clutter, or use the room for something beneficial...Iike a small gift shop for your House Dressing and special marinara sauce.

RESTROOMS: One each containing toilet and sink. Clean. Men's room was backed up. Probably should expand the size to accommodate 2 people in each.

SERVICE: No name mentioned, no small talk. Just down to business. No issues with service. She was kind.

BREAD: I liked the bread/rolls! Wife did not. She gave them 2 of 5 stars because they were basic rolls sprinkled with parmesian cheese, but not Italian bread/rolls. She has a good point. Although it wasnt italian bread, they were fluffy, warm and the butter suited my taste.

PRESENTATION: The food looked great in the pots they brought out. Nice coloring! Very hot!

MANICOTTI: Good, creamy cheese! Sauce mixed in well. Perhaps a little too soft on the shells which brought it down to a 3.5 out of 5 stars.

FETTUCCINE ALFREDO: Hot! Noodles were perfect! Sauce was bland and needed more cheese and garlic. Appeared to be cream/milk-based. 3.5 of 5 stars.

CHEESE RAVIOLI: Hot! Shells were a little hard but understood that they were baked. Cheese and sauce was bland. Just not flavorful. No special reason to ever order it again. 3.5 of 5 stars.

SAMPLER PLATTER: Hot! Shells were fine. Sauce was good. The only issue with this plate was that it was all cooked in one dish, and I didn't know which was which. It all ran together for me - Lasagne, manicotti and catalonia.. I wish it was separated better. I give it a 3 of 5 just because it really had no pizzazz. It all taste very similar. It was good, but not great. It just didn't have the flavor to make me want to try it again.

DRINKS: $2.95 each. Waitress was on top of it. The cost should be $1.99 or (at the most) $2.49.

CLOSING COMMENTS: Alright, so overall comments are that Tony's is headed to the resturant graveyard. It may have been a power-resturant in times past, but it's a dying dinosaur in need of a total makeover. From the parking lot, to the sinage, to the interior appeal, to the international of servers, to the Italian theme ambiance, to the restrooms, and to (especially) the taste and flavor of the food - an undercover boss is needed.

People that don't like chains (Olive Garden, Carraba, etc.) may like the small-style appeal. I didn't get the feeling that the two employees enjoyed their job, but rather a means to an end.

Lots of potential!

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Thanks, Brian Hargis Google...

My wife and I don’t get date nights very often. We pass by Tony’s every time we go through Greenville. So we decided to give it a try. Being of Sicilian descent, I love finding those hidden gems when it comes to good food. We go in and was instantly greeted by the waitress. We sat down and ordered some drinks as we perused the menu. As we were looking through the menu my wife asked the waitress what her favorites were. She told us, but a good veal Marsala caught my eye. My wife ordered the chicken mimozo(?). We also ordered a salad as a starter. The salad, great. The bread wasn’t bad, nothing special, but not horrible. Our food gets to the table. It was very strange to me. The veal Marsala or Scaloppine al Marsala as I know it had so many issues. The first thing I noticed was the Marsala sauce. It was very soupy. It was so thin that zero of it would stick to the pasta. The flavor was ok, but not a Marsala sauce. Then it was the “veal”. Never in my life have I seen veal Marsala have the veal cut in strips. Strips? It should have been cutlets. Usually about a quarter inch thick. But being in strips made them so tough and chewy. Even sitting in that “Marsala” soup didn’t help. I tried but couldn’t bring myself to finish it. Now to my wife’s meal the chicken mimozo. If this was supposed to be chicken mimosa, then is was a little different. The description said “pink” sauce, not really a pink sauce. More of an orange colored sauce, and like the Marsala sauce waaaayy thin. Not sure of the chef was trying to make it stretch by adding water. If that’s the case, should have used pasta water. The starch would have thickened it up some. Before the main course we were deciding if this would be a good place to bring our very picky seven year old. We agreed yes, but after the main course, changed it to probably not. We took the leftovers home. But what we paid and what we got, did not align. We will most likely not be back. But make your own judgement. My experience might not be...

Lovely little hole in the wall Italian restaurant, we did almost miss it driving to it. At first, we weren't sure if the restaurant was open or not; the only indicator was the open sign. We went for an early dinner around 4 pm, the restaurant wasn't busy. The atmosphere was quiet and quaint, the music wasn't too loud like you find in some restaurants.

Our waitress was wonderful, very friendly and attentive. She covered the whole restaurant as more people came in.

We started off with complementary bread and ordered oil to go with it. The oil had a robust flavor full of herbs and garlic. If you do not like garlic, then this would not be for you since there was a generous amount of garlic in the oil. We proceeded to order spaghetti with meat sauce, manicotti, and the pasta sampler. The pasta sampler included lasagna, manicotti, and cannelloni. The portions were more than enough, and the flavors were rich but not overpowering.

We did order a baklava to go, which had the perfect flake to it. It was sweet but not too sweet and had the perfect drizzle on top. Perfect way to...