Johnny's Restaurant — Restaurant in Homewood

I had a work lunch meeting today and contacted the restaurant for two days to place my to-go-order since I would be ordering for eleven (11) individuals on one ticket to no avail. I called before they opened and right at 11:00 AM two days straight to place my order. I was not successful. Maybe that was a sign not to select Johnny’s. I got to the restaurant at 11:10 AM, and they had several guests already seated, and it was only two individuals in front of me to place their orders. However, the person at the register was accommodating and proceeded to take my order (I came prepared with a typed list of what each person wanted to move through the line quickly). Unfortunately, because the owner and Chef Timothy Hontzas were so rude, I will not state her name because I feel he would reprimand her for providing good customer service. While she was taking my order (she had only taken three of my eleven orders), he came from the kitchen and started screaming the following, “I need this register.” Of course, people are looking at this point, and the employee looked scared and embarrassed. The restaurant has two registers, and another employee was assisting customers while this young lady was taking my order. The young lady continued to take my order and remained professional. Once she took my order, I asked to speak with Mr. Hontzas because of his rudeness, and I wanted clarification on his comments. I was insulted because of the following reasons: I am a paying customer (spent $161.00) The cashier provided good customer service, and the other cashier took orders as well. She was doing her job! The cashier was not slow; she was keying in the order based on the order list I provided and was moving fast (It took her less than 10 minutes to key and verify my order) Since we are both women of color, what gives you the right to be insulting. Would you have done that two white females? Timothy Hontzas would not come out after the cashier advised him that I wanted to speak with him. I could see him in the open kitchen, and he would never give me eye contact. After she and I got my order, I asked to speak with him again. He came out, and I could sense he was upset because I requested to talk with him. I explained that I had tried to contact the restaurant for two days to no avail; I felt his comments to the cashier were rude to her and me as a paying customer. Timothy stated he did not care! He said it was rude of me not to call in my order. And the next time, he will charge me for those additional bags. I will never go back and will share this with all...

I am not the kind of person that enjoys giving bad reviews.In fact, I like to give great reviews and rave about places so I can share my experiences with others. But sometimes things happen. May have been a bad day, doesn’t necessarily mean the restaurant is bad.

Today was my first time to eat at Johnny’s in Homewood. I was really in the mood for a meat and three. The menu looked amazing and offered so many great southern sides, I chose 4!

Presentation was awesome and the portions are sizable. I ordered my food to go and arrived promptly. In fact, my food wasn’t even ready when I arrived. But I didn’t wait long at all.

The Greek chicken was delicious and seasoned well. Corn muffins, hot and tasty with chunks of corn kernels, really good. The butter peas: well seasoned and tasted fresh. Fried green tomatoes were heavily battered, but crispy. They were ok.

I took a bite into sweet potato casserole or soufflé? And it was disappointing. It had chunks of stringy roots often found in yams. They were semi sweet and had no topping, Not the best sweet potatoes I am used to having. Not awful, just not great.

The sinker here was the very thing I looked forward to most: banana pudding. To my surprise, I opened the lid and saw what looked like a traditional cookie crumble topping. The pudding under that cookie crumble was GOLD and so thick that it held my spoon upright. I hesitated to even take a bite, but I thought well it might have been baked?? Nope. This isn’t banana pudding. Not even close!

It tasted like someone forgot to put enough milk in the “instant pudding mix” and not one round slice of banana.

Banana Pudding should be thick, but smooth, light, and chock full banana slices, Finished with creamy topping or heavy cream, beaten to stiff peaks, Then topped with crunchy Vanilla wafer crumbles. Not a golden custard like a baked egg custard. Y’all need to fix this ASAP! Bad banana pudding will break you. Southerners take our banana pudding seriously.

Maybe I just went on a bad day. I will give them another try at some point bc the people were so nice.

We are all human, things happen in the kitchen, even cooking at home, we don’t always get it right. I suppose it just hurts your feelings a little more when you pay over $23 for lunch that was...

We had a very nice lunch at Johnny's today while in town to see the immersive Van Gogh exhibit.

Johnny's is what I've heard referred to as a "Greek and three," which is a classic southern meat and three with some Greek inspired twists on the menu, often opened by Greek immigrants in the south (esp. Birmingham area, I've noticed - we don't have such institutions north in Huntsville).

Despite being a busy post-church Sunday afternoon, the line moved quickly and we were able to place our order within 5-10 minutes of arriving, even though probably 5-7 families were ahead of us.

Our order was brought out to us very quickly as well; the kitchen must operate like a machine at peak hours. Impressive! The folks working in the restaurant were very nice. The friendly busboys let us change tables on the dime when we saw they were cleaning one off that better suited our fancy, and the ladies who brought us our food took special care to ensure we had everything we needed (tartar sauce, to go boxes, etc).

We ordered the following: baked Greek chicken with mac and cheese and mashed potatoes and gravy; fried catfish (same sides as previous order); hamburger steak with fried green tomatoes; field peas and collard greens; and a tagalong cookie peanut butter torte for the four of us to share as dessert. We all ordered yeast rolls with our plates. I had sweet tea, and soft drinks are also available.

Overwhelmingly, everything was good! I don't think a single item was worse than "good," which is impressive considering all we ordered! I tried a little bit of everything and I think the best things were probably the fried green tomatoes and the yeast rolls. The baked chicken was also very good. Low point was probably the mac and cheese -- which again, was still good!

We would definitely return to this restaurant. Perhaps we'll find our way back the next time...