Gendusa's Italian Eatery — Restaurant in Kenner

I have to say that our service from our waitress was not up to par. It was very difficult to get her attention when our glasses were empty and needed refills on our drinks. She was zipping so fast from one table to another that we simply couldn't get her attention to meet our needs. Then she'd disappear for the longest time, as we later learned that she had to cover tables in the front of the restaurant as well as the back. It was nearly impossible for her to serve the patrons when we couldn't even find her to make eye contact, nor wave her down.

Granted, it was Mother's Day to which we also learned that the staff was spread thin to allow other staff members off for the occasion. While that is a commendable thing to do for your staff, adequate service lacked.

When you're sitting there with food sitting in your chest and nothing to wash it down with, it becomes a real issue, as it's simply not acceptable by any means. The glass on the table, should always be replenished.

If it weren't for the young man, Cameron, who was addressing our needs promptly, it could have turned into a tragic experience. Luckily, he was there to help. We were so impressed by him, his well manners, his attention, his personality and his willingness to go above and beyond what he needed to do, in order to give us the service that we lacked with our waitress. If I could give him 10 stars, I would and deserves a promotion. He was just all around, AWESOME! I don't mean to come down hard on the server who was our waitress, because truthfully, if she was assigned to cover both the front and back of the restaurant, is not completely her fault. Servers should be assigned to serve certain areas where they can fully keep an eye out on the patrons they're serving. We, shouldn't have to grab other staff members and ask to fill our empty glasses, or get that salad corrected, or request that extra sauce or whatever..... Especially on a day like Mother's Day.

My advice to management, is if you're not capable of covering the appropriate tables to keep the glasses on the tables full at all times, then PLEASE place a pitcher of water on each table to avoid urgent needs, such as a patron choking on food that they simply can't wash down with an empty glass sitting in front of them. Try eating a muffaletta or a meatball poboy without a drink. It's painful to say the least. I had to pass my (more than half empty glass) of water onto my husband, as we could not locate our waitress to refill his glass in a timely fashion.

If you must break your staff up in such a way, then, have an assigned person to watch over the entire room that'll cover water duty, at the very least. Then have another person to go from table to table to address any other needs. Either that, or simply have each server assigned to a certain room/ area to maintain their own tables. No one should have to flag down other servers to wait on them. It's not fair to them, to provide service to someone else's table, when they don't get the benefits of the tip involved at the end. In my opinion, Cameron should have gotten 90% of the gratuity, rather than our waitress, because he was the one doing all the work.

Oh, and one more suggestion. Give Cameron a raise and praise for a...

Very mixed experience.

We started off with the appetizer sampler and stuffed artichoke. The sampler was pretty good, although the portion of calamari was small, very small pieces and didn't have any leg pieces. The muffuletta bread with olive salad and eggplant sticks were good! The artichoke had a comical amount of breading and for some reason, had almost no leaves! I've eaten stuffed artichoke all over the city, and my family makes them for holidays. It was really bizarre, they basically packed an absurd amount of breadcrumbs around a very small bit of artichoke (heart was in tact but almost all leaves were missing?), as opposed to putting a little stuffing under each artichoke leaf. It did have a good flavor and the artichoke was cooked perfectly, which is the hard part. If it was assembled correctly, it would have been amazing.

For our entree, we got the eggplant lasagna, and a side meatball. The eggplant lasagna was very good, except the dish was basically all cheese with the smallest bit of eggplant. There was maybe 4 bites of eggplant in the entire dish, and about a pound of cheese. Eggplant is way cheaper than cheese, so it seems odd that they would go overboard with the most expensive ingredient in the dish, but it was basically a plate of cheese and red gravy. The side house salad wasn't seasoned, it had no salt, but once we added salt at the table, it was a little better. Again, heavy on the expensive toppings but barely any lettuce. Also could have used some more vinegar. The meatball was gigantic and pretty good, would order it again. The red gravy was a bit too much on the sweet side for my taste, but it wasn't bad, and I know some people like it like that, so won't give them marks off for it.

For dessert, we got the tiramisu, and it was one of the best I've ever had, including in Italy.

Overall, I'd give them another try. Hoping that I just went on an off day. I would have voiced this to the waitress, but despite being polite, she never asked how our meal was. She was very attentive otherwise, kept our drinks full all meal and got our food...

After Chas and Val had been to Gendusa's quite a few times, they told me it was imperative I tried it out. Typically that means I'm in for a treat. Gendusa's is a classic Italian spot in Kenner serving large, and I mean large, portions. I ordered a meatball upon Chas' suggestion (yes you only need one) and I also ordered one of the specials of the night which was the "Daube".

Started out with an old fashioned as I typically do anywhere with a decent quality bar. Solid drink, not the best in the area but solid. With my entrée came a house salad and that was delicious. It was more like a mini antipasto than a house salad and I enjoyed that a lot. From there we got into this giant meatball. This wasn't something that people order simply because it's large. The flavor of the meatball itself was quite good. I do personally believe the sauce could have been seasoned up a bit more, but that's a personal preference.

The Daube was a slow cooked and shredded beef dish over pasta. The sauce to the daube was interesting, like a mix of the red sauce from the meatball with a red wine reduction of some sort. I could have just been tasting the wine that the daube was stewed in, but it was definitely a different taste than the other red sauce. Another huge portion, and the dish had good flavor.

Nothing here blew me away as far as flavor goes, but I was also not expecting Italian food in New Orleans to be this good (I'm from an Italian family and from Brooklyn) so it was a nice surprise. Gendusa's in Kenner, LA - Didn't Suck!

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