Provino's Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Kennesaw

I have gone every year to Provino’s for at least one family member’s birthday since before 2006. Yesterday was the third or fourth time at this location.

I always get the same thing, but this year the quality and amount was notably diminished. The garlic on the rolls was a green color (and different from previous occasions), which was openly discussed by several in our party in the immediate presence of the waitstaff (as well as our being apprehensive about eating it).

The portions of our meals were smaller than on previous occasions. I got the chicken and broccoli fettuccine and multiple people commented that it looked smaller than usual. For over $18, I got 4 pieces of broccoli, 5 bite-sized pieces of chicken, and a reduced portion of pasta. That’s not including ~$4 for a soft drink I never got a refill on.

Normally, I take half my meal home to have as another meal later and am still stuffed. This time, I followed my normal routine and asked for a to-go box before eating because I portion my meal out ahead of time (which ended up arriving after everyone else was halfway through their meal). By the time I finished eating what I hadn’t boxed up, I was still hungry and ended up eating the rest as soon as I got home, with room to spare.

The only other nuisance was a fly that wouldn’t leave the table alone.

The waitstaff were generally friendly, which was a positive.

All in all, it’s not worth it even when a person in the party is getting their meal at a reduced price. If a place has to skimp on veg and pasta, to say nothing of the chicken or green garlic, even with such drastic profit margins on these pasta dishes… I don’t know what to say.

Maybe it’s a one off thing. Maybe it’s this location. It’s too expensive for what you get to test it out.

If it wouldn’t have disrupted the evening and celebration further, more explicit attempts at redress would have occurred beyond openly discussing it with waitstaff at the table. That is to say, in fairness, that a formal complaint was not filed with the manager because we weren’t taking any more time out of our night to focus on it beyond the explicit remarks made in the presence of waitstaff. As such, the manager was not given the opportunity to make attempts to rectify such, even if the staff were and such items passed the standards of multiple staff.

We’ve decided that we will be discontinuing our tradition as, in our opinion, it is no longer a good...

Stopped in for dinner while on business travel and this place did not disappoint. Upon walking in, I overheard one of the entry staff tell another customer waiting to be seated what I thought was there was an hour wait (but she may have been referring to their party's reservation wasn't for another hour). I was greeted immediately thereafter and said if there's a bar, I'm happy to sit there since I'm a party of 1. I was immediately sat at a small bar that is in the same area as the entry lobby, away from the dining room, so I can't speak the the ambience therein. I can say that the bar where I was the only patron was nicely appointed and relatively quiet, even though it is in the foyer space. The bartender was excellent, all but immediately greeting me and getting my initial drink order. Upon checking back with me shortly, I was poured a glass of wine again immediately after I placed that order.

For food, I went pedestrian but also a staple by which to judge an Italian restaurant upon first visit - Chick Parm. The meal came with garlic rolls and a salad, which was enough for a meal in itself! The salad was very traditional Italian (not a bunch of lettuce, but instead had onions, beats, Garbanzo beans, etc. with an appropriate amount of lettuce to support it all. The garlic rolls that other reviews rave about indeed deserve the raving. Large chunks of garlic on top in an oil/butter base, and 5 rolls came in a bowl that had a garlic butter and oil lake in the bottom to dip the rolls while eating them. Light and airy but lots of flavor, I ate all 5 of them. The chicken parm came with pasta with meat marinara sauce on top(!) - a nice surprise. Both the pasta and parm were excellent, piping hot and very flavorful. Portions of each were enough that I thought I'd end up with a to-go box but the meal was so good, I ate it all and had no need for one.

The bartender checked back on me regularly while also respecting my space so as not to be too frequent. Overall, the service, food and experience here is top notch, well deserving of 5 stars. The next time I'm staying in the Cobb Mall area, I will definitely be back here and will refer it to my colleagues who also come here on business. Well...

Highly disappointed with the service of this restaurant! First of all, the server we had was unprofessional in every way. To start off, she did not look like someone that should be working in a nice restaurant, such as this one seems to be called. She had a bunch of piercings : on her nose, ears and 2 on her lips. This is something my family felt a little strange about everytime she came to speak with us. When we ordered drinks, my family of 4 each asked for our own. When it came to mine, I asked for unsweet tea and lemonade ( half and half ) mixed and she came back with 5 drinks… with the tea and lemonade in whole separate cups, about to charge us for 5 drinks..which should be common sense that we are 4 people, on top of the fact that I explained it being “ half half mixed”. Another thing, my daughters don’t eat alot, so they were going to share a plate. When we mentioned the word “ share” , she said there was going to be an additional charge of $8.50 for sharing, because of the family salad and garlic rolls ( which was served the same amount as any other party, and my girls did not even eat the salad ). The additional charge for sharing doesn’t make sense to me when it is shared salad and rolls for the whole table with refills of them available, as it would be to any other # group. Then when we ordered our meals, she brought us the Fettuccine Provino with just plain pasta and alfredo sauce, but never mentioned to us that chicken or any meat would have to be asked for an additional charge… So we had to then ask for that addition, and meanwhile our pasta got cold. When the chicken got to our table, it was plain, white, canned-looking chicken with zero seasoning, with the smell of boiled chicken water. I ended up not eating because I could not get myself to eat that food. And to not cause a problem, we paid the bill charged.. This restaurant may have good service, but on this day, we had everything go wrong. Also, with it being our first time at Provino’s, this was our...