Jimmy's Italian Kitchen — Restaurant in Kettering

I'm not sure how this restaurant is getting such good reviews. My wife and I came here for lunch after reading the reviews from Google/Yelp and were VERY DISAPPOINTED! I'll break it down for you.

ATMOSPHERE: Thought it was a Mexican restaurant because of the style. Nothing was clean. The plastic on the seats were ripping, the floor was bulging up (ever see a sidewalk being pushed up by a tree root? Yeah. . .), the air was on so high that my napkin kept flying away, music was hip-hop instead of something to create a better Italian setting, kitchen staff talk could be heard, wall and table containers (salt, pepper, parmesan) were sticky. 0/5 Stars.

WAITER/TRESS: Came by our table four times. 1) Take our order. 2) Deliver appetizers. 3) Deliver main course. 4) Check, please. --Not once did we get refills or a pass by to make sure our food was good. Oh, let's talk about that! Food. 0/5 Stars

FOOD: Gag. I don't have extremely high standards, but this was the WORST Italian kitchen experience I've ever set foot in. --APPETIZERS: My wife and I received a soup (chicken vegetable, I think). Her soup was water with celery and one carrot. My soup was chicken and potato, with water. I had to load my soup with pepper and salt just to get some taste, it was that bland. But I was still hopeful that the main course would be better. . . yikes! --MAIN DISH: My wife ordered stuffed shells, a fond memory of my childhood, and I ordered cheese ravioli, yum. Well, "yum" was only a distant dream because it was not. We had more cheese and marinara sauce than actual food on our dish. I received three (3) ravioli, and she received two (2) shells. Should have spent $4 more and went to Olive Garden--even though they're not "authentic" Italian--and gotten more food and better taste. My dish had a burnt taste to it. I ended up scraping all my sauce and cheese off just to get to my three ravioli. Both my stuffing and hers were dry and just, well, gross. --ROLLS: They looked so good in the pictures and people who reviewed said they were delicious. Ours were stale, dry, the butter was oil, and the garlic was--ahem--nonexistent.

For the first time--ever I think--my wife finished before me. I was forcing myself to finish as we don't have much money to spend and I felt terrible wasting it (and too mad to complain).

OVERALL EXPERIENCE: We'll never set foot in there again. My wife actually sent a mass text out to all her friends and family to stay away from this restaurant. A few even said they agreed due to a previous visit. So this is my review. It's only my opinion, but our experience was so bad that we had to post these...

Pulling up you know there will be no atmosphere, I mean it is in old Taco Bell, but I love a good dive with great food, so who cares about venue. However, the setting was the least of it's problems. Our server clearly just wanted to turn and burn us out of there as she asked to take our order about every 45 seconds, even though we told her that we'd never been there before and needed to review the menu. The 8th time she asked in a 10 minute span I just laughed and said just choose whatever. The salads came first: iceberg lettuce with a quarter size slice of tomato and one black olive sliced in 8th, the house dress was just oil, no flavor. None of us ate very much of our plate of lettuce. We ordered 4 very separate items to get a feel for the place, Fettuccine Alfredo, Chicken Parm, Chicken Marsala and the Gnocchi. We spent the rest of the evening trying to figure our which of the dishes tasted worst. We all ate one Gnocchi a piece and the rest went untouched, just awful, tasted like paste. So, I suppose the Gnocchi was the winner for the most awful. The Marsala tasted like they boiled the chicken, mushrooms, and linguine in one pot, added no spices or flavoring and threw it on a plate. The Marinara sauce tasted more flavorless than Ragu from a can and was a watered down version of that even. I don't know how they managed to take cream and cheese and remove all flavor from it, but they managed, as the Alfredo tasted like nothing, literally nothing. No flavor outside of plain pasta with nothing on it. The chicken parm was the most edible of the dishes, but the breading was soggy and again not much flavor to be found. The bread was beyond boring, no flavor there either. When they served the meals they asked if we wanted parm cheese, upon request they dropped of a dated glass dispenser of powdered parm they stole from a 1987 Chuck E. Cheese restaurant. The waitress seemed a little surprised when we said we didn't want boxes for our barely touched food, but never inquired further as to our clear dislike of our meals. For this experience I am out $100. I would have complained but I don't think that we got a bad "batch" I just think they don't know how to cook. So, how would they have "fixed" it. Should have stayed home and eaten a can of Campbell's soup, at least that would have had some flavor to it. Their cook should be charged with high crimes...

This should be a 3 1/2 star review. We had dinner there last night; there was a wait, which was fine. The estimate on wait time was spot on, which I appreciated. It took some time to get drinks and to get our order in, but I understood they were busy. The house salad and house dressing were good - a bit plain (one slice of tomato; some black olives), but fresh and tasty. The "warm rolls" with your entree come out with the actual dish, which seems odd to me. Many Italian restaurants serve a basket of bread before the meal. Odd, but not terrible. The rolls weren't very good; they seemed dry, maybe old? If they're made in-house, I am surprised. The highlight was the baked manicotti, which was delicious. I finished it. But the server was definitely not a highlight. He was polite, but didn't seem engaged. He put a "go box" on our table even though a. I had finished everything on my plate, and b. my husband was clearly still eating (and also finished everything). We sat there for a while after having finished our meal. No refills on our water glasses. No question about whether we would like another beer. No question about whether we would like dessert. Eventually, the young man placed the check down in front of us. At this point, there were empty tables, so if you think that perhaps it was just to keep the tables moving, that couldn't be it. My husband asked him about desserts, and we actually ordered two. I really didn't want to, but my husband loves tiramisu. I had cannoli. No question about whether we would like coffee with dessert. Again, this is all really strange for an Italian restaurant. The cannoli was ok, but not great. I think the owner was there; he went to two tables and seemed to ask how things were. Other reviews point out the good food and poor service. I concur with these reviews this. I really enjoyed the baked manicotti, but think the owner needs to address service-issues, which are probably related to understaffing or poor training? The woman who took names and seated us was pleasant and I appreciated that she was honest with the time estimate on the wait. However, I would have appreciated better service...