Johnny Carino's — Restaurant in Laredo

Overall, the experience with the food and service merits 2 1/2 - 3 stars, but the lack of social distancing created an unsafe environment for dining and brought down this review to 1 star. I will be staying away for a while.

Detailed review

Usually, this place gets 4 stars from me, but recently we went for lunch and were disappointed. Several things made my most recent visit give it a 1 star rating.

We went on a Tuesday for their 2 for 1 lunch special. There were 4 tables seated when we arrived (excluding bar area), the place was essentially empty.

Host - tried sitting us in a booth that didn't follow social distancing protocols. Occupied tables need to be 6-10 feet apart of each other. This needs to be done since people are removing their mask to eat and can unknowingly spread Covid further. These booths were occupied back-to-back. We asked to be moved to a safer table and were able too since it was essentially empty.

Waitress - her personality and attitude were great, but she would take a long time to check on us and to deliver our food. Weird since it is slow and pretty much empty.

Food - I ordered a pronto pasta with a potato soup. The soup was luke warm, stale, and very watery. Pretty disappointing since this soup is usually creamy and delicious. Pronto pasta was a Chicken Scaloppini. Pasta itself was average, but the chicken was cooked perfect. Overall, the plate was ok...but not it's usually great flavor.

Host continued to sit people in back-to-back booths even though the restaurant was essentially empty. This is discomfiting considering that we are currently experiencing high numbers of Corona cases. We try to support local businesses during these difficult times, but won't go back at the moment because I don't feel that proper precautions are being taken to help curb the...

The first thought when you see dirty, stained tables is that diarrhea will start tonight or tomorrow morning. BTW, I was behind the table 45 mins, and on the next table all this time there was dirty and leftovers from the previous visitor.

My phone cannot read the scan code, so I asked for a menu. This caused some difficulties, but in the end they brought me a dirty greasy menu. On the other hand, not everyone has good eyesight, and not everyone can read the menu in small letters on the phone. And you have to find a solution for such people.

In the menu i found only 16 types of beer. Despite the fact that the sign in the bar claimed there were about 50 types of beer.

I asked the waitress for TWO beers, MEDIUM glass. One beer was Blue Moon. And other beer - light, not filtered, not bitter, at the discretion of the bartender (since I did not know what types of beer they have). After 30 minutes (from the moment of landing at the table) I received the Blue Moon. SMALL glass size. A couple of minutes later the bartender came up to me to clarify what kind of beer I want. I repeated - light, unfiltered, not bitter, at his discretion. A couple of minutes later, a third person approached me and asked what I want to order. I replied that I had already ordered everything, there was no point in duplicating the order.

When I asked for a second glass (I ordered two beers), the idiot waitress (who has a hard time concentrating on her work) brought me a second glass. Only the second glass - empty, and without beer.

And the cherry on the rotten cake !!! The cashier gave me a check to sign with a pen that is broken and not working (no...

We traveled to Laredo for my wife’s nephews high school graduation dinner. I had never been to JC before so had no expectations. Our waitresses was a pro, Karen was her name. We had 13 and she did a fantastic job of checking on us throughout the evening. Karen if you read these thank you for a wonderful dinner. Five stars. The food and drinks on the other hand, I wasn’t impressed. I ordered a mango margarita and the first one was good. No complaints. The second one I ordered I swear the alcohol didn’t make it to the drink. I ordered frozen but had ice chunks throughout the second and they were a big distraction plus the buzz I had from the first was completely gone after the second was finished.

The mozzarella sticks were good. We all enjoyed them. The stuffed mushrooms I personally thought no big deal. They had mixed reviews at the table. Pasta dishes were ordered and they seemed to be liked be those that ordered them. The younger kids had pizza and they loved it.

I, along with one other ordered a burger and honestly didn’t think It was that good. Kind of a boring burger I can make at home.

Overall we had fun and Karen our waitress made the experience more enjoyable than the food. I personally rate the food average. Not bad, not outstanding, but very forgettable and way overpriced for the results.

Karen you need to be working in a fine dinning restaurant. Your talents are...