Johnny Carino's — Restaurant in Modesto

This was my first time in Modesto, my SOs closest thing to a hometown. I told him to take me some place he thought was good ages ago when he used to live there. He said Johnny Carino, because I always say no to olive garden, or overpriced italian applebees as I call it. Regardless, I couldn't resist the idea of some spaghetti, it's been over 6 months since I've had some. Well we go in and they tell us it will be a 40 minute wait, which we are fine with.. But as we wait 3 different groups waiting got up at different times and complained that it had been way longer and were seated after saying something. This to me was a red flag, we waited the 40 minutes and my SO went to go ask about a table, they told us it would be another 1o minutes. We waited another 20 before being seated in an empty section besides one large party with screaming children. The hostess sat us and left with the menu, and about 10 minutes later they came and took our drink order. About 10 minutes after that they bring them out and a little bread basket, and they leave. This entire time they havent taken our order. Our waitress leaves after bringing bread and drinks and as we were starving we totally demolished the bread, the waitress came back maybe like 8 minutes later and asked if we wanted a refill on bread and my SOs coke. My SO said yes, and remained very polite as the waitress had been apologetic before. We then had to ask if we could order. She took our order, and left. She came to our table again and asked us if we wanted more bread... She forgot the first time, by now it has been another 10 minutes or so, and after she asked by the time she brought it out and my SOs drink, it had been a total of 20 min since the first time we asked. Another 10ish minutes passes and our appetizer comes out, it was ok. Then both of our entrees were supposed to come with soup, they brought my SO his after a long while, but never mine. After several minutes we heard someone in the kitchen yell they were out of soup. We waited longer for our entrees, at least 30 min before we got up and left, and went to sonic. Sonic gave us our food quickly and it was good, funnily enough the drive through lady there said they were short staffed too, but we didn't have to wait over 2 hours to not even...

My wife and I went to Carino's Modesto location to celebrate my birthday. We were greeted and seated fairly quickly which was great since I had my two kids with me. The server was polite and curious but was obviously spread very thin as it took him a little bit of time to get back to us and kept forgetting to bring cheese to our table for my wife's meal after we ordered it. The food was pretty good too. However, there were two things that really ruined my birthday experience and overall dining experience. When my wife and I ordered our meal, I had requested a dish (Chicken Florentine) that I have always ordered. I was specifically told by the waiter that this dish was available in a lunch size portion. We ordered our meal and repeatedly had to ask that the parmesan cheese be brought to the table. My wife is pregnant and was really getting irritated at this fact. It took almost 10-15 minutes to get it on her meal because the waiter was running around trying to keep up with everything else. He may have been trying to cover for someone but he could have explained this and we would have been more understanding. After the meal, we received the bill and i noticed that my dish (which was usually around $8.99 was around $19 instead! I asked about this and the server then told me that it was that much because they did not have a lunch special... He NEVER ONCE stated this before I ordered. It was only when we received our bill. He did not even offer to contact the manager of apologize for telling me there was a lunch special available when supposedly there was not... There has always been one. My family and I were too upset to say anything to the manager at the time so we just left and I decided to go this route and then other reviews if needed. I spent $50 (tip included) on a sub par experience that Carino's should be ashamed of. I've never had an experience from this and would like to see what can be done to fix the poor dining experience my family and I...

All around the experience was OK. There was good and there was not so good. When we arrived there were very few tables occupied. When we left they were very few tables empty. Actually one server for the whole dining area. She did have some help from the hostess and a food runner. But it was a job for her. She should’ve had another server. We started with the deep fried raviolis. They were very good but they were OVERPRICED. Four raviolis for $11. Nope! My son ordered the three meat pizza. He enjoyed it. $21 The dough was good but I’m sure it comes frozen. I ordered the $16 special…endless salad, fettuccine Alfredo and all you can eat lasagna. The salad was weird. It’s like they took all the fixing off of the pizza line and put it in a bowl and called it a salad. The dressing could be better…maybe add a little balsamic. The fettuccine Alfredo was meh. I definitely would not order that as a meal. The first lasagna I received was just OK. It certainly was not freshly made or it was left in the oven too long. I did ask for a refill on the lasagna and the second was definitely amazing compared to the first one. The noodles were actually cooked, it was hot and freshly made with melted cheese over the top and actual meat in the sauce. I was impressed. I wish the first one would’ve been as good. The second one was so good that I would be happy just to have endless lasagna for dinner forget the salad and forget the fettuccine Alfredo. Overall I think three stars is fair. Considering the food, the price and the service. I’m not sure we’ll be back I’d be more inclined to go next-door to...