Milano II & Jack’s place — Restaurant in Murfreesboro

My friend and I came here after hearing about this place, and passing by it on the regular.

I used to come to this location when it was Goodness Gracious some years ago, and I was always curious about this restaurant after it opened in its place.

After this visit, I would say it was misplaced, and we left more disappointed and robbed than anything else.

The biggest problems overall was the quality and state of the food, the high prices, and our waiter, Karim.

We ordered the cheese sticks as an app, and they were definitely premade frozen ones you could pick up at the store. Far too uniform, and the inside was like mozzarella sticks you can buy in the grocery store. They didn’t taste like anything, and the “fresh” marinara tasted more like it was Hunts than Milano’s.

It was about $7 for six or so. Probably better if you skipped the middle man here and bought them straight from Kroger.

Each entree averages about $16 a plate, which is a steep price when wanting to try this food, especially for the quality of it, and the problems caused by our decision to split a single plate.

We asked for the lasagna, and our waiter was combative about us splitting it.

He told us, “It won’t be enough to feed you both.”

He says this when we got an app and dessert. It was all more than enough for us.

When my friend told him, “Well, we’ve never been here before, and we just want to try the food,” our waiter got very smug and told us, “We’ve won Ruthies for best food in town four years in a row, you’ll be fine.”

It was just argumentive, especially when he tells us, “You should both just get lasagna.”

We didn’t budge, and his attitude only soured further. When we got our lasagna, they didn’t bother to half it. They just gave us a square of it in a sea of marina that nearly ran into the edges of the plate, and I got a clean one to portion it out. Overall, the lasagna was soggy and rather bland, and was definitely not worth the amount charged on the menu, which is $12.

Eventually, after begrudgingly giving us our food, he asks what we want for dessert.

We both order a slice of cheesecake, which is $8 a piece. Also pricy, for what it turned out to be.

My friend got the “chocolate cheesecake,” and I got the “raspberry.”

The saddest part was these slices were hideously tiny— a little smaller than a singular one you can pick up from the store. Which, these definitely were store bought.

My cheesecake was a plain piece, and it was only topped with a drizzle of raspberry syrup. It was not actually raspberry cheesecake.

As for my friend’s, hers was topped with stale fudge and even had plastic in it, which she found mid-chew after a few bites.

Unlike some who had the unfortunate experience, both of us DID receive a receipt and there was no supposed hidden gratuity.

But, when he “split” the price of lasagna — which he said may not even be possible at first— both my friend and I were charged $7 instead of $6, so they made an extra two dollars for us splitting our singular entree.

I normally don’t leave reviews even when I have a poor experience, but this was beyond something you could brush off.

The food is definitely not worth the outrageous pricing, is not remotely fresh or homemade as advertised, and our server was so rude and combative.

I spent $20 here and regret every penny.

Will not come back, nor will I recommend anyone trying this place.

If you do like it, and you’ve never had a problem here, then consider yourself lucky.

Unfortunately we did not share that grace, and don’t plan on chancing this...

Just moved to Murfreesboro and decided to try some local “authentic Italian” food. I will first say that I am a chef who has owned three restaurants for nearly ten years. That being said, my husband and I both regularly order multiple items from restaurants to try out their quality. So we ordered a bottle of wine, meatballs, smoked salmon bruschetta, lasagna and a full rack of lamb. So to start, the olive oil that the owner poured was given to us with bread. The bread wasn’t bad but the olive oil was rancid because true quality olive oil should be green to slightly light green and never bitter to taste. Then the meatballs arrived and our salmon bruschetta. The smoked salmon I would give a 5 on, but the bruschetta tasted old and not fresh at all and questionable if it is homemade. The meatballs though were the absolute disgrace to this restaurant. These meatballs were 100% purchased at either Sam’s club, Costco or Restaurant Depot. They were disgusting and it’s an absolute shame because it’s not difficult to make homemade fresh meatballs. The sauce tasted like a can of Ragu as well. Then as we waited for our meal, our wine came out and was not what was described on the menu. It’s was to be a blend of sweet pears, pineapple Pinot Grigio but instead was a lemony Sauvignon Blanc. At this point I felt like I was eating samples at Costco and very concerned about our Entrees. Well when they came out I will say it wasn’t a shock because it was exactly what my fears were. The lasagna was bland and plain and the lamb was tasteless and not cooked medium rare as specified. The potatoes were drenched in grease and inedible. I was extremely disappointed because we saw they won so many awards in 2016-2017. I do not know what had happened to this restaurant since then but it seems to have gone downhill. It’s very sad and it deeply saddens me to write this review because I know how difficult it is to run a restaurant, but my hope is that they will read this and better their quality so that they can build themselves back up. It’s constructive criticism. The atmosphere is very dark, which is normal in Italian restaurants, but this is an uninviting type of darkness which hinders a good pleasant feeling unlike the romantic type of atmosphere. Lastly, the waiter and owner were friendly but the waiter, who is the son served us smelling like cigarettes and that just dropped my appetite even worse. It’s extremely unprofessional and I hope it changes. I won’t be back anytime soon because after spending $115 on a meal for two, I had to stop and get my husband another meal somewhere else. Maybe we will try again in six months to see if it gets better. In all sincerity, I hope so for them. I posted pics and food looks great but looks are...

Oh boy where do I begin. My problem is with the service that we received and with the food. I had never been before my visit and I don’t plan on returning. As someone who has worked in customer service and has plenty of friends that work as servers, I understand that everyone has bad days. Sometimes people don’t mean to be in a bad mood when speaking to customers. However, our server was clearly annoyed with us and argumentative. For our appetizer, we ordered the $7 mozzarella sticks. We got a small plate of about 7-8 mozzarella sticks that were not freshly made. The marinara sauce tasted like canned spaghetti sauce. Since we had never been before, we were a bit hesitant to spend a hefty price on food. We asked if we could split an entree of lasagna. Our waiter replied (very sour I might add) that it wouldn’t be enough for both of us and it wouldn’t fill us up. When I explained that we had never been before and wanted to just try the food, he arrogantly told us that the restaurant had won Ruthies best food in town for 4 years in a row. He was very adamant and pushy and told us “you should both just order two separate entrees of lasagna” when I didn’t budge and insisted on splitting one entree, he was very cold to us. When we received our lasagna, it was on only one plate. He gave me a knife to cut the lasagna and I had to split it in half for myself and my friend. The lasagna was disappointing to say the least. It was very messy and greasy. I imagine that their inspiration came from Caesar’s dog food. My friend and I started researching for any bad reviews for this restaurant and found very troubling reviews. We quickly lost confidence that our dessert would be any better. My friend ordered a “raspberry” cheesecake and I ordered a “chocolate” cheesecake, which were both plain cheesecakes with drizzles of flavoring on top of them. It was quick to tell that these cheesecakes were not fresh, especially when I found tiny bits of plastic in my cake. With the way we were coldly and rudely treated, I really didn’t want to leave a tip, but ended up leaving a $4 tip on a $20 check. The only reason I never said anything about my disappointment in the food I ordered was because I was concerned that the server would argue with us, given the way that he had acted towards us. I don’t like to leave reviews like this, especially, about servers, given that most things are not in their control. However, I’ve never seen a server so visibly annoyed and irritated with a customer. Don’t make the mistake of blindly walking into this restaurant without knowing the bad reviews, as well. I read good reviews and had heard that the food was good and was unfortunately one of the customers that got the poor...