Joe's Italian Bistro NOLA — Restaurant in New Orleans

If I could give this restaurant 0 stars I would. Recently I visited this establishment because it was across the street from my hotel and received the absolute worst "service" of my life. Myself and five other people ( 6 in total, 3 of which are children) walked in and were not greeted by any of the staff for several minutes. Once the staff acknowledged our presence it was very rude and snarky. We were told that they were not taking to go orders so we had no choice but to dine in. They told us that there would be a several minute wait as there where no tables available to accommodate us. This was a lie, there where several booths and tables available. One of which we had already pointed out to them because it was clean and empty. We were seated with no menus nor silverware. After a few minutes of obvious overlook one of the adults in our party went to the hostess stand to grab menus for the table. This is when someone from the staff finally came to our table to give us the correct menus. Another 10 minutes goes by without a server coming to introduce themselves or even take our drink orders. We continuously tried to get the attention of staff members who were running food to other tables to see who our server was or to begin the order process but no one stopped for us. We finally caught the lady who seated us coming out of the bathroom and asked her who was supposed to be taking care of us and she said to give her a minute. We waited ANOTHER 10+ minutes and still received no service. We decide to leave and as we were walking out saw numerous tables of people who came in after us seated with silverware and drinks. We asked the other patrons had their food orders already been taken and they said yes. The waitress who seated us over heard us talking to that table and began to argue with us about the unfair treatment we received at this establishment. We tried to reason with her and said that she may not have deliberately been the cause of the issue but that the wait staff as a whole dropped the ball from the time we entered the restaurant to the time we exited. She continued to argue and eventually stormed away. We were simply trying to get a bite to eat for the kids after being at an event near by all day. We hate to bring race into this but we were the only POC and it was clear that our business was not welcome. We even had a separate party come in to try and grab a drink from the bar and they were met with the same rude antics. They also received no service. We were not rude nor rowdy; we were simply a group of moms trying to grab pizza and pasta for our kids. I do not recommend stop at...

By far the worst 'Italian' we've ever had. This was basically cafeteria food at finer dining prices. We decided to eat here based on reviews and pics. The pics were nothing like what we got. The first sign of problems was the single server for the entire restaurant. But we decided that maybe it was worth waiting 10 mins to be seated and another 10 mins to order. The obvious sign that we'd make a bad decision was the food service truck delivering supplies, including a box of meatballs, among other things... meaning they weren't making homemade items and there was nothing authentic about it. We ordered Cheesesticks, Chicken Marsala, and Chicken Parmesan. The cheesesticks were $11+ and they were literally frozen cheesesticks you get from the store, and not even the good ones. A previous review the month before had ones that looked large and possibly homemade. Ours barely had any cheese and were small. Arby's has better cheesesticks at half the price. The Chicken Parmesan and spaghetti was school cafeteria grade. The chicken tasted frozen, the sauce tasted like jarred sauce. I make better homemade sauce and I'm not even Italian and rarely eat Italian. The Chicken Marsala was the best of the 3 items, but it was nearly flavorless with watery sauce. The chicken portion was small too with very thin chicken breasts. The manager did comp us the cheesesticks when we told him how bad they were and how they didn't match what they had just a month before. He blamed it on the vendor changing things. But why would they change vendors in only a month? They're a new restaurant, surely they had this stuff figured out before they opened and why change things that people liked? He also gave us a 20% discount, but with entrees costing $20 each and tasting like $5 school lunch meals, it only helped make this regretful experience a tad bit better. Lesson learned. I did tip our server well, so we didn't blame him for working at a place with...

I really wanted to like this place, but the service was honestly unacceptable.

When we first arrived, they told us to sit wherever we liked, so we did—but no one came over for a long time. Not even water was offered. We just sat there waiting with no idea what was going on.

Eventually, a man who seemed to be the owner told the waitress to check on us, and only then she came by and asked, "Is there something I can help you with?" I was honestly shocked. I said, “Well, we’re sitting here—we need to order and get some water at least.” She just said she didn’t know we were waiting.

The food actually came out pretty fast, but the whole experience around it was uncomfortable. That same owner-looking man was busy loudly arguing with a credit card company over what looked like a payment issue for another customer. He kept pacing around the restaurant looking visibly angry and frustrated, which made the atmosphere really tense. On top of that, the restroom was dirty.

When we went to pay, he didn’t even acknowledge us—he was standing right in front of me but just stared at his phone and completely ignored us. Meanwhile, the waitress and another staff member were literally eating in the middle of the dining area while guests were still dining. Even when wiping down tables, they walked around slowly and carelessly with just a rag in their hand.

To top it all off, the food prices are comparable to a fine dining restaurant—which this place clearly is not, at least in terms of service or cleanliness.

Sadly, I wouldn’t come back, and I wouldn’t...