Giovanni's Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Palestine

Wow. Wow. Wow. STAY AWAY!!! I don’t know if the town is so small that they will literally hire ANYONE but the two ladies working the establishment tonight behaved SO poorly. Placed an online order for pickup for a total of $50.23, once I received the order I noticed I was missing two items. I went back and told these two ladies (one was a younger dirty blonde woman the other was an older brunette woman) that I was missing these items and they proceeded to say that I never ordered them even though it was on my receipt as well as my bank statement! The young male in the back said “oh yeah those items were on the ticket I saw them” and the ladies yelled over him and said “no they were not”. I showed them my receipt and they proceeded to tell me that it never came through on their end. I asked for them to just please prepare me the two items that were missing and then they tried to charge me for them. I told them that I had already paid for them and they kept trying to argue with me saying no they didn’t and then charged my card 17 more dollars before I even received the items and when the items were about to come out, asked if I was ready to pay for them. I was charged $67.54 in total and only received $49 worth of food. I would like to mention the young male who was resetting the tables, stayed truthful and held way higher morals than the two older ladies he was working with. He deserves all the recognition.. he was great and was the only one that was honest about seeing our food on the ticket in the kitchen. I dropped off all the food that I had originally bought (which we didn’t eat because we were waiting for the rest of the items) and asked for a refund. Also overheard these two ladies talking poorly about management saying “he thinks he controls everything “ etc. Lol. Great hiring Giovanni’s!! Send me my refund. Again.. shoutout to the NICE, HONEST young male he was great. Also the young dirty blonde called me a di*k when picking up my order because she thought my name was “Richard” .. can’t...

First time here, with another local and an out of town guest. Large party going on should have been my first clue to go elsewhere...everything going on there revolved around that party (even as they were winding down) at the expense of all other diners. Long wait to be seated, taking meal and drink orders, etc. Being told three times our salads were "coming right up" only to have all the entrees arrive. Another server told us they "ran out of salad" and when asked about substitutions, none were offered and were told "you still pay for it even if you don't eat it" even though we didn't eat it through no fault of our own. (Adding insult to injury, the table seated after us was told they could have a Caesar salad if they would pay the upcharge!) I ordered chicken parmigiana (usually a gauge of how good an Italian restaurant is) - the chicken was way overdone (dry and breast was burnt on both ends) and the marinara sauce lacked any flavor. The poor waitress looked exhausted and offered plenty of apologies and excuses, yet the owner did nothing more than sit in the corner and scroll through his phone - the only thing we heard from him was just one word..."goodbye". I'd heard many good things about this place, but my feeling is if they have a large party (was told 70 in the reservation) and can't keep up with it and other diners, perhaps they should close to the public on those nights. I've NEVER been to a specialty restaurant where the owner didn't make the rounds, greeting guests and asking if you were having a good meal, nor thanking you for your business and encouraging you to return. Maybe he was having an off night (according to the server, this is his usual demeanor), but it was enough to put me off from returning for a second visit...honestly, I've had better service from several of the local fast food joints, which at this price point and type of cuisine, says...

Our first,and probably only, visit here. We ordered garlic bread as the appetizer and were brought CLEARLY burned bread. There's no reason the server should have even brought it to the table. We sent it back, she blamed the kitchen staff (yes they cooked it but she has the ability to refuse to serve it so there was no reason for her to assign blame). We found that to be very unprofessional. The second batch we got was only partially burned so we gave up on having that issue corrected. It was clear she wasn't one to give good service. Salads came out. I had ordered mine with ceasar dressing. I refused the upsell of a ceasar salad thankfully. Our salads were made with cheap iceberg lettuce, a tomato slice, and dressing...what "salad" only comes with a single tomato slice and NOTHING else?!? Blew my mind! I ordered the shrimp giovannis. The pasta was very flavorful and delicious. The shrimp was completely inedible and had the consistency of rubber so I discarded those from the entree. Another one of our party ordered the trio (tortellini alfredo, chicken parm, and lasagna). The lasagna was super flat and didn't resemble lasagna at all. Aside from that, their food was also good. The hostess was great. Our server was not as we found ourselves needing refills and asking for napkins more than once. The positives for our visit are: greeted well and seated quickly, flavorful sauces, good sweet tea. Overall,the kitchen and waitstaff seem to need better training with cook times, food presentation, and anticipating and meeting...