Joe's Italian Ristorante Ponchatoula — Restaurant in Ponchatoula

I chose to give Joe's Italian Ristorante a try for my 35th birthday celebration, due to seeing several raves about it on Facebook. My mother, father, son and myself waited about 30 minutes to be seated, which I find to be average on a Saturday evening. Once seated, it took a while for our waitress to come to our table to get our drink orders. Once she did show up, we placed our drink order along with an order for the Joe's Artichoke Dip. She brought our drinks but then disappeared for a long time again. We ended up having to stop another server and ask him to get her for us. Once our server returned back to our table, we ordered our dinner entrees and asked about the Artichoke Dip, which come to find out, she never even ordered! After a while of waiting, another server set our dip on the table and walked off. We were unsure if we were supposed to get chips to eat with our dip or if we were supposed to eat it with the bread that had been at our table for a while at this point and which was mostly already all eaten...we again had to stop another server to ask, due to our server having never been been back to our table...come to find out, you eat the dip with the bread! The dip was absolutely amazing in my opinion but my parents were not a fan due to the large amount of garlic in it. The bread is great too by the way!

Our cesar salad was brought to the table. My dad and I decided to order one and share as the waitress said it was large and plenty to share...not really true(priced that way though). The salad was horrible. The dressing isn't homeade and the salad doesn't even come with parmesean cheese. Finally after waiting forever, our food arrived. Again by another server, not ours. None of us were super thrilled with our dishes. My father and myself ordered the lobster and shrimp ravioli. My mother ordered the chicken picatta and my son got the kids spaghetti and meatball. The sauce and shrimp on my dish were absolutely amazing but the ravioli tasted horrible. They had an extreme fishy taste. My mothers chicken picatta had a very strong lemon flavor which one would expect but was super thick and just different than any other picatta I've had(best way to describe it). It was just ok but not a dish I would order again from here. My sons spaghetti and meatball was absolutely horrible. There wasn't even enough sauce to coat the pasta and the meatball was incredibly bland.

At the end of the meal and having to ask for our server again, I got a lemoncello cake and my mother order the tiramisu. We didn't care for the tiramisu but the lemoncello was pretty good.

To sum it up, our experience was absolutely horrible! I know it was mostly because our server was horrible which can always make things worse. I feel this place does have good food, but you just have to find what you like. I feel instead of the ravioli, I would just get the shrimp fettuccine alfredo next time and would probably love it...however this first experience was so bad that I worry I may alway just skip over this place when trying to decide where to eat...

My girlfriend and I had been hearing great things about Joe's Italian Ristorante in Ponchatoula, LA, but hadn't had the chance to try it out until tonight. Our usual spot was closed, so we decided to give Joe's a shot.

Unfortunately, I can't provide any feedback on the food, as we didn't get the chance to order. Upon entering the restaurant, my girlfriend headed to the restroom while I ordered drinks. To our surprise, the restaurant wasn't busy, especially for a Saturday night.

When my girlfriend returned from the restroom, she mentioned there was no soap in the ladies' bathroom. She had informed a staff member who promised to get the manager, but the manager never came. She asked another employee for the manager, but again, no one showed up. At this point, we decided to leave.

On our way out, my girlfriend mentioned the lack of soap in the bathroom to the person at the front, who casually wished us a good night without addressing the issue. My girlfriend decided to speak to the manager, who finally appeared as we were leaving. When she explained the situation, the manager nonchalantly stated that the employees use a sink behind the bar to wash their hands and offered no apology or solution.

This response left us questioning the restaurant's hygiene practices. If the employees are using a different sink to wash their hands, why didn't any of them report the lack of soap in the bathroom? In a public service industry like a restaurant, one would expect such a minor issue to be promptly addressed.

I used to live in Slidell, where there is another location of Joe's that is always busy and offers excellent food and service. If the two locations have the same owner, the Ponchatoula spot is definitely lacking in comparison. This was probably our first and last visit to Joe's in Ponchatoula. And rest assured, my girlfriend couldn't wait to share our experience with her co-workers who had recommended the place. It's unfortunate to have to give a local business a negative review, but sometimes you have to learn...

I really wanted to love this place. The servers are friendly, attentive, and quick to ask if you have been helped - I'd ordered to go and was sitting at the bar while I waited. The price was good for the quantity of food. The place looked great, good music, although they were nearly empty on Valentine's Day after 5:00 pm, not usually a good sign for longevity. The main issue I had was with the food. Overall it tasted fine, nothing was bad tasting, it just didn't taste like I'd expect good Italian food to taste, and I've had good Italian. The Fettuccine Alfredo had the following issues: the Alfredo sauce was bland and too runny and the noodles were a little al dente. The Chicken Parmesan tasted fantastic. The lasagna was good, the sauce could have used a bit more herbs and spices to bring out the flavor. The other two dishes had chicken and shrimp, both of which were overcooked. The overcooking issue may have been with how hot the to go containers were, I nearly burnt my hand on the containers ten minutes later when I got home and pulled them out of the bag so I shudder to think how hot it was when they were put in the bag. The blandness may have been from the heat as well although that seems unlikely without having any burnt food in the containers. When we go back, in person next time, I'll revisit my review and see if eating in the restaurant is better than...