Joe's Italian Kitchen — Restaurant in Port Neches

Restaurant critic, rater and Reviewer for Google with over 2.3 million views, reviewing fairly and unbiased. My mom and I, after visiting that other Italian Restaurant, visited Joe's Italian Restaurant in Nall in Port Neches. Using our criteria of 5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ stars, atmosphere, cleanliness, service, food, and price, we walked inside to a place we immediately began to think was a great find. The atmosphere was good and there seemed to be many repeat customers. (Gain - ⭐ Atmosphere). The place seemed clean enough (other than some condensation in the salt shakers) (Gain - 1/2 ⭐). Everyone knows that since Covid, cleanliness is a must with zero tolerance, and this place was kept clean. The waitresses were fantastic and helpful, and what I noticed, was the Owner, Joe, seemed to be everywhere, on the phone, in the kitchen, greeting customers, a tireless and accomodating host. (Gain - ⭐ Service. When the food arrived, it was hot (Another one of my big things) and it was also downright tasty. Unlike that other restaurant, Joe's Italian Restaurant had red pepper and parmesan cheese on the tables. My spaghetti was delightful and the marinara tasted a little sweet, to remove the acidity, and it was really delicious. (Gain - ⭐ Food). At long last, we ate til our bellies were full, and when the check arrived, saw that instead of spending $40 to $60 for Italian food at other restaurants, here at Joe's Italian Restaurant, we could eat even more delicious food, at around $27. Gain - ⭐Price). Wow! This Joe's Italian Restaurant ( Salt Shakers) is graded 4 1/2 ⭐⭐⭐⭐1/2 Stars, out of 5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Stars. Congratulations to the Owner and staff for such a wonderful job, and we will be back to this little gem, and I am sure that next time, this place, nearly perfect, will become perfect with 5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐...

It looks like a cute environment at first glance, but the booth table wobbled and one side of the seating was too far away from the table for me or my daughter to reach the food without leaning. Thankfully my husband is tall and took that side for himself. The stone style lower wall was disconnected from the upper wall with the windows.

The portions were generous and the food was good. It was tough to enjoy with the service though. When I asked about our appetizer (garlic cheese toast) she walked away while telling us it's not ready yet. I'd expected the generic wait-staff response, "I'll check on it" or something similar, and the terse brush-off felt uncomfortable.

She did refill my and my husband's drinks once, but we couldn't catch her attention again once our entrees were served. We sat trying to flag her down for over 25 minutes after we'd finished eating to ask for dessert. We watched her seat, serve, provide to-go boxes, and bring the check to a family a couple of tables away and STILL we couldn't flag her down. (I guess I could have called out for her but I felt like that would have been rude to the other diners.)

When she finally came back, she just set the check down and started to walk away without even looking at us. I admit I'd had enough and did snap excuse me, ordered our desserts to go, and had her bring the updated check.

I can say the cannoli we brought home was delicious. Definitely glad we got it to-go though, I was over the...

If you're looking for a small, quiet, quick, mediocre Italian food fix, this is your place. When your seated, you get a basket of thick bread rolls with a thin layer of butter and parmasean on top of them. There's a bowl of Grassland butter individually packaged in small cubes on the table as well. We ordered the fried calamari and stuffed mushrooms for an appetizer. The calamari was tasty with a side of lemon slices and marinara. The stuffed mushrooms are small and come with a huge amount of Alfredo spinach sauce, but are good. The pasta trio is served in one dish and was ok tasting. The chicken fettuccine Alfredo was ok and looked as though they took prepackaged chicken slices from Walmart and seared them on the grill and put them on top of the pasta with jarred sauce. The eggplant parmasean was very plain, flavorless, and not fresh. The eggplant seemed to be either frozen and thawed or has been sliced days ago. The marinara seemed to be a plain a jarred marinara without seasonings. The overall food lacked basic Italian seasonings. There was no drink menu for those that like wine or other alcoholic or special drinks with their food. Very overpriced for basic food that There seemed to be a lot of to go pizza orders. This business may do better if they just became a pizza place if thar is the case. Maybe their...