Justa Pasta Co. — Restaurant in Portland

My partner and I have eaten here a few times since moving to the neighborhood. Delicious food and great wine. But the past few times the service has been terrible. And I mean terrible. We came here two weeks ago, and it was slow being checked on initially to order our food. Once ordered it then took almost 50 minutes before our server checked in on us again and realized she had never put in our order. She was apologetic and comped a dessert. We are pretty understanding that things happen etc. We then dined there last night, with our out of town family. I was honestly quite embarrassed by the service. We were sat and water/bread brought out promptly. The girl who sat us told us our server would be with us soon. It then took 40 minutes before a server came to our table. It was not very busy, with plenty of empty tables. I made eye contact with both servers several times and attempted to flag them down. I was ignored by both. We watched as other tables who arrived after us were able to order. Finally we had someone come over and take our order. The appetizer salad came out fairly quick and then nothing for another 30+ minutes. Our server then checked in with us asking if we were ready for dessert. I informed her we still had not received our entrees. She seemed surprised. She came back and very brusquely said “it’s on the way”. No apologies. The food comes out 15 minutes later and again no apologies for the long wait or anything. Overall for 2 pastas and a salad that was split between 4 people in a half busy restaurant it took almost 2 hours to get our food, and we only saw our server 3 times. We won’t be coming back, and after reading some other reviews I have to agree that there might be some prejudice in how you get...

Justapasta was one of those restaurants where you go on an evening stroll and discover this wonderful eating joint in the neighborhood tucked away in one of the streets.

From a taste perspective the food was excellent. The restaurant makes its own pasta inhouse and it is one of the best in Portland. The pesto, the marinara as well as the Alfredo were all freshly made... and all tasted really good (advantage of going with friends). The chicken parmesan was also very good. I would give full marks to Justa pasta as far as taste goes. The presentation of the dishes were fine/okay.... nothing to rave about...but the taste compensates for any lack of presentation. Justapasta has created a very good outdoor seating space with heaters as well as sun shades and it makes for a pleasant outdoor setting. From an Ambience perspective, it's much better than most of the Portland restaurant outdoor seating spaces. (After/ during pandemic). Service is something that they could improve upon. The wait to get a table was a little long and unfortunately one has to wait in the pavement with no water or any other refreshments. The restaurant seemed a little rushed... probably due to labor issues. The food arrived at a reasonable time. The waiter checked on us a couple of times.... but could have been a little more attentive to the needs.

Overall I'd highly recommend the restaurant. It's the kind of place one would go for a hearty well cooked Italian dinner which tasted good and for a fun time with friends.

There is always room for improvement..... but that's...

Fantastic pasta, fantastic marinara sauce and wonderful staff. Overall, great Italian food

Walked by this restaurant during our last visit to Portland back in November and since it's always crowded, we decided to give it a try. Great choice.

For a starter we ordered the Insalata with organic mixed greens, grilled d'anjou pears, gorgonzola dulce, candied walnuts with a balsamic vinaigrette. The salad is fresh and quite good. Loved the walnuts.

For our meal, I ordered the four cheese lasagna with a marinara sauce. The marinara is pure Sicilian with fresh whole tomatoes and perfect taste and not to acidic. The lasagna was fantastic, many layers of pasta and cheese covered with sauce.

My partner ordered the cheese ravioli with the marinara and loved his dish. Our son ordered the ravioli with a pumpkin filling and the marinara sauce which he said was amazing. His partner ordered the spaghetti with meatballs and a marinara sauce telling us that the meatballs were very good and tasted fresh.

For dessert we tried the cheesecake which was super rich, and the vanilla ice cream.

The food is fresh to order and very tasty, we just loved the marinara sauce, being vegetarian it's hard to find a great meatless sauce.

The staff are friendly and available to assist with the menu. We had the privilege of the owners daughter assisting our table and we felt like friends after the...