Julian’s Italian Pizzeria & Kitchen — Restaurant in San Antonio

I am so heart broken. I had been going to Julian's since Embassy Row. We would spot the owner and he would be always so friendly. The food was great so I was extremely excited to know we had one by the house now. Today we had a late dinner, we came in at 9:15pm and were not greeted by the cashier, instead she yelled name. I felt I was in a government office downtown. We ordered quickly, for us the usual...Lasagna and the Eggplant Parm. To me this one one of the only places I've loved how the prepped, delicious, well cooked amd breaded and smothered in sauce and cheese. We ordered one glass of wine and and a soft drink. As we were handed our number and glass of wine mid way we noticed the cashier failed to give us the fountain drink cup. We make our way to the table and as I am grab my glass of wine to taste, I notice flaky stuff on the foot of the glass...a bit crusty like white stuff. I try to ignore and as I am getting ready to drink my uneasy feeling down with wine, I see lip stains on the glass. So I return to the cashier and without making a fuss I ask for change of glass and explain why. She inspects the glass with a sour face almost in disbelief yet no empathy towards the inconvenience. She grabs another, and I assume it was also dirty...then grabs another and pours more wine amd hands it to me, 'thank you' she says. I keep my cool and think, well the food will be good, I've had it before and I am starving. They were all in all prompt...salad served, forgot bread, but food arrived. Desperate to eat I begun cutting into the eggplant parm and notice it is mushy, full of seeds, the breading looked like soaked breadcrumbs around the pieces of eggplant. Not smothered in tomato sauce but more like tomato soup. No flavor just straight out of the can...cheese on top barely melted. I was so hungry I tried to season the spaghetti and "sauce" with table salt and pepper and a ton of grated cheese. I am so tired and don't feel like going to the cashier for the 3rrd time and confronting possibly anyone at this time. I just have disgust and regret of choosing this place tonight. By the way, the lasagna was meh, seemed microwaved, and it was also partially left on...

It was super cold inside, and the decor was busy.

I’m allergic to tomatoes, I thought surely I’d be able to find something that did not have tomatoes. Half the menu is pizza, they offered Alfredo sauce as an upcharge but no other options for pizza bases. A baked dairy sauce didn’t sound appetizing so I flipped the menu over. They had “butter garlic” pasta and I settled on that. My husband had the chicken parmigiana and my son has the kids pizza.

Butter garlic pasta: this may have been sitting next to some garlic but there was no garlic detectable in the dish. It was under cooked spaghetti noodles drenched in liquid butter with a sprinkle of Parmesan. It was not a garlic butter sauce, it was not a butter sauce. It was unaltered liquid butter. For $13.

Chicken parmigiana: flat chicken resembling katsu, breading was bland, cutlet was burnt and dark indicating they needed to change the fryer oil. The spaghetti looked worse than hospital cafeteria spaghetti. The noodles again were under, the sauce was liquified and thin and the noodles picked up very little sauce due to the consistency.

Kids Pizza: $10 for a kids pizza… the pizza was excessively large and the cheese was rubbery. The pizza crust and cheese were not hot so when I felt it it was cool enough to hand to my 6 year old. Under the cheese though the sauce was scorching hot, I don’t know how they achieved this but super inconvenient for a hungry kindergartner. My son was not able to finish one slice of pizza due to the size of the pizza and the slices. I believe they could bring the price of the kids meal down if they made smaller pizzas.

There is not really service, the place is ran by high school kids but they were constantly busy cleaning, taking orders and running food expo.

They also didn’t offer any uncaffeinated drinks on the soda machine and had some weirdly flavored sodas that were out of order. How about putting some tarragon in your pizza or pasta instead of in your soda?

This will be our only visit to this restaurant, the quality for the price is not worth visiting for a night out...

Our First time at this location because we were close by. Usually we go to the Julians on Bitters. On 1/14/2024 We arrived at Julians on 1604 / Bulverde Rd we walked in and straight to the counter a very young girl greeted us. Very polite but it seemed she was new. One guy maybe 2 feet away from and 4 other employees in the kitchen area and they had 2 tables being occupied. So that tells you they weren’t even busy. We were looking at the menu i knew what i wanted and my entree came with a salad, the young girl asked me what kind of salad dressing I would like and i said thousand islands she looked it up on her computer and said I don’t see I don’t think we have thousand island at that point she turns back and ask the group of employees in the kitchen if they offered thousand island dressing and a Blonde Female I’m gonna say was the manger responded to her as if “who eats thousand island dressing with there salad's” I even heard that same lady make the remark its the McDonald Big Mac Dressing with a face and gesture of ewwww, lol. We looked at each other and ignored it. Then the young girl asked the blonde lady another question and at that point the Blonde lady had to stop talking with the other employees and to my knowledge was irritated and stormed to the counter as if the young girl was bothering her. This younger girl was new and doing the right thing by asking question. I, know this Blonde lady is probably a manager and is getting manager pay. With this lady’s title at Julian’s Italian Pizzeria she should’ve been more professional. Yes we didn’t eat there and we told the young girl not to worry about it and we will excuse ourselves and go...