Nino's Pizzeria & Eatery — Restaurant in Tennessee

My wife and I went there for a late lunch. We just came from hiking and we're pretty hungry. When we arrived, we're informed to sit anywhere we like. The place only had 1 wait person working the whole restaurant. Not good if there's plenty of customers in the restaurant. In this particular day, there were many customers in the restaurant. Also, the wait person is responsible for picking up the phone for phone orders. Again, not good. This place has a very high rating on Yelp.

My wife and I waited patiently for our wait person. I went to wash my hands in the men's room so I'm clean before having our meal. When I stepped out of the men's room, the wait person saw me and gave me 2 menus. It's the menu they'd give out to people who may be interested in placing "To Go" orders or for pick up. I handed a menu to my wife when I arrived at our table and proceeded to review the menu. A few minutes passed and our wait person approached us and asked us what we'd like to drink. I ordered a beer and my wife ordered a 1/2 & 1/2 iced tea. It took a few minutes and our drinks finally arrived. A few more long minutes passed and we're looking for our wait person. We're ready to order. The wait person was taking care of many responsibilities, it's why forgetting about other customers happens. Finally, we're able to get her attention and we're able to place our order. My wife ordered a 10-inch Margarita pizza, I ordered the Chicken Parmigiana with side salad, and Calamari for an appetizer. We waited patiently for a few minutes and, finally, our appetizer arrived. It's missing a lemon wedge and our wait person didn't provide us plates and silverware. Again, the wait person is the only one taking care of many responsibilities. My wife was able to flag her down and she delivered the plates and the silverware. But, the wait person forgot about the lemon wedge. We started eating the Calamari with the Marinara sauce it came with. It's unfortunate to say but we've had better. It needed flavor. It's bland. The Marinara sauce too. When the lemon wedge finally arrived, we're almost done eating the Calamari. The lemon juice and a little salt made the Calamari taste better. The Marinara sauce too. A few minutes later, our food arrived. The Margarita pizza was alright. We certainly had something better in the past. My Chicken Parmigiana... there's a little water in my plate... probably from the pasta. It wasn't properly drained. The Marinara sauce could've been better. The Chicken Parmigiana was alright. Now, my meal came with a side salad. While we're in the middle of our food, the wait person swung by to check on us. She asked me if she brought my salad. I said no. A few minutes later, someone from the kitchen delivered my salad. Salad was good.

During our stay in the restaurant someone walked in with a pizza box. This is not a good sign and I thought I'd observe and see why the person is coming in with a pizza box. Apparently, she was given the wrong pizza. She was provided the correct pizza but instead of just giving her the mistake pizza, they took it back. They didn't even compensate her for their mistake.

We've tried Nino's before for take out. Pizza was good.

This was our most recent experience.

Please try Nino's for yourself and write a...

I want to start my review by mentioning I read through at least 15 bad reviews on this place that were clearly all left by southern people who grew up on chain pizza. I personally am from NY and hardly ever do I find pizza that resembles ACTUAL ITALIAN PIZZA. The crust is not thin, or soggy but it's also not thick either. It's made with REAL sauce not some paste out of a can! If you aren't familiar with or don't like actual italian brick oven pizza that doesn't give you the right to publicly dis a great restaurant, im sure little Caesars will be happy to see you 🤣

Now that I've gotten that out of the way this little gem absolutely deserves every one of the 5 stars it's been given multiple times and then some. If I could give it 10 stars I would. The restrooms were one of the cleanest I've ever seen! Our waiter Josh, was possibly the nicest and most down to earth young man weve ever had wait on us! Loved his personality and being treated like family from the get go. The dining room is small and well spaced, you can tell they aren't just packing you in to make money, they put their hearts into this food!

Everything from my antipasto salad to the app platter was wonderful and perfectly cooked. The Pizza was 100% exactly like I used to get by the slice, a floppy but also crispy, cheesy piece of heaven with clearly home made sauce. They use peccorino cheese on a lot of their items which is amazing to see in such a rural area. The calzone was excellent, cooked to perfection and plenty of filling and again dipping sauce amazing! My husband and I both ordered a pasta to take home and both the spaghetti and Alfredo were fantastic 😋 fries taste like they are cut in house and if they're not then the brand they use is doing something right! Same with the salad dressings! This little hole in the wall restaurant is honestly one of the best Italian joints I've ever been to down south and deserves a lot more popularity; if you're a snow bird or a transplant you will love the food here!

If I had to absolutely dig down deep for a critique all I would say is to make sure cheesecake is always available and get bigger tables because I want space to order one of everything when I return!

Much love, sincerely a Syracuse transplant who has finally found a restaurant she...

We called ahead to verify this place had gluten free AND dairy free options as we do not live in this area. The gentle on the phone said yes they did and come on it. We made a 10 minute detour off our route to go there and when we did the waitress had NO CLUE on our dietary needs and didn't seem to be interested in helping us either.

We asked to specifically speak to the owner or kitchen manager, whomever was available. She returned and told us that man had done left. The person she claims she spoke to said they did not have dairy free options. Honestly she wasn't nicest waitress in terms of attitude toward us.

We ended up walking out and going down the road to Chic-Fil-A because at least they know what's in their food when asked and they'll fix it if they make a mistake (which happened lol) without having an attitude dealing with you.

As a person who is Lactose Intolerant and also the parent of a child with Celiac Disease and Disaccharidase Deficiency and we are used to the issues that come with accommodating that in restaurants. However, if I make the effort call ahead before even setting foot in your establishment to see if you have modifications that work for us and you say you do, then yes I expect you have to have them when we get there. I'm pretty sure that is reasonable.

We are in Knoxville regularly for my sons appointments with his specialist and could have been a regular customer here. Between the promise of items we were told you had and then getting there and told you didnt and the horrible customer service from the waitress, we will not...