Franco's Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Virginia

RECENT EXPERIENCE, Nov 2021: Three years have passes since my original subpar experience at Franco's (see the old reviews below). In the spirit of forgiveness, we decided to try them one more time. Ordered a medium pizza with green peppers, mushroom, black olives on the whole pie and pepperoni on half.

It was good for the most part, although the green peppers were the dull color of canned green beans and the same sort of limp "flavor" (do green peppers even COME in a can...or a jar? These looked and tasted like that, definitely not fresh). My wife is a vegetarian, which is why I got pepperoni on only half, but the way the pizza was sliced held no regard for a meat-on-half pizza, i.e., it wasn't cut so as to keep the pepperoni on only four slices, it was just haphazardly cut. The veggies were piled toward the middle of the pizza and I had to spread them out with a spatula when we got the pizza home. Once we sorted all that out, it was fine.

Just didn't compare favorably to other pizza places in the area where I've had much better experiences. Like the original response from three years ago said, I shoulda tried Little Ceasars! But I've updated from one star to three to reflect the average experience.

Update from original review: There's no better review of this restaurant under its "new management" than the owner's response after they wouldn't honor their own coupon: "Try little Caesar." WOW. That is the epitome of "we couldn't care less." See the original review, and owner's full response, below. So happy I never gave this place a dime.

Original review, May 2018: What a profoundly disappointing experience...my girlfriend and I moved to Henrico in April and just last week (third week of May) received this gift card for a free pizza at Franco's for "new neighbors/customers only." (See the photo.) Well, today for lunch we decided to check Franco's out, only to get to the restaurant, get seated, order beers, and then have the server tell us the restaurant was no longer honoring this coupon. I asked why, the server said she didn't know, that maybe it was still good at other Franco's locations. BUT...the gift card has only the Staples Mills' location's address on it. Sooo...I asked to speak the manager. There was--can you guess?--no manager there. So my girlfriend and I cannot speak about the actual food here, because after this bizarre bait-and-switch scheme, we got up and left.

The server said that other people had this same problem with that coupon; I certainly hope they let everyone know here too.

I can't imagine how hard-up a business has to be to offer a coupon that they then refuse to honor. Is it worth saving $13 on the cost of that pizza for the negative feedback they get when a customer like me let's the world know how sketchy that is on a GOOGLE one-star review? That sounds like a business that might not be around much longer. So weird, and again, a huge...

The first time I went to Franco’s the pizza was excellent and I was happy to eat there again. The second time I went to Franco’s and attempted to eat there they were so short staffed the waitress told us she would be back to get our drink orders in a minute and disappeared to the back for over 20 minutes. We left. Even that did not dissuade me from trying to eat there as the food had been good the first time. However, my most recent experience with Franco’s has convinced me to never eat there again. The staff of the Staples Mill Rd location was rude, unhelpful and ultimately dishonest. I placed an order for a large two topping pizza on a Sunday evening through their google listing/ChowNow. I received confirmation through google and email that my order had been placed and would be ready to be picked up at 5:15pm. My boyfriend went to pick up our order and was told upon arrival that they didn’t have my order in their system and they only had a order for Nick. I provided my boyfriend with multiple screenshots of my emailed confirmation, the confirmation on google, and proof that the funds were pending removal from my bank account. The staff did not provide any assistance to us whatsoever. He was told repeatedly that they had had issues with ChowNow orders in the past, that they couldn’t see the order in the system, and that we would have to take up our issue with ChowNow. ( I saw a google review from a few month back where they’d dealt with a similar issue but still made that person his food) He was told that I would need to get a refund through ChowNow. We ended up ordering dinner from a different location that night and I put in my request for a refund from ChowNow immediately. Within a day I got a response from ChowNow that they couldn’t give me a refund because Rosa from the restaurant claimed my order had been made and never picked up. I had to request confirmation of which location they spoke to as I was not going to pay for an order that had gone to the wrong location when my confirmation clearly stated Staples Mill. ChowNow then responded that they had spoken to Staples Mill. So not only had Franco’s staff not provided us with any assistance that night, not provided us with the meal that I had paid for, but they lied to ChowNow. I ended up having to dispute the charge with my bank as I refuse to give this restaurant money for a pizza they never made me. If I could give them 0 stars I would, but I can honestly say I will never give them my business or...

This place seems to be big on using cheese to mask everything, big on portions, but very lacking in taste and proper execution of any of the dishes. We started with the Spinach Artichoke dip, which was basically just a bit of the aforementioned ingredients, placed in what appeared to be an enormous pile of melted cheese (mozzarella and shredded parm I'm guessing?) I happen to love this dip and this has to be the worst I have ever had. No taste, shouldn't be served with bread, stick to the original tortilla chips (even in an Italian joint), and while there should be cheese in it, it should NOT be just a stringy mess, but a creamy dipable concoction of deliciousness, and this was NOT, it was a hard glob after sitting for less than 10 mins.

On to the entrees, I ordered the Pappardelle with pink sauce and shrimp. First mistake, the portion was way TOO large. Pappardelle is a wide, dense, eggy pasta that should swim in the sauce and other ingredients, and be like ribbons. If you have too large a portion, it soaks up the sauce and leaves a glumpy, gloopy mess, that has to be cut with a knife and fork....NOT good pasta eating. The sauce itself was ok, but could have used a good punch of garlic and basil. The shrimp were large, and they didn't skimp on them for the size of the dish, but they were a bit overcooked. The dish would have also been improved with the addition of a green element, like spinach or maybe asparagus. My husband got the half size of Lasagna. It was so drowned in cheese, that it looked bigger than the actual slice that was under the blanket of diary. The cheese made for some vigorous chewing for my husband. And the taste? He says "Stouffer's frozen lasagna is actually better"

We ordered a cheese pizza for our daughter, which as a toddler, she refused to eat...but that has less to do with her taste in food and more to do with her age, lol. But we both tried it and found it just "Ehh", bland, nothing special to recommend it.

Overall, I doubt for the price, the meal came to $44, and the underwhelming flavor of everything we had, that we will...