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Saturday, January 23, 2010

Do Not Go To Johnnie's New York Pizzeria In Irvine!



3939 Portola Parkway
Irvine, CA 92602

714-505-3355

www.johnniesnypizza.com


RESTAURANT ADDED TO BLACKLIST DUE TO POOR SERVICE

If you must go to Johnnie's though, I suggest you get takeout. The food is good, but I had horrible service there last night. I went down to Johnnie's for dinner with a party of eight. After we were seated, the waiter informed us that we were there during happy hour so all appetizers were half off and wine and beer were a dollar off. We weren't initially planning on getting appetizers, but since they were on special we decided to get an order of calamari and an order of bruschetta. We also ordered two bottles of wine.

A while later the waiter returned to take our order. We all ordered our entrees. V ordered the gnocchi with the blue cheese parmesan cream sauce.

After about 45 minutes to an hour, the waiter started bringing our entrees out. He brought out everyone's entree except for V's. About 5-10 minutes after he brought all the other entrees out he came back and said to V, "I just found out that we don't have any gnocchi." Then he just stared at her. After a few moments I broke the silence and said, "Why didn't you let us know earlier?" He said that he had just found out. Again, silence. "Well.....can she order something else?" I said. "I guess so" he replied. "Can we see the menu again?" I replied. "Oh yeah" he said and left to go get a menu.

We were all in shock that the waiter had waited 5-10 minutes after delivering the entrees to tell V that the item she ordered was unavailable. The waiter returned with the menu and told V that he would comp whatever entree she wanted. V looked over the menu and ordered a carne asada pizza. The waiter came back a few minutes later to tell us, "The kitchen says it's going to take a long time."

V sat and patiently waited while the rest of us ate our entrees. She picked on the bread basket and ate some of C's pizza. The waiter came by again after we had all finished eating and said to V, "Should I just pack up your pizza to go, since you guys are all ready to leave?" V just said, "That's fine...."

The waiter came back with V's pizza and our check. We handed him a 15% off coupon that we had. A few moments later the waiter came back and said "I can't take your 15% off coupon. You ordered appetizers and since they are half off for happy hour, we can't take your coupon." I asked to speak with the manager. The manager came by our table and repeated, "You can't use this coupon because you ordered happy hour specials." I told the manager that we had only ordered appetizers because the waiter had told us they were half off when we sat down. We had no idea that ordering them would invalidate our coupon. The manager then snapped back, "I already gave you a free carne asada pizza!" I told him that that was because of a completely different issue. He responded, "Fine, I'll give you 15% off your bill but I am going to charge you full price for your appetizers." I told him that was fine and that we would just not return to the restaurant again. "Whatever," he muttered and walked away.

The food at Johnnie's is actually very good. I'm very disappointed with the service here though. D&C had been to this restaurant previously and also had problems with receiving the correct order and the kitchen being out of items that they ordered. If this restaurant had better service and made sure that their kitchen was stocked with the items on their menu, I would be highly recommending this place. Since this is not the case though, I think you are better off visiting one of the hundreds of other Italian restaurants in the area.

Johnnie's New York Pizzeria on Urbanspoon

35 comments:

BeachBumBob said...

Saw it, love the review re bad service. Were you able to speak to the owner? or call the owner the next day? If so what did he or she say about your rotten service?

Re: Coupons I always show it immedately to the waiter or manager and then quizz him about the "Coupon Rules" so I dont getted clipped in the end

To bad you can show us a picture of the coupon that you tried to use. Like to hear a follow up from the owner and lastly did you put this on yelp?

BeachBumBob

I surprised that they didnt hit ya with a mandatory group tip. I am a natural LOUD MOUTH anyway , I really would have BLASTED Them! out their service

Griffin said...

I haven't put this on yelp, but I did contact their PR department to see if they would like to comment on this.

Gary said...

Sounds like "bad hair day"! Too many other places to eat than to deal with the bad service.

Crystal said...

poor V =(

KM said...

In an economy where eating out is a bit of a luxury, choosing your eateries often comes down to a "value-add" like good service or a great deal. It's clear the Johnnie's has failed miserably on both cases. We always take the time to reward our favorite places with steady patronage even in tough times. Apparently such loyalty is lost on JNYP. There's no room for an obviously piss-poor experience with my dining dollar. I'll take my business elsewhere.

girlrobot said...

wow that is horrible service!! i will definitely not be visiting this establishment after reading this. bad service can seriously ruin a meal. did the coupon say anything about not being valid for items on the happy hour menu?

PageRank Check said...

totally agree with Gary

finky the kid said...

That's really unfortunate. I mighta checked that place out, but with that kind of ridiculously bad attitude from the manager and ineptness from the waiter and kitchen, I'll take my dollars elsewhere. Thanks for the review. Sorry you had to suffer the a-holes!

Griffin said...

girlrobot-The coupon did not say anything about happy hour

Amedy said...

I agree with u

Anonymous said...

I had a bad experience with their service in my take out order. I ordered a mushroom and pepperoni pizza. After waiting 20 mins, I got the pizza, only mushrooms, no pepperoni. What do they do? They put pepperoni on it and run it through the oven again. Um, no, now it's a twice baked pizza. On the up side, I asked for a refund and did get all of my money back. I haven't been back... Too bad because I do like their food.

Anonymous said...

I disagree , johnnies ny has great service and great food, the situation is unfortunate but could have been handled better, I try and eat there once every two weeks. My favorite dish linguni with sd tomatoes and cream sauce , favorite pizza is the ny white pie. I hope people don't see this 1 incident as a result to not eat there, resturants have there share of bad claims and need to be given a second chance.

MusicSE said...

Well, such things may happen everywhere. It is just the waiter is not very competent.

frases said...

It seems a lot of people are very critical of this place. I've been here twice now and I ave yet to be disappointed. I think Irvine is some "gourmet" may have had a bad experience.

The first time we went, we had the chickecn sandwich, pizza and roast chicken wings crispy spicy marinara sauce. Everything was delicious. Having a couple of beers or glasses of wine and you're good to go.

The next time we went we had the chopped salad NY Pizza Shrimp Scampi and free garlic knots. Needless to say, they were all delicious. Of course you have to really love cilantro in assessing the roast and shrimp shrimp pizza. My boyfriend and me. I cook with it all the time.

So I guess I can understand that some people may have had bad experiences. It seems that the food was very good for me and I'm super critical. As with everyone elses opinion, take it with a grain of salt and the judge may place ...

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