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.
