Johnny Carino’s

closed march 21, 2016 that is all.

I always liked Johnny Carino’s. It wasn’t mama’s cooking, but the staff was friendly and I found something that I enjoyed to eat.
Sad that they closed for good on Monday. I’m not sure I’d drive out to Meridian for the other local Carino’s but it remains an option.

Service was fast because we were the only customers in the building at 4:30. That’s never a good sign.
Hot bread and olive oil/​toasted garlic dip brought out promptly. The toasted garlic was burnt and chewy. The bread was hot and fresh.
Ordered drinks, which came promptly.
Salads were next. Chilled lettuce and chilled plates made for a tasty start.
Bow tie pasta and chicken for me, penne pasta and chicken for my wife. My dish was flavorful, but had too much sun dried tomato, with one quarter sized clump in the dish. The amount of Chicken was pretty skimpy. With 10 employees and no customers standing around looking worried, it looks like cost cutting is in effect. My wife didn’t finish her dish (full), but she ate the rest later. No complaints.
Ordered lemon cake for desert. It was a little dense, but tasted good.
As we finished up, the room began to fill. The place is clean, but my menu had oil between the pages. Huh?
All in all, not the best. Not the worst. Our server was great.

The waitress must have taken a break because we waited for over 20 minutes for her to take our order. The balsamic chicken was inedible. Sauce was fine, the chicken was horrendous. I gave 2 stars since they had unlimited salad– which I needed since my entrée was so disgusting.

It’s a fair restaurant, considering the prices. One star for the food, which is good, not excellent. Matches the price.
One star for the staff. They are really nice and treated us very well (that’s a plus).
One star for the couvert: while we waited for our food, they brought us a delicious warm french bread, with a oil and garlic dip. This dip could be better if they use a better oil. It tastes like canola oil :/​
The restaurant loses one star because I didn’t feel like it was very clean. Not the food, but the restaurant itself wasn’t very clean. My menu was a little oily, the tables didn’t looked like was very taken care and the napkins are black (considering the overall cleaness, I didn’t trust that the napkins would be any cleaner). I don’t know if I would go back there.

Three of us went to lunch. I was expecting to use the coupon I received by email. However, the very fine print (that I did not notice) was that it was only for one pasta dish — the Create Your Own Pasta Dish. It was not valid for any of the other pasta dishes. Why? I wonder. They are all nearly the same price. I showed the waitress our coupon before we ordered. She should have told me when we ordered that my coupon was not valid for the pasta dish we had ordered. After our meal I brought it to her attention that we did not get credit for our coupon. She explained that there had been other customers too who were confused by this promotion. So why do they offer something that confuses customers?
The entrees were tasty. However the cook burnt one dish, the pizza, and so he had to make another. It was delivered later than the rest of our food. So that person had to wait for their meal.
So, while I like Johnny Carino’s, and have enjoyed my meals there in the past, the last two visits have been disappointing. In the previous visit, the food was disappointing in taste and quality. I may try once more, however, another disappointment may keep me away for good.

I agree with Steve S. What a Shame! 10/​19/​2015 A friend and I started our visit with a beer and mixed beverage. Once we were were served our beverages, we ordered and were promptly given our salads. The salads were fine. Caesar salad can’t go wrong right? We waited for our main courses, about 15 – 20, Chicken Ravioli and a Pot Roast. While we were waiting, I noticed that the floor manager was on his cell phone and stood there for 5 minutes in front of costumers. I mentioned it to the waitress, when she brought us our food, that there was an employee on the phone and she explained that it was the manager. He promptly was notified and asked if we needed anything.
Oh just an Johnny Carino’s experience please!
On inspecting our entrée’s they were drenched in a thick layer of oil and it was barely edible. We tried to be pleasant as we were passed several time, ignored and not given any drinks or water for the rest of the meal and handed our checks with out so much as a good evening.
My friend was given a box for her «soup» roast that was barely touched and we decided it was better left there.
Won’t be returning.

3 Attended 10−11−15, a Sunday, at 5pm. Service was good, but not enough time permitted between appetizer, salad, then entrée. Almost like fast food. My one glass of wine wasn’t even half way through before the entrees arrived, and we had an appetizer before, as well as salads.
Breadsticks and oil was standard. Italian nachos were good, but salads came at the same time. Entrée salad standard. Entrees of chicken parm, chicken bow tie festival and spicy Romano chicken were chain restaurant okay, nothing special.
I wouldn’t look here for Italian that’ll knock your socks off. Not completely bad, but not completely great, either.

I don’t usually like to do a review and immediately launch into the negatives… but there were too many at this place unfortunately.
The waitress kept calling me HUN. I can’t even begin to tell you how much that bothers me, especially because I am clearly older than her.
The restaurant ran out of meatballs (really… a pasta place runs out of meatballs?) and the manager came over to the table and knelt down and started talking to my 4 year old niece about being out of the meatballs she ordered. I’m sorry, but you don’t address a child directly like that, you address the parents. I was dumbfounded that he did this. I was also surprised to see that we were still charged for her dish, even though they were out of what she wanted. Common courtesy, if you’re out of what someone orders and you have to substitute an alternative, we shouldn’t have to pay for that.
The service was so slow even though it wasn’t busy at all. The waitress seemed to be trying her best, but there were plenty of other staff members around that could have helped her.
The one bright spot to this visit was the sweet hostess that let my niece chat with her, she likes to make friends and she sat and talked with her while we were settling our bill, and that was very sweet.

Sooo yeeeah… stopped in for lunch with my husband after a Costco run. The food is absolutely terrible. No Italian in their right mind would put mayo on a caprese sandwich. The shrimp pasta my husband ordered tasted like… nothing. The balsamic dressing that came out with my salad was a bottle of balsamic vinegar. The oil for dipping our bread in was rancid. The extra star is for the service, our waiter was super nice. 5 star service, really. We felt terrible he has to work in that dump so we tipped well.

A group of friends and I went out for lunch and sadly our first choice Cracker Barrel was completely packed, we decided on Craino’s since the parking lot was near empty. Our whole experience summed up in one phrase would be «what a shame» Only reason this is not a 1 star review is bc their was some food that tasted good.
Always trust the Unilocal reviews, usually when a place has low rating in multiple locations it’s for a reason. Anyway We were off to a good start with quick service, hot fresh bread, and a roasted garlic oil to dip it in. Next our appetizers come my friends enjoy fresh salads and I dig in to my garlic potatoe soup and it was pleasant.

Seeing we are in a Italian restaurant and (above average according to the prices) I pick the most CLASSIC item Speghetti and Meatballs. At
$ 13.77 I’m most certainly hoping for fresh pasta, homemade sauce and succulent meat balls. As you can see by the pictures the dish looked like it was going to match, but looks are not everything.

The pasta sadly was just store bought from a box and boiled, the whole dish lacked seasoning (salt), the saddest part was the tasteless meatballs and highly watery acidic sauce. It was very sour due to the cook not balancing it out properly with herbs and a sweet component. My friends calamari was not properly fried as it was soggy with oil and not a crispy texture, he was very dissapointed in the bland taste of his dish and dipping sauce.

I’m writing my experience because my reviews are to keep you from spending money on mediocre food or in this case even less. I have eaten fresh pasta and homemade sauce in NYC for $ 8.95 yet this place charges. $ 14 for a dish that taste like a tv dinner. If you want GOOD AUTHENTIC italian Boise has way better places that are local and deserve your money.

This was my first visit to Johnny Carino’s and it was okay. The food was good and had huge portion sizes, so my friend and I actually split a meal which worked out much better. Our waitress was not very attentive and the bartender took a really long time to get us our drinks. Overall, it was just average food and the service made me not want to come back anytime soon.

bartender… tonight u were rude and bothersome. food was ok… nothing special. Would not return based on this experience

An Italian restaurant that doesn’t serve/​use pure olive oil. All their salads and salad dressings are made with soybean oil, which most likely is derived from GMO soybeans. Even the dipping oil for the bread is made from a soybean and olive oil blend. Sad. At least I was offered a good Italian balsamic vinegar for my salad.

My family and I went here last night and it was great! The bread was amazing our server was Awesome! Don’t remember his name but he had short curly hair. He told us about happy hour so we got a few drinks then was even nice enough to come back when happy hour was ending to ask if we wanted one more before the price went up. Very thoughtful! We all got cheese stuffed tortellini which was awesome and came in a great sauce! Overall great service great good and a great happy hour! We ll definitely be back!

Today we stopping for lunch. They have a great lunch special on Tuesdays buy one entrée get the other for free. The bread and roasted garlic was good. The salad and soup was pretty good. The friendly waiter kept asking us for refills on bread salad soup. Our entrees lasagna was better than expected. The best part about the whole deal was it was $ 9.43 for 2 people for lunch. Awesome!

As a genuine East Coast Italian, I love trying new places. Carino’s isn’t that great.
I knew we were in trouble when I saw «Italian Nachos» on the menu. But we were in a group of 20, so I stuck it out, hoping for something good.
I asked our waiter when he took our order for more bread, oil and some butter. For some reason, they don’t serve butter for your bread off the bat. Just oil with pepper flakes. Never got the «unlimited bread», nor oil nor butter.
The salad was hideous. It looked okay, but tasted only of apple cider vinegar. Actually, it tasted like bleach water to me, but my wife tried my house salad and said it tasted of vinegar. She had Caesar Salad that she liked and our waiter offered me another salad, or soup. I passed.
I ordered the «Chicken Parmesan» and got a chicken filet that was fried nicely, but came with a wafer thin piece of cheese that didn’t cover the chicken and the sauce was like what you get in a can of Spaghetti-O’s. Yuck. the side of spaghetti had the same sauce. Maybe they served me a ¼ can of Franco American?
My wife had the lasagna. The sauce was different, but tasted canned, too. Not too good.
Dessert was a «mini» cheesecake. It was okay… about a 1″ X 1″ piece for $ 2.00. Way overpriced
I usually reserve my hatred of Italian fast food to Olive Garden, but THAT place seems genuine compared to what I got at Carino’s tonight. My first and hopefully last time.
Oh, I did find the something good… it was my wife and 18 friends.

Our family dined at Carino’s last night six of us, the service was SLOW the waitress was flighty, she stopped in middle of taking our order to talk with a co-​worker, was 2 hours before we got our orders, they were out of what was an advertised special. Every time we needed something we had to chase her down. This would have been acceptable if the place was packed but it wasn’t. Wouldn’t go there again. Too bad the food was decent.

This was our first time at a Johnny Carino’s. Our hotel recommended the restaurant as «better then the Olive Garden and less expensive then Marconi Grill», and for the most part we would agree!
It was 9:45 pm on a Friday night and the place was ninety percent empty. The wait staff was starting to clean up, which surprised us given what other Unilocalers had posted about how busy the place was suppose to be. We were served by a very energetic waitress who might have been the only one with customers in her station.
For us, all we wanted was to enjoy a decent meal and relax, after driving over fifteen hours. And, forget about any alcoholic libations, since we would have been asleep before the entrée arrived!
One of us order the angel hair pasta with meatballs and a side of sausages, and the other was the Italian nachos. Both were good, not great, but good. The marinara sauce was bland, no hint of garlic or onions; while the meatballs were hard as a rock, again lacking any flavor and the sausages were okay.
There was a mistake with our order of the Italian nachos. We order the sausages but instead were served chicken, our waitress was wonderful and quickly fixed the order with no fuss. Did I mention she was energetic?
Now, given our somewhat limited dinning experience, were we impressed, no. Would we be willing to come back with a larger group and try some of the other offerings, yes. We did sign up for their email club, so we are somewhat positive toward Johnny Carino’s. But even in our tired state it was less then we had expected — AND we would have eaten anything at that point.
So, in the end we wanted to like Johnny Carino’s more then we did, but our experience would not stop us from a future visit. Sorry!

Of the Italian chains, Carino’s is not tops but not the bottom rung either. The Balsamico chicken and Salmon salads are good choices. They have Peroni on draft and an adequate wine selection.
The location by the movie theater draws a huge mob before movie time, so plan accordingly. The vibe is oppressive when it is this crowded. But that is the case with almost all corporate food empires. I look around the room and get depressed about the impact of the western diet on America. I make it a point to order something resembling leafy plants at institutions like Carino’s, thinking that it has an impact on the buyer’s menu design choices back in New Jersey or wherever they are headquartered. Like Eve in Wall-​E, I am in search of some remaining botanical evidence on this planet of cheese and processed starch.
Fortunately, Carino’s has some worthy specimens to ingest.