Johnny Carino’s

Did this place really close?! I’ve been coming here since it opened and it’s already been a good experience. The food is already great and they have a good happy hour. The bread they bring you is always fresh and they give you a plate of olive oil, vinegar, and roared aloe. My fave is the caprese salad and the Italian cream sodas.

Couldn’t decide on what to do or where to go on Saturday night so eventually i decided to come here since its been a while (& i was craving the Italian nachos & a Carinorita). So we pull up & realized it was CLOSED. I am still in shock.

Stopped by today to a $ 2 beer and an appetizer, and the place is fenced off. Peeked through the window, and it’s stripped down to the studs. WTH??? I was just here 5 days ago. Everything seemed fine.

My girlfriend had a Groupon so she invited me to go have dinner with her. Johnny Carino’s is located in the Eastland Plaza, closer to the Target side. The server was friendly and the service was way too slow. She brought out the fresh bread with garlic and olive oil. I ordered the sausage penne pasta and it wasn’t very good. Not enough meat sauce. My girlfriend got the chicken and shrimp penne with sundried tomatoes. That was delicious!!! I love Italian food but this isn’t one of places that I’ll be eating at.

I love this place when it comes to the food. Although it does have its bad days and good days. The food here is great and overall fantastic. There are times where service isn’t good and they need to work on that or else they would have 5 stars. They are great with their foods.

I wish I could give a zero.
I went there last Sunday afternoon and there were about 5 – 10 customers. So I thought great we will get fast service. No I was wrong. Nobody greeted us at the door and after a couple minutes we seated ourselves.
There were about 6 workers I saw and not one greeted us. 2 of them made eye contact and turned away. Finally after five minutes I asked this older gentleman with glasses if we can get a waiter and he said with an attitude that someone will be with us shortly as if we had not waited enough.
Finally the girl walking our way who seemed bothered finally decided to do her job at this point I was over it. We got up and left.
It’s sucks for the owner that they have a horrible staff and horrible customer service that it is going to affect his business

Service: friendly staff and decent order to receipt of food time
Food: the pasta here is wonderful, especially the Spicy Romano pasta. The complimentary bread is warn and great with the oil and garlic
Ambiance: large, Italian looking restaurant
Occasion: good for small or large groups and celebrations
Parking: parking lot and curbside togo parking

I think meh pretty much sums up my Johnny Carino’s experience.
First up the food. Pizza crust is way too doughy in a way that seems almost undercooked. We had the Johnny’s Favorite and the toppings were barely cooked. If not for a tiny bit of char, I would have thought raw onions, bell peppers and tomatoes were placed on top after the rest of the pizza was cooked. I had fond memories of the Italian Nachos, but the last two times I had it, the temperature was only lukewarm. Then I realized the alfredo sauce served on top is room temperature which makes the entire dish only lukewarm. Fried calamari was alright, but far from the best I’ve ever had. The marinara sauce is more like straight up crushed tomatoes and they give you a tiny plastic cup of the stuff (like the kind of cup you would get salsa in from your neighborhood burrito place).
Overall, I was really disappointed in the food and won’t be coming back. I think Johnny Carino’s is having an identity crisis and can’t figure out if they’re an Italian-​ish restaurant or more of a sports bar. I noticed that they remodeled so nearly half the restaurant is a Chili’s-esque bar with TVs and neon signs. The menu also seems crazy with everything from burgers and ribs to family platters of pasta. Get this place some help!

Came here for lunch with my friend yesterday. It was very nice compared to the last time we were here. Service was great. The waitress was very friendly and courteous. Food was awesome, full portion. We ordered the lasagna and chicken. It came just short of ten minutes, steamy hot. The bread roll were delicious. Love it when there was nice service with good food. Will be back.

I ate at one of these restaurants about 9 years ago in Michigan (where I’m from) and it was delicious, but it didn’t last long.
I came to this location (about 45 minutes from where I live– in Altadena) because my best friends, sister had planned a surprise dinner for him. I’m glad I went because what I ordered was delicious! I had cheese tortellini with Alfredo sauce, however they said they also mix marinara sauce with it, but as you can see in the photo, where is it?
I marked down a star for 2 reasons, one being they were out of tequila so I could not have a margarita, really? Out of alcohol? That’s your money maker! The other reason being they would not split the bill, which they warned us ahead of time, so just write up the checks separately! But they said no, most places will let you use multiple cards in that case… But they wouldn’t do that either. Come on! Most people don’t carry cash these days…
Anyway, food is delicious, but billing policy is lame.

I remember when this establishment 1^st opened up and it was so crowded. I was surprised to see a Living Social deal for here, so I picked it up. We went in on a Wednesday at about 5:30 pm and it was empty… I am not sure what has caused the downfall of this place. The service was great, the manager even kept coming in and checking on our party. In fact, she checked in more than our waiter. The food was as good as I remembered. Then I started thinking. why haven’t I been here in years. I used to come all the time. Then I remembered our favorite server Trish, no longer worked there. As I ate my food, I realized that I should come back more. See you soon.

checked this place out after buying a livingsocial — came in expecting an olive garden but had more of a sports bar feel to it (left side was the bar, right side was the restaurant). it’s located right at the edge of eastland mall — across from ikea — next to chipotle and ono hawaiian food with a shared parking lot that i can imagine gets filled up during busy eating times. the restaurant itself has typical italian chain décor with a section far right that looks like it’s for private parties.
we ordered the skilletini combo, which was delicious but surprisingly spicy, which we enjoyed and would get again but some people might not be able to even eat. we also ordered the half spaghetti, which came with 2 big meatballs and sausage — more than enough food for our 2 little kids. bread was fresh and garlic dipping sauce was delicious. the noodles were cooked perfectly (i wouldn’t expect less) and overall the flavors were pleasant but not that unique. service was OK, booth seating was comfortable, prices were around $ 15+ per dish

I’ve recently come here a couple times due to a living social deal. The first time I sat at the bar. Now this place knows how to do happy hour. Drinks are very well priced and appetizers are good bar food. No complaint there.
Second time I came here I had some of their pasta. I had a $ 16 chix & shrimp pasta plate. Now let me say that dish was overpriced by $ 10. It was just awful! How can they have such low quality food for such high prices? My friend ordered a burger & fries which although was better then the pasta, it was still not good.
So unless your planning on coming here for drinks and appetizers, don’t bother. Your better off saving your money and your tastebuds with some frozen dinner entrée.

Had an amazing family lunch there today! We had prompt service, the food was delicious and it was not too busy! Is definitely dine here again.

Horrible SLOW service and a filth of an establishment! Sunday 11÷09÷14 was our first visit to this location and our LAST!
When the waitress seated us at our booth there was a dish pan with dirty dishes on the booth seat, really?! She picked it up and moved it to the table next to us. The seat had crumbs all over it and she didn’t bother to wipe them down, we had too. That should have been a sign to just walk out but unfortunately we didn’t. Our waiter was extremely slow. As I looked around there was trash all over the floor which all the employees would just walk right over even the Mgr. Chris. Not one employee, busboy attempted to sweep it up. I can just imagine what the kitchen looks like… Ewww, gross!!!
For starters we ordered the stuffed mushrooms which some were cold/​warm not hot it’s as if they had been frozen and stuck in the microwave so not all get heated properly. We didn’t complain just left the cold ones. I don’t like to send my food back especially at chain restaurants like this filthy one, you never know what they’ll do to your food. After waiting for 35 min for our food (a salad, a sand which and a kids small pizza) we finally received our food and mine was the wrong order. I ordered a salad and got the wrong one. After waiting 10 min to find our waiter we told him it was the wrong salad he said he could put the order in for the correct one, I told him no thank you just take this one back. He said ok and walked away! No, I’m sorry let me give you guys a discount let me get the correct one in ASAP and it’s on us, NOTHING! We never saw him again until we flagged him down again to get a box for my husband and daughters left overs and our check.

I came here with a couple of friends for lunch on a Sunday afternoon for lunch since we had a coupon. We decided to sit at the bar area where they were showing a lot of different NFL games. There is plenty of parking to go around since it is located in a large shopping plaza with a lot of different retail shops and restaurants.
After perusing the menu for a few minutes we ordered the calamari, 2 different pizzas, nachos and a sampler plate which included pasta, lasagna, and chicken. We had to make sure we ordered over $ 50 to get the $ 25 off from the coupon.
It is sad to say that the highlight of the meal was the nachos. Everything else was just very underwhelming which was a real disappointment. The calamari was decent but unfortunately the marinara sauce that came with it was extremely bland, which is a shame because almost everything on the menu uses the same marinara sauce. The two pizzas, pasta, lasagna all destroyed because of the underwhelming sauce. This is a huge deal breaker for me so much that if I ever come back here I will have to avoid everything that has it included which is almost 90% of the menu.
The service was also very slow for a weekend. There was only one server for a dozen or so tables and it took us a while to get the check. We were waiting to get change back but after realizing that it would take forever for our server to come back we decided just to pay the amount which we just had enough for.
Being my first experience here, and seeing that there is a BJs right around the corner, I don’t think that I will be back here. From the slow service to the mediocre food all I can say is that meh, I’ve experienced better.

Went to the Eastland Center w/​the intention of eating at Islands but since I have never tried Carino’s, we decided to come here. It was around 1:30pm so it was pretty quiet inside. We waited by the door for about 5 minutes before we were acknowledged. Which was sad since it wasn’t even crowded. After being seated, my boyfriend ordered Johnny’s Combo (I think that’s what its called, it has lasagna, spaghetti & chicken parm) & I got the chicken fettuccine. One thing about me is that whenever I go to an italian restaurant or ANY place that has fettuccine, i HAVE to order it.
Sad to say, I did not enjoy my fettuccine one bit. The sauce itself is so watery and I honestly couldn’t really taste anything. Some of my noodles were pretty hard still. It was hard to track down our waiter so we kept having to ask someone else for service.
I think I’ll probably just go back to Olive Garden or Bucca next time.

I so want to love this place, but it is just an average place. This time we sat in the Bar area as there was just 2 of us. Service, was NOT good and it was not that busy. Just very very slow to take our drink order, then took a long time to come back and get our dinner order. Once we had our meal, checked in on us pretty quickly and refilled our Bread, but just took way too long to get going.
Food was average, nothing overly exciting.
All in all, this is an OK place. Don’t expect knock your socks off food and you will be just fine.

We came here because we heard of the happy hour deal they had. 2 dollar beers! It was true! But the $ 2 was only for Coors light, Bud light, and Shock Top draft. The bottled beer were 3, which was still really good.
I ordered the original spicy chicken wings because I was really craving for some type of wings. They tasted okay, not the best wings I’ve had. I also ordered the fried shrimp, which was a happy hour special on Tuesdays for $ 0.25 each piece. I expected it to be a bigger, but they were really really small. I guess I get what I paid for.
Service here was bad. I sat at the bar area and the bartender/​waiter rarely looked over at us. I called, yelled, and waved at him, but we never catch his attention. Towards the end near closing time was when he did a little better, by coming over to us and asking if we want anymore beer. But towards the beginning, he was just busy talking to the other people at the bar, as well as checking his phone and texting. Common, you are at work! Stop texting other people and do your job!
Overall, I would not take the time to make another trip out here. If i was in the area and I wanted some beer, I would drop by just for that, but definitely not for food and service!

A very cute family style Italian eatery in this hood, could have been a good place to have late lunch on a Sunday afternoon if only the service was better…
I usually don’t review service before the food, but I just had to write something about the very unprofessional service our waitress provided. Our very cute waitress put other dining people’s dirty empty plate on our table first and put our empty plate on top of it to take the plates away… I was really surprised, I have never seen anything like this, I didn’t think that she was being rude, just very unprofessional.
We ordered a bottle of merlot to start, it took our waitress 15 min. to bring our wine, hubby had to ask her a few times, she seemed very busy at the moment, but there were other servers walking around with nothing to do, bad management… At least our waitress managed to pour our first glasses for us, came back to check on us a few times.
The bread, dipping olive oil with minced garlic and vinegar was very delicious.
Italian Wedge salad was good, hubby liked the applewood bacon in it, I enjoyed the sliced apple and blue cheese dressing, but it could have used a bit more dressing. Chicken risotto soup was OK.
I had seafood fettuccine, I asked for spicy marinara sauce, but they gave me the white creamy sauce instead, I didn’t bother to ask them to change it, I was starving, the white sauce was good, quite delicious. The pieces of squid in it were very hard and chewy, mussels were OK, shrimps were tender and delicious.
Hubby had ribeye medium rare with shrimps, mushrooms and spinach in angel hair, the steak was bad, one part was well done, one part was medium well, one part was burned, a small part in the center was medium rare, yeah, it was that bad, good thing was it only cost $ 20. So what did hubby expect…
This is a neighborhood Italian restaurant, can’t expect too much from it, but Olive Garden and Macaroni Grill serve delicious food and provide great service. This one is just bad. Tab was $ 78, it was not worth it. :(
I don’t think we will ever go back again, not a chance.