Primo Barone’s Restaurant & Lounge

This is a cute neighborhood Italian place! I was visiting the area for the first time and the surrounding neighborhood is also pretty charming. The décor looks a bit 1960s which I suppose adds to the charm. To me, it seemed like a pretty casual family restaurant, but the locals made it sound like it was fine dining. My friend had an issue with the lettuce in her salad — they advertise «seasonal mixed greens» but really the salads are bland iceberg lettuce. I would either change the wording on the menu to say iceberg lettuce –OR better yet add spinach, chard, arugula, kale in the salad to be more accurate.
The chicken parmagiana was pretty good; I was craving alfredo pasta, and they brought me a side serving of it. The bill was reasonable and the service friendly.
p. s. If you’re a person of color just passing through the area, the patrons here are apparently not used to seeing you. Ignore the stares and go on about your business and enjoy your time.

I frequent Primo Barone’s bimonthly or so and the food is consistently excellent. The atmosphere is very cool as planes occasionally fly in and out of the airport where the restaurant is located. The owner is very friendly and in my opinion runs a first class operation. Thumbs up all around for this place.

Excellent food and great people. Everything on the menu is awesome! It is family owned and managed with love.

Only had one bad experience. They closed early. I flew from Cleveland too. Otherwise the food and service is outstanding! I recommend the prime rib on the weekends. I promise you won’t leave hungry or dissatisfied.

A nice Italian restaurant (with huge portions) tucked away in a regional airport in Franklin, PA.
A short 1 hour flight (in a Cessna 172) from Buffalo, NY — me and some friends decided to venture up here and enjoy some food while watching airplanes take off after a gorgeous Saturday flight. Pilots from all over the region fly in here in order to eat. Aviation fuel here is the cheapest in the region, so I’m not surprised.
The restaurant has a classy feel, linens, nice jazzy music in the background. It really is quite romantic. It’s moderately priced — I chose the ligher entrée at $ 14.95 (Eggplant Parmiagana), but the average entrée costs around $ 20 here. My eggplant parmiagana was really nice. Thick, breaded eggplant served over my choice of pasta (fettucine). The portion was very large and the breading on the pasta was quite good. I would have preferred a little more red sauce and a little more flavoring on the pasta itself, but for a regional airport restaurant it was very good.
It took a long time (like 15minutes) for our waitress to come and take our credit cards after she put the checks down, which was the only downside in service. We sat around for quite a while just waiting.
All in all — it’s a fantastic restaurant in a regional airport. If you’re considering flying into the area or are a local, it’s definitely worth checking out. I think they have live music on Friday nights.

I have been to this restaurant a few times in the past and my experiences with it have always been mediocre. The staff are usually friendly but on my latest visit a few days ago even that wasn’t the case. My waitress was not rude or unprofessional but was not friendly either. The shrimp cocktail and salads were good but the main course came within 5 minutes of the salads and we were only half way though the entrée when the waitress started pressing us about dessert. I had a chicken and pasta dish which was quite large in portion size but had VERY little chicken in it. My fiancée ordered the baked ziti, which was also generously portioned but it was obvious they had simply dumped some meat sauce on the plate then piled on some pasta followed by a glob or two of ricotta cheese. My sister ordered a streak which she said was good. My mother ordered beef brioche which came to the table looking like 3 meatballs, she said it was just okay. We all got dessert but I was the only one happy with mine. (They claim their cheesecake is New York style, do not believe them.) Their wine list was pretty anorexic for an Italian restaurant with only about 4 or 5 choices each of red, white, etc. Our bill for four adults was about $ 140 which I thought was pretty reasonable since two of us had drinks & appetizers and all had dessert. However, the meal overall was not impressive and combined with the poor service, it will be quite some time, if ever, before I go back.

Great service. Food was good. I’ve had better Italian, but for this little town, it was quite lovely. You can see runway from almost every seat, but we got a table right at the window. Will probably come back here again if I find myself in this area in the future.

The food was good and the service, fast, a little too fast, didn’t have time to eat my salad before the entrees showed up. The real problem was the seating, the hostess walked quickly to the furthest table in the restaurant, dropped our menus on the table and sped away. There were only two tables occupied in the restaurant, one, a large party, and she felt it necessary to seat us right beside them. So, if any of you need pointers on Windows 8, let me know because I heard every word the of the conversation of the neighboring table that were discussing it.

Fine dining for Venango County, PA. Busy restautant with fun views of the air traffic. The food is a little pricey but the portions are huge, I always bring home next-day’s-lunch after dinner. We always come here for Mother’s Day and other «fancy» occasions. This is as good as it gets for the region.
Staff is excellent and knowledgable of the menu which is heavy Italian. Nice bar and assortment of liquors. There is often live dinner music.

Definitely 4-​stars for Franklin. Surprisingly tasty and hearty Italian. Bravo, Primo, Bravo!

My boyfriend and I are pilots and we heard that Primo Barone’s was a good place to get a $ 100 hamburger. Don’t be fooled, the hamburgers aren’t $ 100 and we didn’t even have hamburgers (I don’t recall if hamburgers were even on the menu). A $ 100 hamburger is what a pilot calls flying to some other airport to get breakfast/​lunch/​dinner at a nearby or on airport restaurant. In this case it was lunch and an on airport restaurant. We parked the plane by the large windows of the restaurant looking out to the runway and headed in to a surprisingly busy place. I have never been to an airport restaurant with that many customers! It looked as if many people came in from the town to eat there-​not just pilots.
We sat on the same side of the table to judge the take offs and landings we saw while enjoying basil and cheese bread as an appetizer and looking at all the various airplane models hanging from the ceiling. Stuffed chicken and pasta primavera were for lunch and pumpkin and caramel rolls was our desert of choice (To.Die.For.)!
The waitstaff was very friendly and sociable. He even recommended some items based on what we had ordered to get next time we visit. We will definitely be back, I’m thinking on a Friday night since they apparently have live jazz music then.

This place is located in my hometown. As Carol wrote, Franklin isn’t a major metropolitan area. Primo’s is okay, but nothing stellar. I went with my parents on a recent visit home after we could think of no where else to go. I got the beer battered fish with a side of steamed vegetables. The fish was good, and the vegetables steamed, but then doused in a butter sauce. Am I wrong in thinking that when most people order steamed vegetables, they probably don’t want butter melted all over them? The salad that came with the mean wasn’t spectacular. It did the trick, but it did it with one of each vegetable (as in one olive, one hot pepper ring, one radish slice… did the economy sink this low?). I can’t remember what my mother ordered – something with steak and pasta. She said the steak was too dry.
Don’t get me started on the carpet in this place…
Primo’s is fine – for Franklin. I hate to set up a Unilocal World where the standards are different for various towns, but I can’t avoid it. Yes, food should be done well no matter what the city. But come on, folks, this is Franklin, and Primo’s will treat you just fine, especially when you can’t think of anywhere else to go.

Located at the Franklin Regional Airport. What a great conversational place to sit and watch the jet planes land and take off. Nice Italian restaurant atmosphere. Typical Italian fare…LARGE portions. .you could eat leftovers for a week! The salads aren’t great, but the entrees, especially the rigatoni, are excellent.
Franklin isn’t a major metropolitan area, which makes this top notch for its location.