Johnny Carino’s

I love is place, my husband and I come here every time I don’t cook, the food is great I love the Italian sodas and the bread is delicious! The customer service is great there is one guy who I think was new and didn’t really attend to us like we were used to and he seemed like he didn’t like being there and one girl who kept asking us if we were okay every 5 minutes but that doesn’t change my view, this place is great!

We have eaten here numerous times and the food and service is great. Great happy hour also. These guys do a fine job.

Heavy at this restaurant numerous times before him when I passed through El Paso. The restaurant is Italian and I have found the food to be very good and very good portions prices are competitive with these local restaurants in the area. The service has always been good and the drinks or well done and of good quality. Doing my recent visit I had the shrimp scampi which comes with angel hair pasta it was plenty of food and very delicious. Prior to the meal they brought fresh hot bread which was very good and a dish of olive oil and assorted seasonings for dipping which was also very good. If ever you’re passing through the El Paso area as there are at least two of the Karina restaurants that I have seen one by the airport and the other up near the racetrack both I would presume are Of equal quality and very good for Italian food.

Still one of our favorite restaurant’s. Great staff killer bellini’s and football on. Love to meet friends and clients here.

I always try to avoid big chain Italian restaurants because frankly, the food loses its authenticity and quality. Carino’s closed down years ago and re-​opened as Johnny Carino’s. The only thing that changed is the name. The service was so plain and dismal. Zero smiles from our waiter which led to a very awkward service. It definitely felt like he was there because he had to and wasn’t enthusiastic about anything. Brought our hot food appetizers first before the rest of my table got their salads. Then our food came out separately as well which makes it weird waiting for other people to get their food but also letting your food get cold. The food itself was not bad however it has nothing special to it. I had the spaghetti with meatballs which was mediocre. There’s nothing special about it which made me feel like i could have definitely made it myself at home and had the same flavors. Overall Johnny Carino’s is still the mediocre italian restaurant your family drags you to for a birthday dinner.

I eat every meal out breakfast lunch and dinner. I eat at Johnny Carino’s throughout the US and love it. This place was terrible. Great service but not any flavor. I got the chicken fettuccine with an extra chicken and the Alfredo sauce had no flavor and the chicken tasted like they took it out the freezer and put it on the grill. Awful! Manager never came to talk to us and yes he was advised. He did have time to talk and joke around with the employees mainly the bad cook.

When we were seated, the waiter informed us that we could get drinks and/​or appetizers at Happy Hour prices. We decided to add an appetizer. Ten minutes later, the waiter returned and said, «I have some bad news about the appetizer. Happy Hour is over. I’ll have to charge you full price. Do you still want it?»
I informed him that I’d pass, but when my wife returned from the restroom, she found this exchange unacceptable and asked to speak to the manager.
She explained the situation to the manager, and the manager proceeded to quote the Happy Hour time frame and, essentially, shifted the responsibility to US (the customers) for knowing when it was. At that point, I was livid and told the manager that he DOES NOT shift the blame to the customer. The right thing to do would have been to apologize for the mistake and, at least, offer the appetizer at the price the waiter quoted. The manager finally offered a «discount» on the appetizer, and reminded us that we should remember when Happy Hour is the next time.
We told him that there wouldn’t be a next time, and we got up and left. The experience had already been ruined. This was an abysmal showing of managerial skills, customer service, and basic common sense. I have never felt so insulted in a restaurant setting. Even McDonald’s would have apologized for the error and given me a free apple pie. This was an exquisitely horrible experience.
I can forgive the waiter’s error. Mistakes happen. But I cannot forgive the manager’s total lack of courtesy and customer service. We will certainly not go back.

We went on a Sunday around 1600… There were 6 of us. The place was half empty… Our 5 min wait turned into a 15 min wait as we watched groups get seated prior to us. Then, we sit. Perfect… Ten min pass, and no one stops over to take our drink order. Everyone around us was waited on. Finally we grabbed someone and asked ‘is there anyone who will serve us?’… The chick did. She was nice but we waited forever for our food. The two children were served almost 30 min before the adults, so I’m sure you can imagine the lack of peace when our food got there. We were there for almost two hours, and most of that was us watching other people eat. Sucky place, sucky service. What a worthless place.

For being a hyped up chain for pasta it is not all what I was hoping. We had a good time while here but the order for the kids kept getting messed up. But at the end it was good and they made up the mixup. The kids had fun and we were happy with the resolution. Not much to say about the food it was average.

Ate at this location a couple of times, I always judge a good Italian restaurant based off there Chicken Parm, if that is good I’m sold, and the Chicken Parm was Good. We had this waitress named Simone, she was great, very attentive, gave me and my fam a fine dining experience. Also a good app to order is the Calamari, its really good, and the house salad w/​italian dressing very good, this is my go to spot for Italian food.

Food was okay, service was bad and slow. Plus they were out of regular menu items. Very disappointing experience.

Decided to take my son to Carino’s for a late lunch. It started off bad. I should have just left. We waited to be seated for 15 minutes even though plenty of tables were available. We waited another 15 minutes to be greeted by the waiter once we were seated. Another 20 minutes for him to bring us our water. Then another 15 for us to order. Enough said. We won’t be coming back.

Monday night is usually a great time to go because they have a great deal for the $ 32~ family deal– it’s half off! We usually did this and try to go Monday nights. Tonight the did was so… blah. The pays came before the salads, our waitress was gone for 20 minutes at a time, and the food had no flavor.
Needless to say, we were pretty underwhelmed. Maybe it was an off night. We’ll be willing to go back again in the future though.

My wife and I have been coming here once a week for the past month since we live around the corner. Food is good BUT THE SERVICE IS HORRIBLE!!! We’ve been hoping our next server will be better but no luck! As a business owner this all boils down to their management! Every server we’ve had has a Don’t bother me attitude!

We had dinner for five, service was soso but my honey pecan salmon salad was delicious

Pretty good food. Pretty much like an Olive Garden. If you’re hooked on Olive Garden breadsticks and salad dressing, don’t come here. Their bread and house salad dressing isn’t that good. However, friendly staff and good food creates a nice evening out! Their stuffed mushroom app. Is delish and was my favorite part of the meal. I had their lasagna. Pretty good! And my boyfriend had the chicken parm. He wasn’t impressed. But I didn’t think it looked bad. He called it, «ok.»

I give this 3 stars because I can agree with other reviewers, you can get better Italian food elsewhere (Nuevo Cappettos) but there’s some things you can’t beat. LIke the happy hour! Half off everything from the bar. That means wine bottles and appetizers. Plus you can get the green chile lasagna which is made from Hatch chiles so you know it’s packed with flavor and heat! Worth the visit after a hard day’s work!

I’m so indecisive when it comes to this Johnny Carino’s. One one hand, it’s better than any Olive Garden in El Paso. But on the other, I’ve had better Italian at places like Thyme Matters and Mi Piaci. Four stars seems to exorbitant so I’ll stick with a solid three because at minimum you can count on the JC to be consistent.
My most recent trip was on a Thursday (maybe Wednesday or Tuesday, definitely not a Friday) for a late lunch. I wouldn’t say it was crowded, but there were a good amount of tables filled. At home I prefer to sit at my wood table with wood chairs when eating, at a restaurant I prefer sitting at cushy, couch-​like booths and only want to sit on chairs if the booths are solely plastic or wood. I don’t know, don’t ask. Unfortunately this JC only has about eight booths (three of which are for parties bigger than four) and they were all filled so I found myself being shuffled to a table. But hey, no harm done, I was still seated so that was just simply an observation.
I’m unsure who buses the tables, but they definitely need to be reminded of food handling practices. There were three small plates for bread on the table when we arrived and a black tray clearly used for drinks. Three plates seemed a bit strange to me we were sitting at a four person table. Two I would’ve accepted as normal, but three is a strange assumption to make. Once the bread and olive oil with garlic arrived, I was ready to break bread and feast. As I reached for one of the saucers I immediately set it down. This plate was dirty, filled with oil that had been wiped away. Hmm, okay… it happens. I reached for a second. Dirty, filled with oil and sprinkled with crumbs. I looked at my dining partners. Visibly dirty. Oooohhh… I see what happened (or at least I hope this is what happened because if it didn’t happen this way, this JC has some pretty sh! tty practices).
Clearly (or maybe not so clearly) a group of three was sitting at this table prior to our arrival and either ate bread and dipped before ordering, cleaning up their own plates pretty damn well with the bread OOOOOOOR they ate their food, cleaned their plates pretty damn well and stacked them so to the person busing, it appeared the plates hadn’t been used. Just want to point out, regardless of if a plate, fork, cup, or whatever appears to have been used it should be removed and cleaned after being given to a patron.
Our food was good. I had the unlimited soup, salad, and bread and my PIC had some kind of red bow-​tie pasta dish. For my soup I landed on the potato which the flavors were good, the potatoes could’ve been cooked a little longer… not to say it didn’t come out hot just that the potatoes still weren’t soft in the center. Other than that no complaints with my food. The salad I went with the Caesar because I’ve come to the conclusion that if Albertsons can whip up a decent enough Caesar salad, anyone can. A tad salty, but I’m not complaining, I love salt. A simple concoction: iceberg, croutons, Parmesan, Caesar dressing.
I stole a bite or two of my PIC’s pasta. Pretty good. It had pepperoni and I think maybe sausage or some other kind of meat in it and of course topped with Parmesan. Basically it tasted like what I imagine pizza would taste like if it was a pasta.
Service from the hostess to the waitress was swift and pleasant. All smiles. And our food arrived fairly quickly. I did not bring up the plate issue to our waitress because when she came back she had our salads ready and we didn’t mind ripping off pieces of the bread and eating them over our salad bowls.

The low-​light atmosphere makes for a calm dining experience. The food itself is not particularly outstanding, but the variety is good. The olive oil with roasted garlic for the dipping sauce is nice. Just be aware that if the oil itself is not fresh, you may pay for it (intestinally) a few hours later.

Service was excellent but there was nothing special or different with the food. The chicken parmesana was greasy, over cooked.