Joe's Italian Ristorante Ponchatoula

"The service was awesome... our server was very attentive... very sweet,,, the atmosphere of the restaurant is quite delightful, almost romantic if you will... very clean, and not cluttered,,, with that out of the way, I was not impressed with most of the food. Although the cheese manicotti was good, as was the tiramisu. The meatballs were soggy and greyish. The chicken parmasian tasted like it was a frozen breaded cutlet.. (my wife made the comment that unless "Joe" works for Tyson,, he ain't back there cooking) and the hot rolls that came out first were only that..hot,, they had no flavor... I always feel so bad when I have to give an unflattering review, I know I'm nobody special. And this is his livelihood... maybe we came on an off day...maybe we didn't order the right stuff... I'll give it another shot next time we're back this way..."

"Just spend $80 for two people to eat what was seriously dinosaur chicken nugget meat and 100% fake crab meat. Never brought the salads that were supposed to come with the $80 meals. Valentine's night and there were only 5 meal options which were all over $25. Very unprofessional service; employees hanging out and goofing off while there's food on empty tables. You could hear employees screaming in the kitchen area. Super disappointed to spend so much and get such a bad experience. We will definitely go to Roux & Brew or Tope La next time and spend less and get good food with Real meat."

"This was our first time here. Amanda was very attentive and had a smile whenever she came to our table. She made suggestions based on our questions and we really enjoyed her as our server. The stuffed mushrooms are amazing! You can order a side of pasta for the extra sauce or sop it up with the bread they serve. Either way you won't be disappointed. My partner had the sampler called Tour of Sicily and she loved it. Amanda also pre-bused our table and ensured that we were never without wanting or waiting for anything. We didn't like the tiramisu. But otherwise everything was great! We would definitely be back and the food and service is way better than Olive Garden."

"Service is wonderful! Polite staff. Leila is so sweet and so is her sister in law. Bathrooms were clean and stocked. Food is excellent!! Forget about Olive Garden!!!! They provide complimentary bread and butter. Stuffed mushrooms for appetizer. Chicken marsala and spaghetti entrees. Glass of chardonnay and Italian margaritas (cones with a shot of amaretto) stuffed mushrooms were my favorite. Crispy stuffing. Spinach sauce was tasty and great for dipping the complimentary rolls into."

"I chose to give Joe's Italian Ristorante a try for my 35th birthday celebration, due to seeing several raves about it on Facebook. My mother, father, son and myself waited about 30 minutes to be seated, which I find to be average on a Saturday evening. Once seated, it took a while for our waitress to come to our table to get our drink orders. Once she did show up, we placed our drink order along with an order for the Joe's Artichoke Dip. She brought our drinks but then disappeared for a long time again. We ended up having to stop another server and ask him to get her for us. Once our server returned back to our table, we ordered our dinner entrees and asked about the Artichoke Dip, which come to find out, she never even ordered! After a while of waiting, another server set our dip on the table and walked off. We were unsure if we were supposed to get chips to eat with our dip or if we were supposed to eat it with the bread that had been at our table for a while at this point and which was mostly already all eaten...we again had to stop another server to ask, due to our server having never been been back to our table...come to find out, you eat the dip with the bread! The dip was absolutely amazing in my opinion but my parents were not a fan due to the large amount of garlic in it. The bread is great too by the way! Our cesar salad was brought to the table. My dad and I decided to order one and share as the waitress said it was large and plenty to share...not really true(priced that way though). The salad was horrible. The dressing isn't homeade and the salad doesn't even come with parmesean cheese. Finally after waiting forever, our food arrived. Again by another server, not ours. None of us were super thrilled with our dishes. My father and myself ordered the lobster and shrimp ravioli. My mother ordered the chicken picatta and my son got the kids spaghetti and meatball. The sauce and shrimp on my dish were absolutely amazing but the ravioli tasted horrible. They had an extreme fishy taste. My mothers chicken picatta had a very strong lemon flavor which one would expect but was super thick and just different than any other picatta I've had(best way to describe it). It was just ok but not a dish I would order again from here. My sons spaghetti and meatball was absolutely horrible. There wasn't even enough sauce to coat the pasta and the meatball was incredibly bland. At the end of the meal and having to ask for our server again, I got a lemoncello cake and my mother order the tiramisu. We didn't care for the tiramisu but the lemoncello was pretty good. To sum it up, our experience was absolutely horrible! I know it was mostly because our server was horrible which can always make things worse. I feel this place does have good food, but you just have to find what you like. I feel instead of the ravioli, I would just get the shrimp fettuccine alfredo next time and would probably love it...however this first experience was so bad that I worry I may alway just skip over this place when trying to decide where to eat in the future."