Nonna's Italian Cafe

Welcome back!  First of all, we would like to say a big thank you to everyone who has been following our little journey.  It's already been a lot of fun and we are excited to keep it up!

This week's entry is about Nonna's Italian Cafe on South Street.  We decided Italian sounded good and we had been inside Nonna's before but had never actually eaten there.  Nonna's is a very cool little restaurant.  There is plenty of seating and the atmosphere is pretty awesome.  The walls are lined with art from local artists that you can actually purchase on one side and the other side is a ton of old family photos.  It has a really homey feel and is very comfortable.  We once again went for lunch and were told to seat ourselves.

Our server approached us and gave us our menus.  The only big knock that we have against Nonna's was the service.  It wasn't the worst ever, but it wasn't good.  It took a long time to get drink refills the entire time (which is something that is a big pet peeve of mine) and there generally wasn't service available a lot during our meal.  Our orders were taken promptly and there wasn't a big delay on our food, but there was just no real attention paid to us other than those two times.  We were one of only two occupied tables in the entire restaurant.  This was pretty disappointing considering how great the atmosphere was as well as the food.

The menu had a lot of the standard fare you would expect for a Italian restaurant, but there were also several dishes that you would normally not see as well.  I tried the Ratatouille (more on that below) and Sarai ordered the Chicken Parmesan.  On a side note, Sarai ordered the Chicken Parmesan because I picked on her for wanting to order the Fettucine Alfredo, which she always orders.  Everywhere.  All the time.  She told me that she was going to order something different just to spite me.  She did, but the Chicken Parmesan comes with a side of Fettucine Alfredo.  Touche.

Overall Experience:  ★    ★    ★    ☆   ☆  

Service:  ★    ★   ☆   ☆   ☆  

Food:   ★    ★    ★    ★  ☆  

Atmosphere:  ★    ★   ★   ½   ☆  

Justin's Impressions

The first thing I have to say about Nonna's is that I love the restaurant itself.  It is just a very comfortable place to grab a bite to eat.  We passed on an appetizer for salad and I was really glad we did.  I tend to like a lot of dressing on my salads and restaurants tend to not put a lot of dressing on salads.  This can be a problem.  It wasn't at Nonna's.  I ordered the Caesar Salad and they put a ton of dressing on it.  This was awesome for me, but might not be for you.  So just a heads up.

As stated above I tried the Ratatouille.  I wanted to try it solely because I spent a significant amount of time while babysitting my niece Kylie watching the movie and I always said I'd order it if I saw it on a menu.  I was pretty impressed.  Ratatouille is a pasta dish with squash, zucchini, peppers, mushrooms, onions, tomatoes, garlic, herbs, and white wine over a bed of pasta and topped with mozzarella.  It was really good, however, it is not the kind of dish that I would normally order.  I like meat.  The fact that I like this dish really surprised me.  It was light and delicious.  I'd recommend it for lunch any time.

My only complaint is that their glasses are really small.  My motto at restaurants is to, "Establish yourself as a drinker."  Small glasses coupled with lackluster service meant my glass was empty most of the time.  That is not an awesome thing.  However, I'd still recommend Nonna's, maybe we just caught the service on a bad day.

Sarai's Impressions
First impression of Nonna's was the quaint atmosphere. It's warm and inviting. I love that local artist are welcomed and encouraged to display their art on the walls there for all to enjoy or purchase. I love the idea of local businesses supporting other local businesses and artists.

The server was friendly enough. Not too great in the personality department, but he seemed nice enough. He is what I like to call "The bare minimum" type.  I ordered the Cesar Salad for my appetizer, and had the bread they put out on the table for us. It was pretty average, as bread and salad can go.  I had the Chicken Parmesan for my main course. It came with Fettuccine Alfredo on the side (Which, everyone knows, is my favorite.) I thought it was incredibly tasty.  I can get pretty picky when it comes to fried foods covered in sauce, but they were somehow able to keep the crust on the chicken crispy after slathering it in their fresh red sauce. The Alfredo side dish was amazing, but more garlicky than I am used to. All the same, quite tasty in my book. I recommend Nonna's for another go around one day. It seems like a cute place for a lunch date with friends, or a night out with your honey :)

One down side?- Gratuity had been calculated (not included, but calculated) on the bottom of the check. I don't really think that's classy at all. It's a little rude to presume that you  deserve the average tip automatically, or to assume that someone doesn't know how to calculate how much  they owe you. Does any one really use the old '10% of the check' rule anymore? What year is this?

For more information on Nonna's and other locations we have visited, click the "Eateries Visited"  tab located along the top of this page.

Thanks for reading! Can't wait until next Wednesday.