With Jackson’s limited list of intriguing restaurant choices, we often wind up eating at the same places over and over again. Recently, after the upmteenth dinner at Thai House or That New Mexican Place in the Old Kenny Roger’s Roasters location, we caught ourselves asking, “Why don’t we ever think to try Panino’s?”
So, with two friends in tow, we scoot over to Lakeland Drive and make our way to one of Panino’s scattered tables. The seat we’re offered backs up to one of several huge speakers on the central performance stage … but there’s no band in sight, so we stow my crutches against a handy wall and make ourselves at home.
Right up front: if you’re looking for a dinner spot that encourages quiet conversation … look elsewhere. Panino’s has a pressed tin ceiling — easy on the eyes, but it turns the place into an acoustic nightmare. The restaurant is essentially one huge open space, and there’s nothing to absorb sound waves. Once a noise occurs, it richochets around the walls, picking up volume as it goes.
Panino’s should also be avoided by those with poor eyesight. Someone’s trying to create atmosphere by dimming the lights, with unfortunate results: not one person at our table could read the menus our hostess dumped in front of us. (Once we broke out the flashlight keychains, our waiter scurried over with a candle.)
Speaking of the waiter: we got one or two glimpses of him … and then he was outta there. Eventually, after asking one random waitress for a drink refill and another random waitress about the fate of our orders, I stopped a third waitress and asked if our waiter had died.
Not long after, our waiter resurrected himself and made a brief (red-faced, huffing) appearance at our table. “I’ve got this other table of ten people,” he said. “And they’re drinking a lot. It’s keeping me pretty busy.” His version of this story went on for many paragraphs longer; suffice it to say that, by the time he moved on, I felt as though he’d mistaken me for his therapist.
The food, once it appeared, was tasty: lobster ravioli, chicken parmigiana, fresh salads. It’s a good thing we didn’t arrive hungry, though, as it took fifteen minutes for someone to bring us bread, an additional half-hour before salads appeared, and forty additional minutes before the kitchen delivered our entrees. Other diners agreed with us: the kitchen is s-l-o-w.
Two minutes after dinner appeared (and almost two hours after we were seated), the band took to the stage. The Rainmakers may, when heard from a distance, make sweet music. Our table, though, butted right up against the speakers … so all we could hear was pounding electronic noise loud enough to rattle our silverware.
This cacaphony, paired with the appearance of several straight couples engaged in what could have been billed as the Ultimate Redneck Boogie-Woogie Contest, sent us scrambling for the door. We demanded the check (“Quickly, please.”) and went elsewhere for dessert.
If you’ve got three hours to dedicate to dinner … if you’re aroused at the sight of bearded, beer-bellied men schwinging it on the dance floor with redneck babes in tight tank tops … if you like your dinner conversation drowned out by *loud* music — then Panino’s will be your favorite local spot for lasagne, ravioli, and pasta.
You can even have our table, up there by the loudspeakers. We won’t be needing it!
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