The Italian Oven Restaurant - Johnstown

The Italian Oven has been our favorite place to eat for over 20 years. We would eat there almost weekly, whether it was in person or takeout. It was better than Olive Garden! However, I understand it is now under new ownership and the food is now inedible. I have never in my life sent food back simply because it tasted bad before tonight.The Alfredo sauce was flavorless, gritty, and watery. It was as if they mixed water with some Parmesan Cheese and called it Alfredo. I asked for a meat sauce instead, which was just a big pile of ground beef on my pasta. Like eating a sloppy joe on pasta. Everything was greatly lacking in seasoning.The house Italian dressing used to be so good, but now it was just oil with some herbs in it. Again, no salt and tasteless. They were out of Italian Wedding Soup, leaving only 1 kind of soup, Red Pepper Cream. Which just tasted like a bowl of pasta sauce.A nice touch was always the mints by the counter at the end of your meal. No more mints.I am so disappointed. My favorite restaurant has been ruined! Sadly, I will never eat here again unless I hear the old recipes are back.Also, I have seen several recent bad reviews on their Facebook page about the changes and the posts have been deleted. A better way to handle these bad reviews is to correct the problems and respond instead of deleting!

Casual dining in the mall! My sibling and I were seated quickly since it was pretty quiet so far. The seating is fun- you have crayons at the table and you're allowed to color on it, so it's a great time pass for children and adults alike. We played tik tak toe. The server was personable and friendly and very attentive. The food is not bad, but not great. Perhaps I am overly critical as I've been to some fantastic restaurants and I understand more rural restaurants have a different style of cooking I may be used to, so I'm trying to factor that as well. However, the pastas were heavily oiled and not in a pleasant way. Not pictured, both my sibling and I had custom pastas. She had pesto, I had olive oil and garlic. Her pesto was so oily she used the excess as dressing for her (complimentary) salad. My "mixed veggies" seemed like they were from a frozen bag. Her pesto pasta overall however - Sans obscene amounts of oil- was tasty. Mine was too, with some salt/pepper/parm. Also bruschetta was very tasty, but served hot. Maybe I'm not used to it but I thought it was odd. Not really a complaint though. We ordered breaded zucchini, as well. Breading was different than what you'd normally batter with (this was almost like a tempura batter) and I wish the slices of zucchini were thicker, as I feel these were literally paper thin. A let down really. Portions are very healthy however. Salad that comes complimentary with pasta was simple (iceberg lettuce, few tomatoes/onion) but delicious. There is complimentary bread as well when you sit. Overall, I think the restaurant is worth going to if you want quick service and good food. Also very family friendly.

DEFINITELY TRY THE BUFFALO CHICKEN PIZZA!! Our waitress was very nice and got our food and drinks in a timely manner! We were treated very well. Also I recommend trying the Italian Oven side salads. You will not be disappointed! Next time you are at the Johnstown Galleria you have to stop!! I will definitely be back :)

Good food, good service, no wait. I also got the cannolis which I thought were good as well.

Favorite restaurant from years ago in Mechanicsburg now we drive 2.5 hours to the original location in Johnstown

On Valentines day we waited 30 minutes only to be told the kit hen would be closing and we would not be served. There were also several parties behind us. What a worthless experience. Please close if you cant plan for Valentines day. This occurred at 620 pm.

Was always one of my favorite restaurant to go. After my latest visit that is no longer the case. The service and friendliness of the staff was very nice. That was the extent of the good. The bad was the chicken was over cooked. Was like chewing on jerky. The alfredo sauce was about the consistency of milk. One in our group asked for there to be very light oil on their pasta. It was swimming in it. The wedding soup looked like it had chunks of Hamburg with cut up noodles in it. Overall, only 1 of 4 meals was just OK. Seems to me that management and quality control has just disappeared. Will not return till I hear better things about the place.

Under New Management now makes sense........Months ago we ordered Stromboli for 'take out' - horrible. They were so bad, I called for a refund. Amazingly, the manager was never there, and I never received a return call. We stopped for 'dine in' thinking the take out incident was a fluke. Nope....the bread was hard, the wedding soup tasted as bad as it looked, both entrees (sausage and zucchini with red pepper cream and a pasta deluxe) were nothing close to what we were expecting from our numerous years dining there.

Under new ownership. We want the old owner back. I used to love the red pepper CREAM soup. Its not cream anymore, it's red water. The fettuccini Alfredo was sweet. Why was it sweet? Takes forever to get your food and that's NOT the servers fault. I used to recommend this restaurant all the time, not anymore. Will NOT be back. The wait staff is amazing though!

new owner changed all recipes, food was burnt, swimming in oil, pasta overcooked and not flavorful. on plus side the waitresses were great