This was our first time to Pinocchio's. Â I must say that it was a very good dining experience. Â No lie. Â Sorry about that. Â
Anyway, our orders ranged from pizza to pasta. Â The portions are large enough to share or you can plan on taking some home. Â The wait staff was very friendly and efficient. Â In fact, everyone there seemed happy. Â The diners were happy the wait staff was happy and, Â of course, the bar goers were happy. Â Why wouldn't they be? Â It was flashback Friday so even the music was to our liking.
All around it was a great dining experience and we will definitely be back.
Came for JY's birthday dinner on Thursday night. The restaurant wasn't too packed but we had made reservations anyway. Located on the downtown area, the interior is modern with a mixture of booth seats and high tops.The bar area is very casual, and they have additional upstairs seating lofted above the bar. I also really liked the windows and natural lighting.
Happy hour wasn't too impressive, just a buck or two less than their normal prices, but the drink menu isn't too expensive to begin with. Birthday girl enjoyed her fruity cocktail, as did our other friend hers.
Three of us ordered different pizzas (thin crust type), and one ordered lasagna. We swapped around slices of pizza, and all were consistently good with fresh ingredients! We each ate half of the 12", and took the rest home for lunch the next day.I didn't try the lasagna, but was told that it was also delicious and filling.
Half star off only because I've had similar pizza for less, but the ambiance does make up for it a bit, especially for a casual celebration. Our server was also nice enough to provide us with a few small plates to eat the cake we brought in from the store =)
Went here with my family. We got: the chicken strip kids meal - the French fries are awesome, I liked the chicken. Chicken and broccoli rigatoni - it was ok, the portion was HUGE. Eggplant spaghetti - a nice twist compared to just plane old spaghetti. The service was good and the people were very nice and helpful. I will definitely be going back again. Pinocchio's is a good place to go with family or a night out with friends. I loved the booths, they were really big and comfy.
Review Source:I went with my 3 buddies, one of my friend got the strawberry shortcake gelato, he said it was ok, I had the Lasagna Blanco, it was ok not too bad for Merced, pretty good quality food for a small town like Merced, where they just have fastfood, and smaller business restaurants that are not on par with Pinocchio's. It was cheesy, and good subtle flavor, nice presentation.
Two of my friends got the eggplant pasta with red sauce. One of my friends recommended it with white sauce but they got red sauce anyway. One said the pasta and eggplant kind of dry, the other said it was really good.
Overall very good service, the waiter constantly asked if we were doing good and well. It was nice there were two tvs, with the Giants and Heats playing. Nice atmosphere, and decor and decent food for Merced.
Hubby and I stopped at Merced to grab a bite before going to Fresno. Saw this place and thought we would give it a try. As soon as we walked in, we were greeted by this lovely server with a welcoming smile. We were seated at a big booth by the window facing Bob Hart Park. Menus & utensils were presented right away...and waters too. We ordered the Genoa pizza to share and 2 coffees. The coffee was delicious!!! It was lunch time on a Friday and it was getting busy...but our pizza came in like 15 minutes. My hubby loves thin crust but I prefer thick. But that's ok....the toppings were flavorful. Throughout the meal, the server was very attentive & still smiling, coming to refill our coffee & water at the right time !!!! She made us feel so comfortable and welcomed.....I should have asked her name. She deserves big tips !!!! Also probably the manager with a notepad came to ask us how our pizza tasted. Such great service. It shows they care ......I will definitely recommend this place. Next time we will definitely try the sandwiches. Â They looked absolutely scrumptious and filling.
Review Source:Came to Merced on business so decided to try this place. I ordered the blanco lasagna which was filled with ricotta, mozzarella, mushrooms and spinach. I loved the taste but I like my pasta a little more tender. The portions were huge and came with 2 pieces of yummy cheese bread. My box is enough for 2 more meals. My vegan friend had the eggplant spaghetti but she says nothing special just a piece of eggplant on top of spaghetti. The side salad was good too.
Review Source:It took them over 30 minutes to get us our sandwiches; Hot Pastrami, Meatball, Grilled Chicken, and Italian Sausage! They had a full staff, six employees!
It was a quiet Sunday we went there for lunch. There were literally three tables of four including us.
Slow and spotty service at best; he didn't even come by to refill our drinks. Food was just okay, how can you go wrong with sandwiches?
In summary poor service, ok food, and pricey....Subway would have been a better choice.
I have been here twice. Its nothing special. Service is a bit slow but maybe just during the times I went. I got there at 12pm and the food didn't come out until 12:35... Which is long time for just sandwiches for 4 people. I wasn't blown away and "meh, I've experienced better" says it all
Review Source:Nothing to write home about. The meatball sando was ok. The accompanying salad came one bite too late. & the service could have used some help. But, I hear it's the happening place in Merced. My friend, who's a local, loves this spot. Perhaps I made the wrong choices that night? Who knows. My other friend ordered a white lasagna and loved it. Go figure.
Review Source:My husband I went to Pinocchio's a few weeks ago because we heard about how great the pizza is--well IT IS GREAT!!! Â Have to wait a bit longer, but hey (as Uncle Si would say) it was worth the wait--can't make a great pizza in 5 minutes. Â Going back for lunch today. Â Â The staff was awesome--place was clean--Merced definitely needs restaurants like this--great job!!!
Review Source:Came in today and I was absolutely AMAZED by the ambience. Loved it. We were seated on the top floor and were served drinks immediately. The servers took a bit too long to take our order (-1 star). But it was so worth the wait, The beef ravioli was to die for. I'm still fighting off a food coma as I write this.
The gelato was amazing. The cookies and cream and the vanilla bean were delicious! I find myself coming back for more! Thank you!!!
Color me SURPRISED this place doesn't have more 5-star reviews! We had lunch at noon on a Tuesday, were seated promptly although the restaurant was fairly busy, and were served drinks as soon as we were seated. We were handed our menus and as soon as we set them on the table our order was taken. Appetizers and salads were served to us in a decent amount of time and our food was served literally as soon as we were done with our appetizers. Service was the best I'd had in years.
FOOD: Salads, soups, appetizers were basic Italian fare. They weren't knock-your-socks-off great but you definitely ate them, ate all of it, and wouldn't complain. They are fairly priced.  I ordered the "Pinocchio's Special" sandwich which was spicy capicola, pepperoni, and genoa salami on a roll with grilled yellow onion and pepperoncini. The sandwich was to die for. It smelled like every family-owned Italian restaurant  you'd ever been in and it was spicy to boot! The sandwich was a little more expensive than I would have liked to spend, but because i took more than half of it home in a box made it worth the price since it was now a 2-meal sandwich.  The wife got the Blanco Lasagna which was lasagna, chicken, mushrooms and ricotta covered in a white sauce. It came with garlic bread and it was well worth the price since she couldn't even eat half of it without taking it home in a box.
Good food, humongous portions, and a friendly staff make this a five-star restaurant in my book and we will definitely be coming back as long as it will allow us.
Meh, this place is okay but I wouldn't come back. Our female server was super attentive and that's why I added a star to the two stars I gave the food and drinks. Our server was nice enough to make garlic fries happen because they weren't on the menu BUT let's just say I can see why they weren't on the menu (no good). Margarita was super weak--tasted like lemonade. Asked the food runner dude if the bar could make it stronger and he said that the bartenders usually pour really strong drinks. He said he'd check on it but never came back--jerk. However, I did find out that I would have to pay an additional $4.50 just to make my drink a real margarita, I mean stronger. Passed up that suggestion. Bloody mary was awful--it looked like the drink had been sitting out for a few days and tasted like...yeah, I won't even go there. Pasta was bland... Blah. I'll just cut my review here. I didn't like the place but maybe you will. Anyway, I recommend being seated upstairs as it was much quieter from my experience. :)
Review Source:My friend and I enjoyed a nice lunch/ early dinner, and the food was really good. Â My cheese ravioli w/red sauce was good and filling, and the garlic bread that came with it was quite nice. Â The only down side was that they did not make the pasta onsite (if they would have made the pasta there, it would have been worth another star).
My friend enjoyed the Lasagna Blanco, with the white sauce, and said it was the best lasagna she'd ever had, and would be thrilled to eat there again (and, by the way, she Is Not a fan of Italian food!). Â She was also impressed with her Long Island Ice Tea, saying she could not even taste the alcohol.
The service was good, with bright, smiling staff. Â
When it comes to portion size for the price, well, it was a good value.
The next time I'm in downtown Merced, and in the mood for Italian food, I'll make my way to Pinocchio's!
Had a great dinner with the family. Â food is fresh, service is great. Â We went on a week night and it was easy to find a table. Â The place is clean and also fun to people watch. Â It can get a little loud due to the acoustics. Â You must try the dessert!! Â Had the waffle with Gelato, bananas, and carmel. Â Great to see a restaurant like this open up in Merced. Â Try it out - you will dig it!
Review Source:Spotty service at best. Sitting at a bar you should have no problem placing food orders or getting drinks refilled, since they only have to look over at you and not walk more than 3 steps, but it was like pulling teeth to get the attention of the barmaid who supposedly had the station. Caidy or Kati or whatever her name was, was slow as molasses and I had to catch the eye of another waitress to even place my food order while I watched a ball game. It took so long for the food to come that I assume that the order didn't get put in to the kitchen at the time I placed it. Â I had a pizza which was OK, with a crisp crust, but they took a year to come figure my bill, and when it came it was wrong and she over charged me. Another waitress corrected it when I pointed out to them that they had overcharged me, but I was not impressed. Caity or Kati or whatever her name was said she was sorry to keep me waiting for my bill when she brought the overcharging bill over, but that she had bumped into her kid's teacher and was having a chat, like that's a reason to keep patrons waiting even longer to get out of this place after giving slow service to begin with?
I have eaten there once before  (also at the bar) and had pasta which was just OK. The barmaid that time could not even figure out how to mix a Manhattan and acted like that was some unusual cocktail (I guess anything other than beer or a glass of wine was beyond her ability). She actually had to look in a bartender's guide book to see what was in a Manhattan even after I told her the three ingredients. They didn't even have Angostura Bitters at their "full bar".  I predict they run through their operating loan in about 12 months and close up shop if their service remains this poor.
I have eaten here multiple times in very different group sizes. I have gone here with my husband, my brother-, sister-, & mother-in-law, & my adult niece; I have also gone and met up with a friend. As a family, I experienced very slow service & confusions with the orders. At one point my sister-in-law & I went to the bar to order our cocktails directly in the hopes we would get them sooner - they took 30 minutes & were nothing elaborate. We ordered every type of food.
The salads are great, the sandwiches are good, the pastas are generally pretty poor*, the pizzas are fair-good. The pastas have a tendency to be either very over or very under cooked, and the sauces sometimes taste like Cisco; however, some of the dishes come out fantastic - I had a squash dish where the squash was grated into fine "vermicelli" and served with a wonderful & very obviously freshly made sauce. It really seems to be just the actual noodle dishes that are problematic. The portioning is not very reliable either - sometimes there are massive servings & other times you get the portion size associated with "fine dining" (e.g. um, tiny).
Sitting in the bar section at the raised tables, I get far better service than if I sit in the booths. There is potential for Pinocchio's to be better & since it's still getting on it's feet, I took this into account (if it had been open for a substantial amount of time, I would have 1-2 starred it). For the price & what is included on the menu, combined with all the wonderful Merced business gossip, I expect better. When my family pays almost $200 for dinner, I don't expect caviar but I do expect much better service (I've actually encountered outright rudeness from our server) & a more consistent quality of food.
Some friends of ours want to try here tonight & while I cringed because I'd rather spend the equivalent at the Branding Iron & get a decent steak or just go out of town, I'll try it again because it's been a couple weeks & I keep seeing small improvements. :Deep breath: We'll see. I'll amend this if it changes drastically one way or another.
As a last note, they do not actually take reservations, unless you have a really big party & they consider it financially prudent. This irritates me a little only because I don't think you should advertise that you do take reservations but actually only take them on a highly subjective basis. At least qualify it with "reservations for parties of 10 or more" or something!
Very disappointed in the "grilled chicken salad". Had pizza here once and it was good. Â Surprised they could ruin a salad. Chicken seemed baked not grilled and the dressing was horrible. Hardly any feta cheese either. Don't order that salad! Â Our server was good so I gave 1 star for him.
Review Source:FOOD: We ordered a 6-inch pastrami sandwich (half-size) with sausage and zucchini soup and the Milan pizza. Â The pastrami sandwich was served on white toasted bread with mustard and peperoncini. Â There was a good amount of pastrami to make the sandwich hardy. Â The 12-inch Milan pizza had grilled chicken, artichoke heart, and basil on white sauce. Â My wife thought it was good, but I found it a bit bland and too cheesy.
SERVICE: We arrived around 12pm on a Friday for lunch, and the place had a good crowd. Â We were seated quickly, but the waiter put us in a corner table for two that was uncomfortably tight (I'm used to more space at a sit-down restaurant. Â It took only about 10 minutes for us to get our food.
PRICE: We paid about $27 (including tip) for what we ordered, which is fine for quality food in a middle-scale restaurant in town..
OVERALL: Quality food, great service, and okay value!
I really enjoy this place. I love the atmosphere and the service is awesome! My only complaint is we got dessert and for how much we paid it should have been more. (Piece of brownie and a small scoop of ice cream for $7 and it was on special!) The rest of the menu is awesomely priced. I can't wait to head back:)
Review Source:My wife and I eat out often and are often frustrated by the lack of options in Merced. Â We have been to Pinnocchios six or seven times since they have open and have found it a nice diversion from the old standards.
We usual dine before the party crowd shows up and love to eat at the bar and watch a game; this is easily accomplished at Pinnocchios if you're there before 7:30PM.
The management and staff welcome us when we walk in the door and in fact we've been made to feel like we're part of the family.
So far the pizza has been very good and consistent in quality and presentation each time we've been there. Â The salads are fine, but the sandwhiches are very nice and for us just the right size. Â We have only tried the lazagna on the pasta list, but it too was worthy of a repeat order.
So, for us it's a great, resonably priced option. Â We hope they continue to thrive!
I had dinner here on a Friday night with my fiance and we had mixed feelings about the place. The food was very very good. We started with bruschetta which was great and for dinner I had beef ravioli and my fiance had the papa pinoke pizza. Both of our meals were quite delicious and our waitress was great too. She was very attentive and super nice. The only downside was the noise. If you are looking for a quiet place for dinner...this is not the place. We sat upstairs against the side wall and we could hear every conversation from upstairs to downstairs. I think it might just be the design of the building, but the noise was a tad too much, however based of the food we would definitely return.
Review Source:Went here for the first time tonight. I've heard great things about the restaurant. I'd have to say first and foremost, it's loud. So don't expect a nice ambiance. The bar is so close to the seating. You hear all the drunks. Also, you can hear the rock music playing in the kitchen. It annoyed me. If they had partitions up, it would probably make it a lot better. The place is nice, fresh paint etc. The food was good, I had the Chicken & Broccoli Fettuccine. Good portion sizes also. If you like a loud dining experience this is the place for you.
Review Source:Had a GIRLS NIGHT OUT this past Friday for the premier of "Magic Mike".  My friend chose this place.  I was told it was new, so I was excited to try it, until I saw the menu :-(  They only serve pizzas, pastas, and I think hot & cold sandwiches, so not a lot of options.  They do have appetizers, I'd recomment the fried raviolis :-)  Over all my  experience wasa little disappointing.  Service was horrible and very very very very SLOW.  This is probably something they really need to work on.  However the food I ordered was good.  I liked the pizza & the fried raviolis, but then again, because the food took so long we were forced to scarf everything down or we would have been late... (BTW, for the ladies reading this comment, if you haven't seen MAGIC MIKE, then you should!) Â
I think I'll wait a little while longer before I go back to this restaurant again, maybe just until they settle in.
I went here last night, it was busy, and this place is new, so it might have something to do with it, me and my girlfriends sister had the chicken fettuccine, and my girlfreind had the raviolis, me and my girlfriends sister thought our dishes lacked flaver, my word in the sauce needed to be richer and probably thicker, it was like the sauce was watered down, I could have took alfredo sauce off the shelf at savemart and that would have been much better, my girlfriend liked her raviolis, but I did taste that as well, even though better than the plate that I had, it was " alright ", the other complaint was stay away from the upstairs on a hot day, they got no ac, it's tolarable,but it is a little warm , the bright side is the staff is pleasant and helpfull, and confused because most of them are new, I thought the hostess was great, because this place is so new, I will came back in a month or so, and give them another try, if the food aint good, I don't care how good the staff is I will not came back.
Review Source:Pinocchio's Restaurant has been open for 7 days. I want to give them more time to iron out any kinks and hit their stride, but in the meantime, I'll tell you what I know, and then offer my 2 cents:
There are other Pinocchio's owned by family members in California, and this place is run by someone who has lived in Merced for awhile now. They serve: Pizza, Italian sandwiches, Pasta, Gelato, and they have a full bar. It's where Bishop's on the Square used to be, so it has 2 floors (windows overlooking Main Street and Bob Hart Square), and it's been repainted in warm earth tones. There are some television screens near the bar with sports playing, but I don't remember them being noisy. To me, the prices are super affordable, taking into consideration their location (downtown, Main Street, lots of windows). Open 7 days a week. Even though there's a full bar, they have family-friendly booths and a kids menu. Outdoor seating maybe in a month.
Ok now for my 2 cents!
The wait staff are all friendly-- no one has been snooty, I have not been ignored, and all my questions are answered. Everyone seems pretty happy, not stressed out, so that's nice. I haven't heard management yell at anyone, which is always nice (it's Merced, so yes, I have heard this before...)
I had one of the pizzas a few days ago and it was good. The crust is sort of between medium and thin, and it's not soggy and not super crispy. I got the pizza that has a lot of vegetables, and it was pretty good. Not addicting, but not bad. We also ordered a house salad, but they skimped on some of the toppings, such as pepperoncinis. I liked the dressing, and it was mostly green and not iceberg.
The gelato is good-- no complaints there.
The pasta: ok, so if you don't eat gluten, I think there's one option for you: spaghetti squash pasta. If you're vegetarian, you have that or the spaghetti w/eggplant. Otherwise, as of today, you're SOL for pasta. Maybe you can ask them to make certain pastas without chicken or something, but anything that is filled can't be substituted as far as I know. So if you want ravioli, lasagna, etc. with a vegetarian filling, look elsewhere.
One thing confuses me: some pasta comes with a side of salad or soup, while others don't. I do not understand why that is. But the prices are good enough that it doesn't upset me.
This will be my go-to place once they have outdoor seating. Go-to for drinks and dessert, go-to for dinner with friends, maybe even for lunch. The food is WAY better than Fernando's, and I really want this place to make it. I love being able to sit in this building again-- such great views.
WISH LIST: more vegetarian options, more dessert options (panna cotta, tiramisu), and either a specials list or more expensive part of the menu that offers house-made pasta noodles and organic veggies and fish. I'd totally pay up for that stuff.
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