5 J’s Italian Dining

We have been looking for a good italian restaurant outside of North Denver for a long time, only to be disappointed again and again. Finally, a place that lives up to our standards! I will admit, the salad leaves a lot to be desired, but you can get salad somewhere else. We love everything we have tried so far, and plan on working our way through the menu. The calzones are awesome, and if you get the large, it is HUGE!!! We took it home inside a cake box. The sauce is soooo delicious, i could eat it by itself. I hope they are here to stay.

We had a discount coupon for this place, and, since it was on our way home, we thought we’d give it a try.
We showed up on Wednesday evening which is the «All-​you-​can-​eat» spaghetti night for $ 5.99. That’s a pretty good deal since the same spaghetti on the menu is $ 9.99 with bread, and your choice of salad or minestrone. Since we couldn’t use the coupon for the Wednesday special, I went ahead and ordered the spaghetti off the regular menu just to see what it was like.
Spaghetti is a good determiner of an Italian restaurant. Some restaurants are better at some dishes, and some are better at others, but few are good at everything. With the spaghetti, however, that’s a basic staple, and every Italian restaurant should do well with that. The first thing to note about this restaurant’s spaghetti is that, even though they talk about Mama’s Marinara, the marinara generally isn’t ‘vegetarian.’ According to the waiter, it somehow was on this day. So, right off, I have to say that I did not get the regular sauce, but I also have to say that I would not have ordered the marinara if it were not vegetarian, or if they warmed meatballs or sausage in it as some places do.
Anyway, I got my spaghetti, and found it to be very «pedestrian.» It was OK, it was decent, but there really wasn’t anything special about it — no exceptional flavor, no thick sauce, and no real charisma. The spaghetti, itself, was your standard ‘thin’ spaghetti readily available at any grocery store, and the presentation was very, very plain — just a regular-​sized mound of white pasta on a normal-​sized plate topped with a small amount of this marinara/​non-​marinara sauce. Now, I can eat a lot of food, and I might go after this on the «All-​you-​can-​eat for $ 5.99,» but it really didn’t stack up to $ 10.00 worth of past that I’ve received at other restaurants. Also, I got the minestrone with my mine, and I did not care for it. I could get this same meal at DiCicco’s in Olde Town Arvada, (about two miles away), for the same price in a cuter restaurant, and it would be twice as good. The DiCicco’s minestrone is so much better it makes 5J’s seem almost like dog food. I did not try 5J’s homemade spaghetti noodles, but I wish I had. I like the homemade noodles, and I would have liked to see what they had to offer.
All in all, this is a nice, friendly place trying to make a go of it in a new, uninviting area, (lots of competition), that has seen many other restaurants fail. I hope they have the clientele to keep everything going while they iron out the bugs, but they do have bugs. For instance, we stood at the door for almost ten minutes just waiting to be seated, and it was not very busy at all — they seem to be understaffed, or staffed with inexperienced people. Also, it took us over an hour to be seated, have our order taken, and finish dining — so, it’s definitely not fast food, or some place you want to go when you are in a hurry, (my wife ordered coffee, and the waiter forgot about it until we were almost finished with our meal).
Yeah, they have some bugs to work out, and, if they can do it before they go bankrupt, this might turn into a nice, little dining experience.

I would mark this a zero, but, unfortunately that’s not an option. We went there with my family, and granted we had a party of 11, but they didn’t even recognize we were there. They told us «I think you can sit there, if you all fit» and then never even came over to talk to us, get our food order, or even a drink. The owner kept walking by us and talking to everyone else, but never once even talked to us. We sat there for about 10 minutes and left. We went there because we were told of the good food for a mom and pop shop, but the service is horrendous. Maybe I’ll go back, maybe not. But I definitely do not like the way that we were treated. 11 people may be a lot, but it usually gets you a bigger tip, especially in our case where we tip over the recommended amount.

I don’t know what people are complaining about. This restaurant was phenominal. My wife and I went to 5 J’s after a day at Water World. The food was spectacular and extremely reasonable for an italian restaurant. I had the Lasagna and my wife had rigatoni with meatballs. The portions were HUGE!!! 5 J’s stands for 5 Johnson’s. This is the last name of the family that owns and operates the restraunt and obviously there are five of them. The chef’s mother was full-​blooded italian. This is where the idea and the recipies came from. Altogether, it was a great experience.

I rarely have anything bad enough at a restaurant that I feel the need to rat the restaurant out, but unfortunately I have to do that in this instance. I saw a lot of good reviews on this place, so I thought I’d try their pizza. I just had 2.5-slices of the worst pizza I have had in my life. This is worse than 1980s Tombstone Pizzas. The dough is tasteless and doughy, the sauce tastes like no spices were used, and the pizza had an off smell to it. I mention that it seemed like there was no spice, but I must be wrong because based on the dryness of my entire mouth two-​hours later I have to assume I just received 300% of my recommended daily sodium intake, but even that didn’t add flavor. I don’t mean to be mean, but man, what a letdown. The tasteless pizza sauce makes me think that all of the dishes are probably similar. This place would be doing itself a favor by serving Boboli’s with Prego instead of their own crust and sauce.

Mostly, a great family-​owned restaurant with tasty food, adequate portions and very friendly staff. And, although most of what we ordered was lovely, there is definite room for improvement. I ordered the Italian Beef sandwich (my mouth watering for a gravy-​soaked Chicago original with spicy giardiniera). What I got instead was a French Dip on burned bread with a side of Au Jeu. I was so disappointed, it ruined my whole meal. Not sure we’ll be back.

Wonderful Food — Large Portions!
I had heard of this restaurant over a year ago and have been wanting to try it, but it is/​was located in a part of town I seldom visit. My wife was in the mood for Italian food last night so I thought it would be a good time to give try. We went to the address listed on Unilocal (and other sites that came up on the Google search), but we found the building was vacant. So I called the restaurant and was told that they moved from Thornton to Arvada. After deliberating for several minutes we decided to make the additional trek to their new location to give it a try, and we were not disappointed!
We started with the meatball appetizers (Delicious!!), then moved on to soup & salad. My wife had the home made minestrone (she loved it!) and my son had the home made Tuscan potato (it was a hit). I had a dinner salad that was nothing to write home about, but the lettuce was fresh and crisp. Next came the main course — we all had trouble deciding on what to order because everything sounded really good! I took our server’s suggestion and ordered the lasagna — it was the best I have ever had! My teenage son (the bottomless pit) ordered a full calzone and couldn’t finish it because it was so big. He went on and on about how good it was and how fresh the ingredients tasted. My wife had the Spaghetti and could immediately tell that both the noodles and sauce were freshly made.
Next, our server informed us that the desserts were half price that night, so we decided to indulge. I ordered the fresh Canoli’s and my son had the fresh cheesecake topped with cherries. Both were well worth the indulgence!
Overall, our service was good and the atmosphere was exactly what we expected for a family-​style Italian kitchen. The portions were large and we felt the prices were very reasonable for the food we ate. None of us left hungry and we all walked out with containers of left-​overs for lunch the next day.
I would definitely recommend this restaurant, and we are already planning to make the trek over to Arvada again real soon and introduce some close friends to 5 J’s.

So, I’ve been here before and wasn’t too fond of it, but the boyfriend was hungry and it’s close. Gave it another try, it failed miserably. Our waitress, (don’t know her name cuz she’s in t-​shirt & jeans, and didn’t tell it to us) came to get our drink order. Seemed like she had something else she’d rather be doing. We ordered the cheesy artichoke dip and a carafe of White Zin. «Ok, and that was Chianti, right?» Uhm… NO!
Soo… The dip arrives with a plop and she walks away. WTF?! The bowl of dip looks like somebody put too much in, then scooped half of it out. Plus three pieces of, admittedly yummy, Texas Toast cut in half. Not worth $ 7. We finally got the waitresses attention after a few minutes, joking with her about the quantity of dip. «No, that’s right.» ?? They ‘graciously’ took it off the bill. Uhm… Thank you? Suffice it to say, I WILL NOT COME HERE AGAIN! I can get lazy rude service at McDonald’s.

We used Unilocal to find this Italian restaurant, and we were not disappointed! Their spaghetti and ravioli’s were very good. Sauce, meatballs and sausage all had great flavor. Italian dressing on the salad was one of the best we have had. We would definitely return to this restaurant and highly recommend it to others!

It id like going to grandma’s. A ordered a calzone that was the largest I have ever had and completely filed with toppings. I would estimate the calzone to be larger than a football, probably at least 12″ long. Our waitress even have us a sampling of a soup we were thinking about. I love this place and highly recommend it.
The family environment, the quantity and quality of the food and the friendliness, make this a great place to eat.

The food is tasty, but the lunch portions are really small. Don’t come with a really big appetite.

I ate here at a company party and was prepared to be disappointed. I usually don’t hold much faith in establishments in strip-​malls. I had heard from co-​workers (its very close to my job) that it was cheap and they had huge portions. I didn’t get a consistent opinion on the food.
However, at the party I sampled several items. Their Italian wedding soup was deliciously creamy and flavorful. The spaghetti was good but not spectacular. The meatballs were very good and refreshingly lacking in any breadcrumb texture or taste. Their house-​made Italian dressing was one of the best that I’ve tried as well.
I didn’t get to try any of the calzones, pizza, or lasagna they offer but I’d go back. Though 5 J’s might be on the lower end of true Italian cuisine, it’s a place to cure the craving for marinara and cheese on a budget.