Joey's Bistro: Packed for dancing, not for dinner
Joey’s Bistro, which seems to be doing quite well as Vero’s liveliest evening bar scene and late-night dance club, is clearly struggling as a restaurant.
On a recent Friday night, the outdoor bar on the porch was hopping. But the big dining room inside -- with its soaring ceiling and main floor filled with empty tables at 8 pm – unfortunately had a bit of a cavernous feel with diners tucked away in about half the booths around the perimeter.
When the music and dancing begin, it’s a whole different story.
For weeks, however, we have been hearing reports that dining-wise, things were sliding downhill, and our most recent evening visit appeared to confirm that. I was hoping to order the caprese salad ($9), with its vine ripened beef steak tomatoes and fresh mozzarella, but I was told, ‘We no longer have that.’
My husband’s choice for an entrée was Joey’s “signature” pork chop ($16). ‘Is that pretty good?’ he inquired. “So good that we are out of it,” he was told. Later, the waiter confided that at one point recently, the restaurant was out of so many menu items – including most wines on the wine list – that he had made a short list of things that he could tell diners actually were available.
Not the most encouraging sign.
On this evening, I finally started with the house garden salad ($5), a perfectly acceptable plate of mixed greens topped with fresh garden vegetables. My husband had the classic Caesar salad ($6), an unexceptional preparation made with romaine hearts, a creamy vinaigrette, and grated parmesian.
The salads were accompanied by a basket of warm rolls, basted with garlic butter, which were the highlight of the evening. Great rolls!
For main courses, I ordered the cioppino ($18) and my husband ordered the veal ossobucco ($19).
My cioppino, a seafood stew made with little neck clams, mussels, shrimp, calamari, lobster, scallops and fresh fish in a rich tomato broth, was quite good. The broth was hearty with a slight tang, and the seafood (with the exception of several clams that had not opened) was very nice.
The ossobucco, however, was a different story. The veal shank braised in white wine, herbs and vegetables was dry, chewy and relatively tasteless. And it was served on a risotto al forno, a tomato risotto that did nothing to help the situation.
Entrees were somewhat better on a visit a couple of months earlier when I had the veal marsala ($16), veal medallions served with pan sautéed spinach and mushrooms in a rich Marsala wine sauce. Tender and tasty. My husband enjoyed a nice variation on the seafood alfredo ($19), lobster, shrimp and scallops tossed in a garlic and oil sauce instead of an alfredo sauce, served over linguini.
Joey’s also features wood fired pizzas, and they struck us as okay – but several 32963 readers who fancy themselves pizza experts report the pizzas are nothing to write home to Chicago about.
While you are dining, your eye tends to be drawn to two huge television sets that hover over the dining room – at times giving what otherwise would seem like a sophisticated setting the ambiance of a sports bar. On this most recent evening, we passed on dessert – the triple cappuccino cake ($6) gets raves – and finished with a pair of espressos.
While two can dine here with a decent bottle of wine for under $100, at the moment, you probably will not regard it as your best recent dining expenditure.
Can Joey’s Bistro make it based on an active bar business and the late night patronage of young (and not-so-young) people looking for action? We hope so, because we fear that unless dramatic changes occur soon, its future does not lie in its food.
I welcome your comments, and encourage you to send feedback to me at tina@verobeach32963.com.
The reviewer is a beachside resident who dines anonymously at restaurants at the expense of Vero Beach 32963.
Hours
11:00 am to 12:30 am, daily
Bar
Full Bar
Address (MAP)
2075 Indian River Blvd., Telephone: (772) 299-9833
Online
www.joeysbistro.com
