Chicago Joe's is one of the long standing Las Vegas restaurants serving Italian food. Located in a small house Downtown, dining is like family dinner back in the day. Vintage catalog wall paper and lamps fill the two small dining areas. The dining room was extremely loud because of a group of five people. Once they left the place became conversation friendly.
We were promptly seated arriving five minutes before our reservation. Our server immediately brought glasses of water. They probably could use more servers as they were busy trying to attend to many tables.
Dinner entrees come with soup or salad and a side of pasta in a red sauce. The entrees are large. Several diners were leaving with take home containers. They do offer a selection of items from a Little Bite menu.
The Baked Clams appetizer (6) fell short, very dry. To much bread crumbs, no sauce and no lemon. The pasta Fagiolo soup was very tasty, a hardy cup with lots of beans. My entree, Chicago Hot Shrimp were spicy and hot in temperature. Six large shrimps swimming in a butter, garlic, parsley broth. A nice savory dish. The side of pasta had a rich red sauce and the pasta was cooked perfectly.
The other entree was the Chicken Picante. Three boneless chicken breasts in lemon butter sauce with capers. This entree was ordered without mushrooms.
It was surprising that this basic Italian dish was unsatisfactory. The chicken breast was tough and difficult to cut. It was returned to the kitchen and removed from the bill.
Limited parking is available in back of the building (6 spaces). However across the street is a pay lot.
Chicago Joe's is very popular and reservations for dinner are recommended. On this night several people were turned away.