I've been to a few of these. Wasn't there some mega-size Italian restaurant on Beach near the beach that closed in the 2000s?
Also, I notice that for most if not almost all of these restaurants, the commentary is that "they have all the Italian dishes", or something along those lines. I think that would be a turn off. That, to me, is like going to a Chinese restaurant and seeing a menu "with all of the Chinese dishes", which is something you see in non-Asian oriented cities/areas and clearly isn't all that authentic, if at all.
There are very different regions of Italy...what I like about the older cities that attracted a lot of Italian immigrants is that you really get to tell the various regions apart via accents and food, and ways of life. For instance, the Italians that settled in Philadelphia are very very different from the Italians that settled in San Francisco (there is a reason SF never had a real Italian mob connection/history), though both cities have large enough Italian populations/histories where they got all types from all regions. But the food in Philly is definitely noticeably different than the food in SF, as are the family names and the accents. You get more "red sauce" food on the E Coast, and more "white sauce" foods in SF.
It would be nice if some of that authenticity made its way down to NE FL? I equate it to a restaurant that serves Dim Sum, Hunan, Kung Pao, and "all those Chinese dishes" on some mega menu, versus a Cantonese restaurant in a Cantonese neighborhood that focuses on Canton cooking by itself and may or may not even have a dim sum menu. I realize Jax doesn't have an Italian history/large population, but surely there are restaurants that do have a bit of focus and an owner/manager/chef with connections to a particular region of Italy? That would be intriguing. Or maybe there isn't the audience for that in Jax and people want to ensure that there will be Veal Parmigiana or beef bolognese or chicken piccatta or something along those lines on the menu...
