Great Taste is Made Here: Connection to Conroe's Community Makes the Perfect Love Story

It is often said that the fastest way to someone's heart is through the stomach. With Valentine’s Day approaching, Conroe’s growing food scene offers a variety of delicious meal selections for would-be romantics to celebrate with their special someone. With charming settings and abundant appetizing options to satisfy the palate, you will discover why in Conroe, Texas, Great Taste is Made Here!

Conroe’s diversifying food scene covers a wide range of cuisines. The many flavors of Conroe include finger-licking barbecue, fresh-caught seafood, world-famous Tex-Mex, authentic Italian, comfort home-cooking and so much more. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, and even late-night pub grub - there is something for every craving and occasion! You can find a few of Conroe's local favorites on our site.

Local restaurants are a staple of the community, serving up meals in fun, welcoming settings from Lake Conroe to Downtown. Joe Haliti, owner of Joe’s Italian Restaurant in Conroe, describes the connection between a restaurant and the Conroe community as “the perfect love story.”

Haliti’s love story with Conroe was rather spontaneous. Owning a restaurant in Dallas, he visited Conroe while on a trip to see family in Beaumont because it was a city recommended to him by a customer. Driving through town, he felt a connection he had been missing since moving to Texas from New Jersey.

“I just fell in love immediately,” said Haliti. “For some reason, I had a connection with Conroe even before opening - something felt right about the city.”

On that same drive, Haliti spotted the building he would eventually buy to open Joe’s Pizza and Pasta, now Joe’s Italian Restaurant. The restaurant opened in 2006 and quickly became a community favorite. The success of Haliti’s Conroe venture led him to sell his other three Texas restaurants, along with his house in Longview, to make Conroe his permanent home.

Haliti, who had moved to New Jersey from Italy, had always dreamed about opening a restaurant. With meals inspired by family recipes and years of cooking for himself and his family, Haliti serves authentic Italian dishes from a menu that has never seen a single item removed. Customer favorites like lasagna, fettucine alfredo, and addicting yeast rolls certainly help drive people through the doors. Haliti believes, however, that it is as much about the restaurant’s core principles as it is the food that keep people coming back.

“Good food, good pricing, good service,” outlines Haliti. “We believe in top-notch service and treating people like family by creating a welcoming atmosphere with great food at affordable prices.”

Treating people like family is not just a saying for Haliti, it is something that he and his team practice. The type of love that bonds family extends from Joe’s Italian Restaurant to the entire Conroe community. And 2020, a tough year for many, brought this to the forefront.

Since the onset of COVID-19 last March, Joe’s Italian Restaurant has prepared and donated more than 52,000 meals for first responders, health care workers, city and county employees, and many others on the front lines of the fight against the pandemic. To hear Haliti explain it, he was just reciprocating the love the community has shown since he opened 15 years ago.

“The community has always been here for us. It was time we stepped up and gave back to the community the way they have given back,” said Haliti. “Conroe kept our restaurant busy from the day we opened. It was our turn to keep Conroe and Montgomery County moving.”

For their work, June 10, 2020, was declared Joe’s Italian Restaurant Day in the City of Conroe. Montgomery County followed with Joe Haliti Day on December 8. 

Joe’s Italian Restaurant is not alone in serving the Conroe community throughout the past year. Dozens of the local establishments that make Conroe special found ways to give back and, in turn, received the support of the local community, as residents rallied to help Conroe’s own.

Conroe’s flavorful food plus welcoming community equals an ideal place to enjoy delicious meals with the people you love. It is easy to see why in Conroe, Texas, Great Taste is Made Here!