A visit to Tina’s Spaghetti House is like going to an old friend’s home for dinner.

Now entering its 39th year and under new management, Tina’s is a mainstay of the Fort Lauderdale restaurant scene. This little neighborhood Italian restaurant makes its customers feel like one of the family. Many Italian restaurants in Fort Lauderdale strive for this, but few have succeeded as well as Tina’s.

You won’t find gourmet Italian dishes here. Tina’s doesn’t serve pasta, it serves spaghetti. Here you will find the standard dishes on which most of us were raised — spaghetti, lasagna, ravioli. You also will find that, almost without exception, each dish is well prepared with quality and quantity stressed.

Chicken piccata, $9.50, features several pieces of chicken breast lightly sauteed and enhanced by a mellow lemon and wine sauce. It’s accompanied by a side of spaghetti in marinara sauce.

Spaghetti with meatballs and meat sauce, $5.95, is a large serving. The sauce is hearty and rich and tends to be on the heavy side.

One of the best bargains is Tina’s Spaghetti House Special, $5.50, featuring spaghetti with meat sauce, mushrooms and one meatball. The serving is extra large with the same sauce. One major disappointment — the mushrooms were not fresh during my last two visits.

And for the hungry diner, the Sampler, $8.25, features veal parmigiana, eggplant parmigiana and spaghetti with meat sauce. The eggplant was good — moist with a crisp breading — but the veal was a little overcooked and a bit tough.

Each entree is accompanied by an average salad with fresh lettuce, carrots and cucumbers. The house dressing — a creamy Italian with a garlic base — is delicious.

I also enjoy the garlic bread, $1.25, which is slathered with butter and garlic.

Other Tina’s entrees include veal parmigiana, $9.95; chicken parmigiana, $8.95; veal piccata or marsala, $10.50 each; chicken marsala, $9.50; spaghetti with meat sauce, $4.85, with meatballs, mushrooms and meat sauce, $6.50, with white or red clam sauce, $6.50, with sausage and mushroom sauce, $5.85. Lasagna, $8.95; manicotti, $6.50; baked ziti, $5.75 to $6.50; stuffed shells, $6.50; fettuccini Alfredo, $7.25.

Tina’s is divided into two large dining rooms, each with a mural of Italian scenes. Tables and chairs are comfortable, but a little too close to each other. The setting, like the food, is basic and homey with strings of white lights, typical plastic checkered tablecloths and hanging baskets of fake flowers.

Tina’s survival is commendable in an area in which restaurants come and go almost as soon as the ink is dry on the menu. Tina’s has always relied on the local crowd, not the fickle tourist scene. The legend used to be, If you want good food, follow the truck drivers. In Broward County, I would amend that to say If you want good food, follow the local residents to Tina’s.

TINA’S SPAGHETTI HOUSE

— 2110 S. Federal Highway

Fort Lauderdale

522-9943

Italian

— Hours: 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday; 11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. Friday; 4 to 11 p.m. Saturday; 4 to 10 p.m. Sunday.

— Credit cards: Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Diner’s and Carte Blanche.

— Non-smoking area: Yes.

Budget Dining is a regular column of the Sun-Sentinel devoted to helping readers find inexpensive, local restaurants. Budget for two diners is $15 for lunch; $25 for dinner. The Budget Diner makes every effort to remain anonymous, and all the reviewer’s meals are paid for by the Sun-Sentinel.