Jack's Bar and Grill recently opened, having replaced Blue Eye's Restaurant which was a good place but overpriced, and in the end it was probably price that killed ol' Blue Eyes.
I live only a stone's throw from the place, and was hoping for good food, maybe even good pub food. My wife and I weren't expecting fantastic food but we had hope.
When we arrived the restaurant is beautiful and staff friendly. The place was mostly empty with a reasonably full bar but we were looking for dinner.
The menu is small but frankly, I prefer a smaller menu as it often means the food is better since the kitchen is not overwhelmed with a huge variety of food items and recipes. This was not to be the case.
My wife ordered a salad, described on the menu as mixed greens, cherry tomatoes and balsamic vinaigrette. What was delivered was a bowl of spinach leaves and a couple sad slices of tomato, with a side of vinegar not vinaigrette. Upon mentioning what we thought was a mix up, we were told the kitchen was out of mixed greens and cherry tomatoes and made a substitution.
For an entree, my wife ordered ahi tuna, which was not available - so my wife ordered the "special" recommended by the waitress, chicken napoleon. When the dish arrived, the chicken pieces were flat as a pizza, with cheese burned to the chicken. It looked like a mini pizza and was terrible.
I ordered the salmon which was okay. it had no flavor but it was cooked nicely, it sat on a bed fo rice which had not been properly strained, so the rice was watery and the entire entree was sitting in a puddle of water. I managed to eat most to it with some help from my wife. We were really hungry because if we had not been, we would not have eaten the fish either.
The waitress stopped over a number of times asking if everything was okay. After complaining about the salad and getting the explanation they were out of mixed greens and then no ahi tuna, we felt a little tired of complaining and kept our remarks to ourselves.
To compliment a terrible dinner, we ordered a couple desserts. My wife got the tiramisu and I ordered the brownie sundae. The tiramisu was huge, a very generous portion but inedible. It looked rather nice but tasted just awful. My brownie sundae was good up to the brownie, which was also terrible. Thank god they did not make their own ice cream or that would have been bad too.
The waitress brought us our bill, $55 and asked for me to fill out the feedback card because the owners really wanted to know how the food was. I completed it with comments and contact information. I really had hoped that someone would call me but I guess my comments were enough. I was very kind.
We live only a mile away and had high hopes this would be our regular place. It seems impossible that making such simple dishes like a salad, chicken napoleon or salmon and rice would be done do badly. Then to make inedible desserts was another surprise as there are so many quality prepared frozen desserts available to restaurants.
I can't imagine the restaurant is going to survive. It would take an immediate turnaround of the menu, a new chef and a serious marketing campaign to get former customers to try them again.
I wish them the best of luck but they will have to do it without my patronage, at least for now.
Pros: Location
Cons: Everything other than location
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