Justine's — Restaurant in Austin

I’d like to start by expressing that writing this does not feel good and I am not generally inclined to leave 1 star for any establishment. I fully understand that some servers/bartenders have bad nights, but this is a culmination of recent experiences which came to a point last night. My group of friends and I have had many great nights at Justines, however, in recent years it’s been challenging to have those light carefree evenings there. We tried throwing a surprise party for our friend who loved this place. Our reservation was for 6:30. For our large party they sat most of inside the tent and initially reserved a table for the rest of us outside. Not ideal but I kind of get it. We were told they cannot seat one server with two large tables. When the few of us arrived early we were told to order from the bar as there were not enough of us to order through a server. Which I didn’t understand at all. We did as we were instructed and ordered drinks at the bar while we waited for the rest of the party to show up before the birthday girl arrived. At some point we were granted a table inside the same tent, but not immediately near us, small victory we were happy to have. As more people arrived, we all stood up to hug and say hello, this was met with the hostess who repeatedly came over to tell us we needed to sit down. This is also understandable I guess; I would like to point out that there was only one other table to the corner that was seated in that same span of tables on our side. We were not hovering over other patrons. The birthday girl showed up and we all gave a hearty “Surprise! Happy Birthday!”. It took less than 60 seconds for the same hostess to come over and scold us again to sit down. I removed myself to the bar for another drink as the server had not come back over in some time for me to order via him. As I’m ordering at the bar the hostess came over and quite tersely told me I needed to order through my server. In my head I think “she’s just doing her job” I said OK, let me close out here” In what was clearly condescendence she said, “do you need help with that?” There was no tone or hint of wanting to help, she was clearly annoyed and talking down to me as if I were a child. I didn’t feel at fault as we had been instructed to order through the bar when we arrived, and I truly would have been fine ordering through the server had I been able to do so. At this point I didn’t even want to sit back down at the tables inside the tent. It seemed as if existing in their space was an offense. A few of us sat outside in the communal area to finish our drinks and we left for Lustre Pearl East. I am truly puzzled at the feeling of blind detest for our party from the moment we walked in. I would like to say the bartenders were very amiable and gave great service. I’ve always been a fan of the cocktails at Justines, and if I ever return it will be for that...

I came to this place because a bartender in San Antonio raved about it. Their website is definitely cooler than the place itself which to me looked more like the inside of a french brothel than a restsurant (sat in the tent area). The only part of MY meal that I enjoyed was the appetizer, the escargot was pretty good as well as their bread (which later in the meal wish I had more of) besides being accompanied with the appetizer we were never offered more bread. I had 2 drinks here, a paloma which was watered down and pretty sure did not have fresh grapefruit juice but that concentrated stuff bars usually use, as well as served in a martini glass? It was so dark in there could barely read the menu, which now I understand is so you dont see how bad the food really is. I ordered a crab salad for my meal with a side of ratatouille HUGE mistake! The salad was described as having lump crabmeat but was mostly cucumber and some bruised/ black avocado which was disguised by all the dressing, for $16 that salad should have been ALL crab ACCOMPANIED by some cucumber and garnished with avocado, but I was lucky to have maybe four bites of what I hope was crab and it definitely was NOT lump crabmeat. Presentation of the salad was atrocious but now lets nove on to the ratatouille, I was brought a huge pile of mushy, brown overcooked vegetables that I could hardly tell what each was, but only knowing myself what ratatouille consists of was all I had to go on. I still tasted it, even though upon presentation, as I mentioned earlier was hardly desirable, after the first bite I realized it was cold, and if you could only imagine how a pile if cold overcooked suash, onion, and tomato tastes, needless to say it was disgusting, had to send it back to be reheated hoping to receive something slightly better in appearance back, but received my same dish back obviously microwaved, VERY disappointing. The second drink was a mezcal drink, but didnt look much different than the paloma, but still served in a martini glass, watered down AGAIN by being shaken, no ice, with the same sad lime garnish as my first drink, for $12 bucks should have been a vibrant delicious craft cocktail, THAT, IT WAS DEFINITELY NOT! Now, to be somewhat positive my husband had the mussels which were great, could have been hotter, or presented in something that would keep them warm, but still quite good, as well as the fries that accompanied it with the mustard/mayo sauce, was delicious, wish I would have ordered something else. That being said, still dont think I will be returning, our $100 meal or experience (server was not too friendly) was just not worth that kind of money, EXTREMELY disappointing, wish your place was as cool as your...

Ugh I wanted to love this place! We were only in Austin for one night and we wanted to eat somewhere really good for dinner. We read lots of great reviews about Justine's, and particularly liked that they advertise themselves as a "late night dining" spot which appealed to us. We were super excited to try this place!

Even though we had the last reservation of the evening, we had to wait to be seated. We were seated outdoors and the ambiance was lovely. We had our own tent with a cute chandelier and some privacy trees/plants between tables. Super cute.

Things started going downhill after that. When we ordered our appetizers, we were told that the chef wanted customers to order everything (main course included) at once, but that they would serve things in the correct timing. We said ok, no problem, we ordered everything at once. We received our 3 appetizers, and less than 5 minutes later, our entrees were brought to the table. We had barely touched our appetizers. It felt like we were being rushed and was super disappointing, especially after she had assured us that things would come out adequately spaced.

We ordered a bottle of red wine and it came out hot. I understand that not everyone chills their wine, and room temp would have been fine, but when you order French wine at a French restaurant, you should at least expect that it's not served hot.

After we finished eating, we were left unattended for 20 minutes. Again, would not usually be an issue for me but they rushed us so much at the beginning, bringing all of our courses together, but it took them 20 minutes to clear our dirty dishes from the table. That 20 minutes could have been used to space out the appetizer from the entrees and we would have left with plenty of time to spare.

I wish I could say that the food was amazing enough the save the experience, but it wasn't. Nothing was bad, but it was very average and not what we expected from the ratings this place has. The escargots were good, the French onion soup was average, and the charcuterie was a little out there for our taste. The steak frites were not bad, but not great either. The Au poivre sauce was the worst I've ever had, super bland.

Immediately after they finally cleared our plates and we were enjoying our last glass of wine, we were told we had to leave in 30 minutes. At the same time he informed us last call had already happened so we couldn’t order anything else even if we wanted to. Luckily we had our hot bottle of wine and didn’t need to order anything else.

Overall, such a let down. Don’t allow customers to make reservations for 945pm if you’re on let going to give them 1 hour to eat. We really really wanted to love this and we were genuinely...