Jonathon's Diner — Restaurant in Dallas

For the quality of food and taste, I would want to give 4.5 stsr but I think so food is not the only thing we go for when we step out of our house to go to a restaurant. My experience stated with very unhappy host/attendant, she barely cracked a smile and from the moment we walked it she was doing us a favor by even adding our name to the list and if felt like making a mistake to ask how long the wait would be. For a cold Sunday morning she did not bother to ask that if I would want to seat outside or I would be comfortable inside. Then we waited for over 45 minutes by the street/outdoor seating, and I am not exaggerating but 40 minutes out of the 45 1 table on patio was open, 2nd table got free within another 5-10 minutes and another 2 tables were free for almost another 20 minutes before I got one of those tables for me. The worst table management I have ever seen. I know you have good rating and you don't care about people waiting but to be so careless to have bunch of people waiting, to see open tables but no one would care about cleaning them and circulating them. When I stepped inside before getting a table what I saw was almost everyone in the bar area, so they are not necessarily short of staff either. Then we ordered our drinks, along with super slow service, they are very short tempered as well, answer to "would you recommend screwdriver" can not be it has vodka ans orange juice, I know that because I can read that. Took almost 25 minutes to get coffee after asking 2 times, etc etc. I always seek for a place that offers service as I feel it's most important part of the experience. I would go back to a place if service is good but I was not that happy with food but not other ways round. Anyways, I would not recommend the place as well as not go back to see frowning faces, unnecessary long wait and slow and...

So we got here it was a 30 minute wait to be seated. We were sat in the patio It took our waitress Melissa 10 minutes to come introduce herself and then another five minutes for her to bring back our waters. Upon bringing the waters she explained that she had wasted some of the waters and that’s why it took so long but one had something floating in it and the other had something red on the outside of the glass. We told her and since she was on the patio she just hurled the waters on to the fence line. Seemed a bit aggressive but she eventually took our orders. While we waited we noticed that when the wind would blow it smelled like sewage. Not a very appealing smell when you’ve come to eat. It took over an hour for our food to come out and when it came out it was just warm… after an hour wait I expect hot food but I didn’t want to wait another hour so just went on and ate the food. There were 7 people in our party and my husband’s food didn’t come out right away with ours but his waffle did. 10 minutes later his food came out and she apologized stating she had dropped it so she asked them to make it fresh. We understood proceeded to ask for silverware we watched her come out with another couples food before she ever came back with silverware. My husband grabbed his own silverware and she said she was coming right back. No one likes cold food. We then proceeded to ask for butter and syrup and again another five minutes or longer before she brought those items. She was just very scattered brained everyone has bad days though. Do I think she was worth the 18% gratuity No but our party was large so I understand but when the service doesn’t match the tip it becomes unfair. The food was pretty tasty all things considering. All in all loved the food the service was subpar and the wait...

I had high expectations for Jonathon's given the stellar reviews, but for me it came up short on a few things: the wait, service, and food quality.

*The wait & service: thankfully we came just before the rush and were seated right away. Our biggest issue was that it took an hour for the food to come out after we ordered. This is much too long, and especially so if you had to wait to be seated in the first place! Other notes: (1) everyone in your party must be present for you to get seated (2) currently max of 4 people in your party (don't even ask about a larger group or else you may be turned away) (3) the wait may be long: people who came after us were told they'd have to wait up to an hour (4) if you are waiting, don't expect to order even a coffee to drink while you wait -- two gentlemen asked if they could do this and they were told no (5) no outside food allowed -- the two gentlemen had gone somewhere else for coffee before their meal, and they had to throw it away before they were seated

*Food quality: everyone seems to rave about the chicken and waffles -- the chicken and waffles with maple syrup wasn't bad, but also not the best I've had. And the side of gravy didn't really go with the dish. As I was eating it, something tasted off, although I couldn't figure out what it was. Also, don't get the danger dogs unless you like sugar and grease. They are breakfast sausage in a funnel cake like batter that are deep fried and sprinkled with powdered sugar. We shared these, and others didn't wasn't too finish the plate so I did (and regretted it later..)

On the plus side, the patio was nice and prices weren't too bad. That said, IMO there are much better breakfast spots in Dallas. I'll probably skip this place next time...