Jester King Brewery — Restaurant in Dripping Springs

Let me start by saying my husband and I are huge fans of Jester king and first visited the brewery when the owner Jeff was still giving personal tours! We loved the area, the vibe, the service, the people. When we visited again during Covid, we had yet another positive experience even with everyone masked and people being seated far apart. Being that I'm not an Austin native, I'm not able to visit often but I was excited that we would be able to make it down there again this past weekend while my family was in town.

Sadly, this visit completely missed the mark. The service was terrible. There were only about three people working on the Sunday we were there and two were at the bar. I placed an order for food and beer using the QR code on the table. The food came out pretty quickly but retrieving it was another story. I waited about 10 minutes before anyone paid attention to me while I stood at the bar. The pizzas were pretty good, not the best I've had and certainly not worth the price. My sister who was also with us was never even notified through her phone that her food was even ready and had to go looking to find it. I brought all the necessary plates and cutlery to my table and we bussed our own table when we left which we were happy to do. Needless to say we were pretty disappointed in the lackluster food and service. Today I checked my bank statement and saw there was an extra 20% gratuity charge. Apparently Jester king charges your card for unclosed tabs, whatever that means. I never opened a tab. I simply paid for my food and beer with my credit card using the QR code at the table we sat at. There was no area that I can recall that asked if I would like to open a tab. When my family and I were done eating, we simply left having already paid for our food and drinks. The gratuity charge, I still don't understand where it came from seeing as how we had to track down our own food, bring our own dishware and cutlery to our own table and then bus our table when we were done.

Overall, I am super disappointed in Jester King. We had never had a bad experience before and were always so excited to visit the brewery and have great brews with a great ambience. Now I'm stuck having to open a credit card dispute and left with a bad taste in my mouth for the whole visit. I would suggest everyone carefully look at their bank statement before getting hit with a surprise gratuity charge. Not very honest business practices...

A local friend of mine told me one afternoon, during my visit, “we must go to Stanley’s Farmhouse pizza”. After looking at “the Google” it appeared that the next-door Jester King had acquired them. A few years back, JK had only done sour beers, but now they have expanded out a bit.

The location was very impressive and much of it looked relatively new.

Signs on the way mentioned “open spaces” and that’s just what we got. Lots of parking, although the new stone was a bit bumpy for my Lambo (a joke, but I do recommend NOT driving your supercar here). The line moved quickly, and we were there on a Sunday afternoon, which we expected to be busy. A quick proof of ID and the rest is done by phone with text notifications.

The main sitting area looked to be an old livestock barn, and there were plenty of tables with room for everyone. Live music at the front playing while we ordered drinks and some pizzas. The pizzas were all very good, and the garden salad was far better than expected for our plant-based companions. We shared a few cornbread cookies, and they were great, and many other items on the menu looked interesting / worth a try.

A hop garden led a path around the expansive property past a goat farm where it looks like you could feed and pet the animals. There was also a rental area for events and weddings and a tree covered area in the middle with more picnic tables.

Up near the main building were cornhole stations and other outside tables for families with children to sit while lamenting their decision to have kids. (kidding, sort of)

All in all, really great way to spend an afternoon and some outstanding people watching.

We didn’t go up to the main indoor Jester King brewery, but it looked like a quality establishment, and we...

So I was quite amused by the reviews of this place that kept referring to random tips being automatically added by their QR based ordering system and people complaining about improper tipping practices. Was equally amused by the management actually taking time to reply back to these review stating that it was a problem with their ordering system and they would look into it. First, it's kinda silly that we are in 2024 and this place still has not figured out how to have POS systems in place that doesn't allow for a simple process for proper discretionary tipping for an entirely self-serve food & beverage process. There are several people who have mentioned arbitrary automatic tipping of 25% for ordering via QR codes. In my case, I actually ordered at the bar via a person who punched the order into a POS system asked me for a physical card to swipe (because I was told they don't have tap functionality), did not offer me an option to add a tip but again somehow their "system" seems to have added an arbitrary 25% by itself to my bill. Not sure how this place is running a business in 2024 when they can't figure out simple customer billing processes or worse case are committing fraud by adding tips without consent! Definitely does not seem like a one-off because people have complained it in the past and it's still happening. IMO, would avoid the place altogether because either the management doesn't care about customer experience or they have designed complicit processes. Either ways, not...