Jon's Grille — Restaurant in Fort Worth

UNDERwhelmed. So disappointed! I work 72 hours a week and have very little time. Between two 18 hour shifts, I needed a treat, so my friend and I visited Jon's Grille. I have been reading so many good things, and heck, this isn't any ole place, this is JON BONNELL'S. I figured it didn't matter what he did, it was all going to be fabulous. That's how I have come to know Bonnell's. Nothing has ever been ANYTHING but absolutely fantastic.... Until now. Ordered Burnt Ends as an appetizer(did I mention I was treating myself?) no no no no Cubes of pork that had some sweetness and a few places bit me back with the spices, which I am totally okay with spices and heat but uh..... There was just no flavor -it was so boring! NOTHING like the meat candy I was expecting. First bummer of the lunch. Then we ordered the Will Rodgers and an expresso martini. My companion could not drink the Will Rodgers. The booze was super strong. I am okay with that. So I drank it even tho I really really really wanted the expresso martini. I was lit after one cocktail, so if you are into that kind of thing, order the Will Rodgers, it's tasty, but very "alcoholly". The damn expresso martini was yummy as hell and the highlight of lunch, even tho I only got a sip. My friend ordered the patty melt. She looked at the menu days ago when we made our plan to check this place out. Like me. she was anticipating Good tasting food, not meh, not bland, not boring, but just a lil above average because- Jon Bonnell's supposed to be the guy in charge of this joint! C'mon man, I don't remember what I paid for it, but I have had a better patty melt at Whataburger and Denny's, No I am not kidding. I ordered a hot dog. Can I just tell you that I have been looking forward to this hot dog for 6 days. Twice a year I allow myself a freakin hot dog. I love them. I never ever eat them cuz, hey, it's not like they are made of spinach! It was no bueno. No flavor. I just don't get it. It's a frickin hot dog! It had zero hot dog/sausage of any kind flavorr. Damnit. If the surroundings hadn't been so nice I might have just pouted right there. As for side she had the fries. Again, complete meh, not bad, but wouldn't waste my carbs there. I had the mac n cheese and maybe it's cuz I just had the $$ mac n cheese at The Rim at Waterside, but even compared to several BBQ places in FW, it just did not have a yum factor. Frankly, the pieces of brisket that were in the mac n cheese were so dry, so over cooked, they were like little brown bricks that did thing except detract detract from my mac n cheese. Bummed. Really expected something delish from our resident Super Star Chef (who generally I would bet the farm anything he created would be THE BEST - EVER) and I would have gladly paid a lil more to get something that was anywhere near what I was anticipating. With Bonnell behind this place I REALLY thought it would be better than basic. Maybe it's my fault. Instead of taking time to eat at Jon Bonnell's new place in between 18 hour shifts, perhaps I should have saved a few more pennies and waited till I had time to dine at one of his well known with zillions of awesome reviews establishments...... I just really really REALLY wanted a good hot dog. My quest continues...... In my and my dining companion's opinions, the vibe, atmosphere, location, and bar are all what you would expect from Chef Jon Bonnell, the...

Updated review August 2023. We tried it again on a weekday hoping we had misjudged the food, unfortunately we did not. The only thing I enjoyed last time was the queso, but to my surprise this time it was bad. The BBQ sauce on my sliced beef tasted like sweet ketchup and the candied bacon on top of my macaroni was extremely hard and dry. We ordered a sandwich to go for our sitter when our meal came out. We received our check and I asked the waiter where our to go sandwich was (since we ordered 30 minutes ago) he said just a few more minutes. We paid our bill and waited an ADDITIONAL 40 minutes for one sandwich. We tried twice, but we will not be back a 3rd time. Such a bummer.

Myhusband and I went on Saturday. We ordered an appetizer (I believe it was something called Trailer Park Nachos?) It's supposed to have a variety of things on it including fries. There were just a few on there and our app was cold, but the queso on it was good. I ordered the brisket sandwich with onion rings and my husband got a burger with fries. It took about 40 minutes to get our food and it was served a little under "warm". My husbands burger was well done instead of medium. My sandwich had an extremely small amount of brisket (about 1/4 of the size of the bun). Which I found interesting because our app had very little on it too. I got a lot of fatty parts in my sandwich and the onion rings had no taste at all. So much so that I asked to have them replaced with fries. They tried to charge me for the fries at the end of the meal, but when we got the check our waitress must have seen we were taken back by the charge of the fries considering I sent back my onion rings and got fries instead, not in addition to. So she went and talked to the manager (who was standing next to us) and after about a 5 minute conversation he took the fry charge off. To say we were disappointed is understated. We had reservations somewhere else but cancelled those to finally be able to try Jons. I'm not sure if...

We've come in to Jon's several times before, and it's never busy, a complete ghost town most times with another table or two at most.

Saturday, September 14th, we came in at around 10:30 PM. Just after a TCU football game, and it was busy (for once) we expected a wait, but were seated immediately.

After about 10 minutes, the manager came and took our drink order. All was fine, and we gave grace due to the fact that the restaurant was packed. After an additional 15 minutes, nobody had came by and even taken our order. Meanwhile, a table that had arrived after us had already gotten their food. I went looking for the manager and she promptly took our order. About 20 minutes afterwards, a tall male server came up to the table and said "Sorry about that wait guys, we're backed up with about an hour wait up front. What can I get for you today?" which confused the two of us, and we informed him that the manager had already came by and taken our order. He walked away afterwards.

We waited another 10 minutes and we had seen two more tables which ordered after us get their food. We left $6 on the table for drinks, and left.

We were there for about an hour and hadn't gotten any kind of proper service, aside from the female manager taking our order.

Everything was so disorganized, the male host was bussing tables and running food trying to handle the stress of it all, food runners cutting people off when practically running to a table, etc.

I understand it was busy, but there had been nothing done to rectify the fact that we had been ignored, or forgotten in some sense.

I've never been more disappointed in Jon's than I am as of right now, and it doesn't look like we'll be back...