JP's Restaurant and Bar — Restaurant in Friday Harbor

5/6/2023 UPDATE: Well, we tried it again. There was a slight improvement, but certainly not enough to raise it above 3 stars. Once again, the service and facilities are great. Efficient, friendly, clean. The bowling lanes, arcade games, and virtual golf are all up and running. The food was....just okay. The Carnita Burrito was definitely an improvement over the burrito we had last time, but once again it was on the dry side with zero sauce or cheese on the inside. The Chimichanga was a tad over-cooked on the outside though the filling tasted fine. And finally, we tried the nachos this time. I still do not understand JP's desire for bland white cheese, and ONLY bland white cheese, on everything! GOOD NACHOS HAVE CHEDDAR, but JP's does not. Nachos should have seasoned ground beef, not left over dried bits of taco seasoned meat product. And the chips they use, while sturdy and tasty enough for salsa, do not hold up well to the toppings of nachos; the chips quickly get soft and soggy. And, once again, there is very little Mexican seasoning on any dish. It was all still quite bland. So not a lot of improvement on the food quality. I did see a pizza pass put table and it looked good. Next time I'll try the pizza. Fingers 🤞

3/2/2023 - We've really been anticipating the opening of JP's. It was busy and has a good atmosphere. The service was great, and they were super friendly. Our server was amazing! We realize they're in the 'soft opening' faze and likely still finding their footing, so-to-speak, with the food. But the food was only so-so. We ordered the Tequila Prawns, Totchos with ground beef, and the Grande Burrito with grilled chicken.

The Prawns were fine. They had a thin and smoky Tequila sauce that did not really infuse into the shrimp, so the taste quickly dissipated, although the prawns themselves were good quality.

The Totchos were also just okay. While a fun alternative to nachos made with corn chips, they were a bit bland. Salty, sure, but still bland. The ground beef didn't seem to have much, if any, seasoning. The rather thin sour cream and the quacamole, while fresh and light, also didn't add much flavor or depth to the dish. The jack cheese seemed an odd choice for tater tots (or the nachos for that matter); it was too light in flavor to add any dimension and, once melted, blended into the tots, making them appear glazed like donuts as opposed to smothered in cheese like nachos. They were edible, of course, but I'd love to try them with a good cheddar and much more spice.

Then there is the Grande Burrito, which we ordered with grilled chicken. While it's huge, it looks good on the plate (instagram worthy maybe), and the verde sauce was the perfect amount of spicy heat, it's the food equivalent of getting catfished on the internet. The filling consisted of some pasty, paper-thin ribbons of "grilled" chicken packed into a tiny pocket smack dab between a thick, fudgy slab of refried beans and a weird rice-pilaf/fried-rice-looking mixture of vaguely orange colored rice with peas and carrots from the frozen food aisle. A "Spanish" or "Mexican" rice the likes of which I've never seen or heard of before. And the chicken wasn't cubed and juicy. It was flat ¼ inch thick and dry as a desert. Nor was it distributed throughout the burrito, but clumped into a little pile in the center, with nothing but beans and rice filling the rest. And no cheese in the filling either. And, in a recurring theme, bland and lacking in flavor. Perhaps I've romanticized the delicious memories of the now-closed Mi Casita, or I've been spoiled with the fresh brilliance of Tina's Place's burritos. Either way, in its current form, JP's Grande Burrito is a disappointment.

But it is very early days for JP's, and I know they'll find their groove. In fact, their upcoming pizza selections sound amazing, and I cannot wait to try them. The bar was comfortable, and the drinks were good and reasonably priced. Once the arcade, billiards, and bowling are all up and running, I think JP's going to be a very popular place and a great...

We found this place one dark, snowy night. To our surprise they provided a basket of warm tortilla chips and salsa. Our typical order for family of 4 is a large pizza, calzone, and sopapilla dessert. When we are bowling with teens we get a large pizza, chicken strips, and sopapilla. The pizza is a chewy stretched dough. Sauce is good enough to ask for side of marinara to top your own slices at table. There are some inconsistencies we run into frequently: when we order take-out we never get marinara for calzones and I have to make something work at home; when we order cheese sticks (mozzarella sticks they show on menu) they provide a sauce less cheese pizza type item and say this is what it is; pizza cheese and dough quality has varied over the last year, so we can only assume supply changes over time (whatever you were using/whomever was cooking in February 2024 was the best, so consider going back to that). They host many Mexican options on menu, but we stopped trying them after one meal trial. Sauce was watery and bland. Beans too. (There are a few Mexican options on island and none have been authentic except for one and it was a pop-up at the brewery by one of their own employees: watch for that because it was fantastic.) Sopapillas here are basically ends of fried pizza dough. They offer chocolate syrup or strawberry sauce. We use honey at home with take-out for our own preference and wish that was an option here. Local honey would be a highlight...

I gave JP's a top star rating because it's a family place and if you're going to enjoy pizza with kids why not bowl at the same time? This was my first time and I went with a friend who had four kids. It was the perfect way to spend a Saturday evening. The pizza was pretty good. A couple pool tables in the back to complete the atmosphere.. an arcade, big screen TVs and a very casual bar setting. This is a family place unlike some of the upscale bowling alleys that are happening in the metropolitan areas. You'll feel totally fine showing up here dressed however you're dressed. It has a small town feel. It's a place where you can show up with a bunch of rowdy kids. Speaking of rowdy kids... A punk band by the name of Mud Bath with lead singer Trinity rocked the joint with some very convincing and tight music and vocals! This is a very cool San Juan Island...