Jason's Deli — Restaurant in Hoover

After coming here almost 20 years,, we will no longer frequent Jason’s Deli. We have come here with family, friends, co-workers and staff lunches for many years. Today at approximately 11:50 am, Jason’s was very busy. We had to wait for everything but that was fine until we got to the salad bar. My husband and I went down one side and were blocked by an employee making to go orders. We went to the other side and got what we needed. I needed to go back to the side near the ice cream machine and the same employee was still blocking the salad dressings. I waited over 5 minutes and I asked her if I could get salad dressing and there was no response. I asked again and assumed she could not hear me and I reached around her to get the salad dressing and she finally looked up from the receipt she had been staring at for over 2 minutes. The employee leaned into my face and screamed “EXCUSE YOU!!!” I assumed this was some sort of joke and said “Sorry, I just need to get the dressing and I will be finished”. She again screamed in MY face “EXCUSE YOU!!!” She then started to walk back to the kitchen area and I followed her to go see the manager. The manager saw her screaming at me and I asked if I could speak to the manager and she responded that she was the manager. I was trying to tell her what happened and the employee was still screaming at me. The manager softly asked the employee to stop several times and the employee would not. I asked the manager what the employee’s name is and she said “Latrise”. I thanked her as I could see she could not control her employee and thought I would reach out to inquire who the owner of this location is tomorrow when I have time to address this. We left 15 minutes later and Latrise was still blocking the same area of the salad bar. I am almost 60 years old and have worked in customer service my entire career. I have never seen anything or experienced anything like this. We sadly will not be returning to Jason’s after this unreal experience. I do believe these to go orders could be made in the kitchen area and the employees could stop blocking the patrons that are trying to access the salad bar to avoid future problems with the quality of employees...

I am not usually one to leave reviews — I’ve spent my entire career in hospitality, and I know things happen. I also know, without a shadow of a doubt, that I was calm, respectful, and never asked for anything unreasonable during my visit, so the encounter was quite baffling and disappointing.

When I walked in, I noticed what appeared to be a manager behind the counter training a new team member. I even overheard him explaining what hospitality is to the young employee — which made the experience that followed even more strange.

While looking over the menu, I got a call from my son, who has a severe peanut and pecan allergy and avoids all nuts for safety. He asked me to order a chicken panini, which comes with a basil pesto aioli. Being in the industry, I know pestos are sometimes made with pinenuts, sometimes not — so I simply asked the manager if their pesto contained any.

Both he and another team member (who seemed to be a kitchen enployee/manager) just stared at me. He shrugged and said, “I couldn’t even tell you.” That was it. No follow-up, no effort. So I asked if it would be possible to find out, and he replied, “Well, it comes into us that way.”

At that point, I asked if he could check the ingredients on the box. His response? “If it needs to go that far, I guess I can.” What?!

Needless to say, I put my menu down, told him not to worry about it, and walked out. Ended up at Chick-fil-A next door, where it’s always a pleasure and guests are treated with genuine care. This Jason’s Deli could learn a lot from them. I asked a reasonable question - I shouldn’t be made to feel like an inconvenience. The lack of care, or effort, was simply shocking.

The irony is that this same manager was simultaneously teaching a young employee about hospitality, while demonstrating the opposite to a guest standing right in front of him. This is exactly why our industry struggles to train and retain true hospitality...

Best Jason’s Deli in Alabama. Salad bar is the tops—you can’t find a better salad bar anywhere else!! Sooo many wonderful, healthy items on the salad bar— good dressings, wonderful toppings—some items are organic—just better quality food than anywhere else for such a reasonable price!! Love it!!!The staff are sooo friendly and helpful!!! My only complaint is that we are not close in proximity to them—and they’re baked potatoes are way too large; even the half portion size is a giant size!! Would love it if they used red or gold potatoes, much smaller size and price so I could have a baked potato with my salad!!! That would be the perfect meal for me, since I’m a vegetarian who doesn’t eat much bread!! Wish they had low carb vegetarian options!!!

Sept. 2, 2020 We just ate at Jason’s Deli for lunch today. Everyone except me ordered from the menu and their food was pretty good. I ordered the salad bar—the baby beets were rotten, I spit them out; they were bad; the peas were not even green; they were old, and the sunflower seeds were soo rancid I couldn’t eat the salad!! Because of CoVid, the salad was not good; and I could see thru their window good enough or I would have ordered...