Low Gap Cafe — Restaurant in Jasper

I’m giving this 5 stars only for past experiences not the most recent. I pray that this was just a fluke experience.

My husband and I have been coming here for many years. We are foodies who will not shy away from an extremely long drive (or even a high price tag) to have quality food. Our favorite time to come is in the fall. We take the drive to see the foliage, elk, and always to stop here. 8/10 it’s knock your socks off good.

Recently was probably the very worst experience we have ever had. I hate it because we truly love this place. Also it’s not as if we went during an off time. It was a Saturday night around 5:30. There was a 45 minute wait just to sit outside. If you don’t read the rest of the review, I would highly suggest making sure Chef Nick is the actual chef. He was there but only dealing with the money, not actually cooking. And sadly his absence was greatly noted.

It started with the bathroom. I pray that the “water” my daughter and I were stepping in was in fact water. I shudder to think that it was urine. The floor was soaked. I told the wait staff but none did anything about it. One waitress looked over the floor, shrugged, and shut the door.

Ordered food. We always like to get one entree that is a favorite, and one entree that was new to us. I got the shrimp carbonara (one of our favorites), husband got the Diane steak (new to us), and my daughter got the Levi frog legs with simple alfredo (this was her first time).

In years past, the knocking of said socks off always starts with the salad. That mandarin orange vinegarette is the serious flavor bomb.com. Or it use to be. Use to just this salad dressing alone would bring us back. It was so terribly bland! Heavy on the vinegar mainly because we could not even taste the oranges or bell pepper. It was as if they weren’t even there.

We have only ever been here when it is packed like it was this time. The food has majority of the time been delicious even with the stress of a full house. One time we waited well over an hour, and the food was amazing.

We got our food quickly. The first thing to hit my nose was not the pleasing smell of what was soon to be delicious meals but instead was the intense smell of alcohol. The shrimp carbonara is made with a vodka based sauce. Mine was very heavy on the vodka. The flavor was good but was missing the usual bell peppers. I do not drink alcohol. By the end of my meal, I had the unsettled feeling that the alcohol had not been properly burned off as my lips were slightly numb. I refused to let my daughter have a taste because I was afraid this would be an issue.

My husband’s steak was delicious. This is probably due to the filet mignon sized amount of fat on the side. For a New York strip steak that was an insane amount of fat. As for the veggies and the potatoes, the demiglaze that covered everything saved them. He said bites without it were almost inedible.

As for my daughter’s simple alfredo with frog legs. She complained heavily about how the salt was burning her mouth. My husband tried it and said it tasted as if they dumped an ocean in there. This is something we cook often at home from scratch. It is insanely simple but also very easy to ruin with salt. Not something a heavily experienced chef should be messing up on. She devoured the frog legs though. At age 4, she is becoming quite the foodie herself. She allowed us to try a bite of the legs and they were very good.

It wasn’t until the bill was brought to us that we seen Chef Nick was not the chef preparing meals. He was dealing with the money. He actually came up to us to retrieve our card for payment. Never once asking how our experience or the food was.

We will be back, most likely next fall. But I will be calling ahead to make sure that Chef Nick is the one preparing the food. His Sous chef is decent but most...

While staying in a cabin between Ponca & Compton we stopped in for dinner one night at Low Gap Cafe. From the outside it appeared as an old mountain cabin, very cozy & country looking so we had a feeling it would be awesome and it was absolutely fantastic!!!

As we entered the cafe we chatted with the owner and a few of the workers and everyone was just so charming & friendly. We sat down and ordered drinks, appetizers and entrees.

One thing that impressed me from the beginning was that every dish brought to our table was piping HOT as it was served immediately after preparation. Nothing disappoints me more than cold or lukewarm food so I was very pleased at how hot all of the food was. The catfish bites were so hot I could barely hold them but quickly devoured these crispy, tasty bites of epicness!!! The fries were just as hot and crispy!

The salads were so fresh it’s as if there was a garden in the back yard. We sampled the crawfish etouffee and at first we were doubtful since we are from south Louisiana and thought that surely the mountain folk can’t possibly make authentic etouffee but I was highly impressed at how good it was, I don’t think you could get a better crawfish etoufee in south Louisiana, it was VERY VERY good !!!

Me and my son just ordered cheeseburgers fully dressed and just as everything else, they were served up very HOT and tasty. They were sooooo good !!!

My wife ordered the lamb chops medium rare topped with a fresh mint & pecan pesto sauce which was fabulous!!! Some places don’t understand MEDIUM RARE but these lamb chops were cooked to perfection and absolutely phenomenal. They were so yummy that we all took turns picking them apart to the bone.

I don’t always get good pics of the food but my wife got a pic of her lamb chops that I’ll post. All food that we ordered was HOT and impeccable. The service was exceptional.

I have nothing bad to say about the Low Gap Cafe and it’s a place that we will always visit anytime we are in the Ozarks.

Do yourself and your taste buds a favor, stop in and support the local cafe and you will be pleasantly...

Visiting Jasper for the first time, and had read great reviews about the Low Gap Cafe so my husband and I stopped in for dinner tonight. We were promptly greeted by a female host/server at the door, and were seated at a table on the left side of the restaurant. We perused the menus we were given when we were seated. We both decided on what to order and were patiently waiting for a server to come take our order when we noticed that the servers had their hands full working hard and working quickly to take care of a nearly full restaurant. We noticed that there appeared to be only two women, one who had also been the host that seated us, doing their absolute best to handle the entire dining room. We had been seated about 15 minutes when a gentleman in a chef’s jacket who I can only assume was the owner, stopped by our table on his way to another table, leaned in toward myself and said “YOU can expect a LONG WAIT, that’s why there’s a sign at the front that says YOU need to WAIT TO BE SEATED”, before quickly moving on to a table behind us. My husband and I were so stunned and bewildered that we didn’t say anything just looked at one another in complete confusion! As we HAD been seated!! When he finished at the table behind us and began to walk toward us again, I called to him “Excuse me, Sir? Sir?” and he simply walked right on by never acknowledging us. At that point, we picked up our things and left. A restaurant can have great food, but talking to customers like we were spoken to tonight, completely ruins one’s appetite.

We visited the Ozark Cafe instead where we were served a prompt and delicious dinner while we listened to live music, and were taken care of by kind and attentive servers who went above and beyond at every turn- even noticing us taking a selfie out front and came out of the restaurant and offered to take the...