Juniper's Restaurant — Restaurant in Lanesboro

Juniper's is a charming little restaurant with great food in a scenic SE Minnesota location. Immediately alongside the Root River and the Root River Bicycle Trail, it has a stimulating outdoor setting. (Cyclists looked longingly at the food as they rolled by us.) My wife and I enjoyed delightful cocktails. I ordered Mahi-Mahi in a buerre sauce, which came with broccolini and fried wild rice. My wife ordered shrimp, which came with delicious risotto with mushrooms. Everything was cooked to a perfect degree. We shared a house salad ("the Hydro") that could not be beat for freshness and flavor. Everything deliciously prepared, the serving sizes were generous and right-sized (not just tasteless heaping mounds of food). For desert: strawberry-rhubarb pie and banana cream pie.

Lanesboro is a great little town on the Root River that has made a specialty of small hotel/B&B accommodations in a beautiful valley setting, and capitalizing on the bicycle trail passing through the middle of Lanesboro. The restaurant choices are sparse, but Juniper's more than makes up for that in the quality of their food. Don't be fooled by the truncated menu you see online. This is "haute cuisine" in the countryside, people! Juniper's would be a star attraction to any large city's restaurant scene, and its "come as you are" ambiance is exactly right for a town economy based on outdoor recreation. Lanesboro and Juniper's is an easy day trip for anyone in the triangle: Twin Cities (2.25 hours)/Madison (3.5 hours)/Des Moines (3.5 hours), with many nature-based attractions...

Worst service ever... my mother wanted to buy us dinner/drinks because we were on our bikes riding on the trails from preston. She didn't want to accept her card info... understandable... so we bought we bought a gift card to the restaurant... we showed the owner the gift card number and we stood at host desk to be sat... she once again asked us... do you have form of payment while we were being seated in front of everyone... she was clearly upset that we came back... not sure why! We went up ordered our drinks without a problem and sat down... noticed I had a chip in my glass and it was cracked... no big deal went back up asked for a new one like anyone would... she took the glass back to the dish washing area out of eye sight and "stained it" so no new ice no nothing... at this point I asked for a new drink because I didn't know where that peice of glass could have been... she continues to argue with me and says want me to get my husband I say yes please... he asks her was there a chip she said yes. He says then just give him another drink? She gets upset and say fine you deal with it... he apologizes she comes back pissed off pours another one and continues to pour it into a small dixie cup... she tells me and my wife to get out and never come back... so we leave... I was never rude, unpleasant, or argumentative... I just simple wanted a new drink in a fresh glass anywhere else in the world would have been happy to oblige... terrible service over...

First, I will start out with a positive. The positive is that we had a nice table overlooking the water that was it. We went in had a reservation for our anniversary waiting in line for 10 minutes got our table. Then we sat at our table with our menus for 20 minutes And did not see anybody come to bring us water or discuss with us the menu as they do usually, so, I went up to the desk and asked where our waiter or waitress would be. They said it is self serve. You have to come up to the desk and order all of your food. We were never told that so then we left our table, went up student in line for another 15 minutes And then ordered our food. Her food came. My steak was very overdone and incredibly bland. The fries that came with my steak were like curly fries from Arby’s for an expensive price for what we paid. It was not worth it whatsoever. I found the staff to be very non-welcoming And very overwhelmed and stressed. The communication I give a zero I would not recommend this restaurant I will never come back here if you by chance to go here make sure that you know to go up to the counter and order your drinks order your meal order your dessert order anything you want as soon as you can because if you have to go up there multiple times you’ll be in line for an awful long time by the way, this was a Saturday evening at 5 o’clock, which was very early, but thank goodness the company was great. My husband and I always make the best of it. No thanks...