Café J — Restaurant in Lubbock

Mixed experience. Our first attempt to dine there began inauspiciously when we showed up for lunch only to find the restaurant packed wall-to-wall and shoulder to shoulder. I can’t say for sure this was illegal, but I feel was certainly recklessly irresponsible — even without the low ceilings and inadequate ventilation this was a recipe for outbreak.

We returned for an early dinner and found a much lower occupancy level. We started with the spicy green hatch chili soup, which was not at all spicy but tasty nonetheless, and the steamed chicken wontons, which are not described as spicy in the menu but were very much so — this is not inherently bad, but all the other flavors in the wonton were so subtle that they were completely subsumed by the heat.

Our fettuccine carbonara was excellent, creamy and flavorful and frankly flawless. The scallops — all three of them – were also excellent, but the accompanying risotto was crunchy and bland. The blandness was improved with a little bit of salt and pepper at the table, but I don’t recall having a crunchy risotto before. Even so, after the salt and pepper, it was palatable and almost good. The long-stem broccoli was quite good.

For dessert, we tried the peach cobbler gelato, which certainly had pieces of peach but they were impossible to taste through the dominant cinnamon flavor. Even the thin ribbon of caramel that topped the gelato was more noticeable, and the gelato itself was not very creamy and seemed like it had softened and been refrozen. Our other dessert item was a tiramisu which was reasonably flavorful for an espresso and mascarpone cake, which is what it was – not ladyfingers, cake. Again, flavorful, but not true tiramisu.

Service was slow but pleasant, our initial order of two lemonades couldn’t be filled because there was a problem in the back, and the waiter substituted with fruit juices at our request.

As for ambience, we only got to see the dimly lit main dining room, which, as previously mentioned, has low ceilings and poor ventilation. The artwork on the walls, which it seems is a feature here (there are artists’ names and price tags attached) was also a bit of a mixed bag, but there were some decent pieces scattered about.

By the time we finished dinner, the place was starting to get packed for another COVID fest. We both had the disease a few months ago and are probably still immune or would never have risked going back there again, but I would certainly discourage anybody from eating there if they have not gotten vaccinated or...

Man. We made reservations for Valentine’s Day dinner, it was not busy. Waiter asked if we wanted bread and we said yes. We sat there a while and then he brought it apologizing saying he had forgot about us. My boyfriend ordered the beef tenderloin, then the waiter went into the entire explanation of what the tenderloin special entailed. He agreed to try it and ordered it medium rare. I ordered the beef tenderloin as is, medium rare. Never checked our glasses the entire time we were there. When the food arrived it was my plate of tenderloin and a plate of ravioli. Waiter immediately explained that he had accidentally punched in ravioli instead of the special he had promoted to us in the first place. He then asked my boyfriend if he still wanted them to fire up his meal real quick. Well I am a slow eater and I finished my meal, eating valentines dinner alone. When he finally brought out my boyfriend’s plate he asked for it to go since we had already been there for an hour. He brought out the check and said he had taken half off of his meal alone, but this guy single handedly ruined our night out, my meal included since I felt guilty eating while he had nothing. To top it off, he asked the table behind us if they wanted dessert and started to list them. Dessert was never offered to us. Just really...

My husband and I graduated from TTU a few years ago and we used to always go to Cafe J to celebrate special events. We absolutely loved their food and drinks! However, recently we went to Cafe J for my brother in law's graduation dinner and it was extremely disappointing.

They were severely understaffed (on graduation weekend!!). We waited 45 minutes for our appetizers. Our drinks took 30 minutes and they forgot some which took another 15 minutes. We were there for a total of 2 and a half hours. We had to ask about our food and drinks multiple times. When the food finally came out after almost 2 hours it was good BUT the next morning all 6 of our party got food poisoning. The only thing we all ate the same was the chicken fried steak (which is hard to understand cook so it was likely cross contamination or something else). Our grandma was so sick she nearly almost missed the graduation ceremony.

Our waitress was great and super apologetic about our wait. It was not her fault at all. Super disappointed this restaurant can't hire the appropriate amount of staff and as a result the experience of their customers is severely impacted. Not to mention it wasn't a cheap meal!

We use to be regular customers, but will never recommend to visitors or...