Jesses Restaurant — Restaurant in Magnolia Springs

I waited a day to write this review so that I had time to consider my experience. We have been to Jesse's for lunch a few times and stopped by for a cocktail and have really enjoyed the food and atmosphere.

First....our waitress was great (I hate the term "server" - it sounds so pretentious). She was pleasant, attentive and engaging. Great job by her!

We called early in the day and asked if they had happy hour and we were told "yes." When we arrived we were told happy hour doesn't happen on Saturdays. Not a major deal, but it was a portent.

I checked in with the hostess and told her we'd be in the bar (directly in her line of sight). Another reservation was called by someone coming in and getting the customer, but when we weren't called and we were 15 minutes past our reservation time, I went over and asked and the lady told me that they were watching and waiting because we seemed like we were busy. We finally got seated.

We were seated in the old Post office which is like overflow seating and rather unappealing. The "general store" portion of the restaurant is much nicer. There were a lot of people in the dining area and only two waiters plus a 3rd who was new and being trained. This was for a party of 10 in the middle plus another 6 or 7 tables.

We ordered an appetizer that took a really long time to arrive. The appetizer was delicious. However other tables were brought bread and butter and we never were. We also ordered a salad which took an extremely long time to arrive. We were told a couple times that our dinners were coming, but it took over 30 minutes from the time we finished the salad to our food arriving.

The food was lukewarm. Not hot at all. My steak was ordered rare and was considerably more "bleu" than rare. The gentleman who brought the dinners to us asked how they were and we told him. He offered to comp the meal (kudos to him for offering) but we told him we weren't looking for that, we just thought he should know that the food seemed to have been sitting on the plates for some time. We were told that the restaurant wasn't short staffed but that they had a lot of new people.

We'll go back to Jesse's because we think this is a one off event. However, we probably won't go for dinner and when we go we'll be sure to reserve a table outside or in the...

I was so excited to try this place after reading rave reviews. We decided to stop here for lunch (way cheaper than dinner options) one day on our vacation.

Right off the bat, we spent several minutes waiting with no person to be found to take our name or seat us. Which is fine, I get that. Then a man came up and asked us for our reservation (which we didn’t have). When we told him we didn’t have one, he very rudely pointed to the seat behind him and said “take a seat” in a dismissive tone. My husband and I were a little taken back. The elderly women behind us in line were also given the same rude remark. He quickly tended to the people behind those ladies who did have a reservation. He did however come back several minutes later and have us seated by a hostess (to be noted that most of the restaurant was empty).

Our waitress however, was an elderly women who was sweet as can be and made the experience much better. We ordered 2 Jesse’s burgers and 1 Asher’s chicken sandwich. The burgers were very good! Definitely had a charbroiled taste similar to Burger King or Hardee’s. The Parmesan fries were overcooked but weren’t bad. No Parmesan flavor, though. My chicken sandwich was really disappointing, to be honest. The breading was burnt, and 90% of the chicken was not even the thickness of a chick fil a sandwich, most of it was breading except the last couple of bites were actual chicken. The tomatoes on it were bland and light pinkish white like they were unripe from the grocery store (I expected better quality from a restaurant like this especially during summer when produce is peak season). The sauce was barely there and couldn’t be tasted. While we didn’t get their fancier options, I still expected a lot more than what we got from this restaurant and was really disappointed. The waitress gets 5 stars, restaurant was mediocre and not tasting better than fast food besides...

Very nice place.

Service: Friendly service and helpful. When server didn't know about something, he went to ask the kitchen or other staff to let us know, even if we didn't specifically asked for it. Knew the daily specials by heart. The A/C was strong and as we were the only ones, we asked if they could turn it down a bit. Without hesitation they did so immediately.

Environment: Surrounded by trees, Jesses really is a place to relax and enjoy your time far from busy streets and cities. Inner decoration is simple but cozy and inviting.

Food: We ordered T-Bone Steaks which were tender. However: we ordered medium but one piece turned out rather medium-raw to blue (which was not a problem for me). We advised the staff and they offered to change but it was fine for us. Out of the 2 ordered steaks, it seemed that the quality of both pieces wasn't the same. Mine seemed to be a nice cut than the other one, which isn't OK if you pay the same price. Sauces for steaks need to be paid for seperately, otherwise, your steak comes without any sauce. I think that for a steak at least some of the more basic sauces should be inluded. Having to pay $2 supplement for aspargus is a bit too much. They were very basic and could have been included in the price of the steak (each steak comes with 2 sides included, aspargus however are $2).

Other than that, we were satisfied with our time there and would recommend this place for anyone who would like to have "proper" food in the...