Jack's Bar And Steakhouse — Restaurant in New Haven

AVOID. UNPROFESSIONAL.

As you can see in the attached photos, Jack's Bar advertised that they were hosting PUBLIC Halloween events on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights of this weekend, beginning at 10:30 PM, and including a costume contest each night.

Our group saw the listing a week in advance and decided we would attend (putting aside the other events we saw across Southern/Southwestern Connecticut).

Saturday came along, and we were hyped. After going all out on our costumes, we Ubered from Shelton to Jack's in New Haven (for about $25), getting there around 10:35 PM.

We proceeded to the door, and were immediately turned away by the bouncers, because "the event [was] private, and [we were] not on the list". I quickly pulled up the event on Facebook, and showed the bouncer that it said "PUBLIC EVENT by Jack's Bar Steakhouse" and that there was no mention of it being private. He responded that the event was not being hosted by the bar (but by an external organization; a Frat) and that the bar did not post the event and therefore was not liable for what it said. Again, I showed him the event which stated "Public Event BY JACK'S BAR STEAKHOUSE" and that Jack's Bar did indeed post the event on their official Facebook page; nowhere in the description did it say that the event was private. He refused to acknowledge that the bar was in the wrong. After some—very polite—back and forth, we asked to speak with a manager, which the bouncer refused to allow, telling us to come back at 11:30 PM... This was unacceptable, as we were not from the area, and really had nowhere to go. Again, we dressed up and Ubered 30+minutes to come to this specific event...

While we were deliberating what we would do next, we watched as Jack's let in some groups, while turning away others that—like us—saw the "Public event by Jack's Bar Steakhouse" on Facebook but were not on "the list".

Jack's didn't even have the courtesy to remove/edit the FB event when people started to complain; they just left it up so people would keep coming, getting denied, and waiting until the arbitrarily pushed-back 11:30 PM time...

Realizing Jack's would not be accommodating, we decided to kill some time at a nearby bar until 11:30 when the bouncer said—and we hoped that we could trust—he would let us in. We ended up standing in the corner of an already-stuffed bar/restaurant, where we had to consistently move to allow waiters and guests to move in and out. About a quarter of the people were dressed up, and I think it is safe to assume a large portion of them had also been turned away by Jack's.

Sometime after 11:30 PM, we decided to go back to Jack's to try our luck, and thankfully the bouncers were now letting the public in...with a $5 cover charge, despite the event page saying "No Cover Charge". At this point, we were beyond frustrated and complied just to get in... just to realize that we had missed the entirety of the costume contest—which was the main reason we wanted to come in the first place.

We ordered a few drinks and stuck around for a little while, noticing that that the bar was not even at capacity (there was a room that was almost completely empty), so there was really no reason that we should have paid cover or been denied earlier in the first place.

It's safe to say that our night was severely less enjoyable than it would have been if we hadn't gone to Jack's and instead chose one of the other events we were considering. And then we had the $25/30+min Uber back.

We will not be returning to Jack's and will be recommending others avoid it as well. Although it might look like a good bar option, it's definitely not worth their unprofessionalism, inconsideration, lack of accountability,...

I wrote the following email to the manager and it has been 7 days with 0 replies.

I was there today for Father's day 2021 to commemorate my late father and my friend's late father where we also brought our mothers along. Our reservation was under H* for 3:15 pm.

As an avid steakhouse consumer in Boston where I'm from, I was excited to try out Jack's. However, the experience left me wanting more of the price that I paid for. Believe me, I'm happy to pay for quality service and I thought I had service that was below par today.

Firstly, when we got to the restaurant, we were greeted really well by the hostess and seated us. However, our server did not realise that our mothers who are both in their 70s and 80s needed paper menus. So I stood up to pick them up myself because despite the restaurant not being as busy at 3:45 pm, he was barely around.

Secondly, I was very adamant on how picky my mother was with her drink and our server made little contribution to the drink that she ordered which is fine. Just that it's odd that our server had little contribution despite me mentioning her requirements.

Thirdly, my order of NY strip steak was poorly produced and it felt like I was forced to eat what i knew immediately felt off. To start, my steak was overdone. I told my server and he asked that I slice through the middle. Which I did and showed him how overdone it was. He then told me (not asked) two more times to slice it all the way through which felt more instructional and frustration laced than a request. When my final steak arrived, it was plopped on my table with little ask on whether it fit the doneness. And this steak tasted of poor quality, no sear marks, and tasted old. A $60 piece of steak and it was one of the most horrible pieces of meat I have had at a steakhouse.

Fourthly, we ordered Brussel sprouts without bacon and maple syrup. We asked if it were possible, and was told that this was an easy request. When it arrived, the bacon was on the Brussel sprouts. I had to hail the server down which to me felt forced when he took it back and again, the same movement of not being attentive when returning to the table, this time with the correct order.

Fifthly, my 74 year old mother was struggling with her food and I had no idea that she didn't enjoy her food. Only after 20 minutes of her attempting to pick at her food did I realise how much she hated it because of the high salt content in it. I asked the server about exchanging or returning it and he said multiple times to our face "but she's still eating it" and my mother said" to prove your point that its incredibly salty". I then told him that it's only had the noodles consumed because the chicken was abhorrently salty. To note, she ate 1/8 of her chicken. To which he then said "then you could scrape the cheese and eat it right?". This certainly put my mood off. I have never ever been treated like this at a restaurant.

Sixthly, we ordered wine with our steak. He brought it before the steaks and asked to then bring it out later. He forgot and I counted that I had to ask him twice and took him 10 minutes to get our glasses.

Finally, despite as much of pleasantries that we attempted with our server, our cheque was brought to us even before we asked with barely a thank you for coming.

To note, I really appreciated the beginning of our experience. However, spending $250 on a dining experience with 1 star service was not what I expected on a day where I honored my late father who would have also disliked everything about the whole...

In a brick building where the College Street meets Crown, there was a steakhouse that challenged everything you thought you knew about steakhouses. The old man had been to many steakhouses in his time, in Chicago, in New York, in places where the men wore suits that cost more than boats, but he had never seen one quite like this.

The place was clean. Too clean. The kind of clean that makes you wonder what they're hiding, like a boxer who smiles too much before a fight. The lights above were bright and unforgiving, the way lights are in places where people don't want shadows. But the oysters, ah, the oysters were good and they were true.

"One dollar each during happy hour," the bartender said. He was kind, the way people are kind when they know something isn't quite right but they're doing their best anyway. Them oysters came on ice with small bottles of hot sauce standing like red soldiers around them.

The burger came too, thick and honest, with thin fries that were golden and correct. The old man had seen many burgers in his time, but this one had juicy dignity. It didn't pretend to be something it wasn't.

But there were strange things here. The bathroom doors had no knobs, as if they had given up on the very idea of knobs. Men would push through with paper towels in their hands, like matadors with very small, very absorbent capes. The old man thought about this while he drank his odouls at the black granite bar that felt like it had been ordered from a catalog called "Restaurant Parts for Places That Used to Be Banks."

The televisions showed sports games that nobody watched, their blue light mixing with the too-bright ceiling lights in a way that made everything look like a waiting room where you might also happen to get a steak. A fifty-ounce tomahawk steak cost one hundred and fifty dollars. The old man knew that somewhere, someone was proud of this.

Above the bar, there was a piece of wall art that looked like crumpled paper, frozen in time and painted white. The old man stared at it and thought it might be trying to tell him something, but he had not had enough life to understand what.

The bartenders moved with grace and kindness, as if they had accepted their fate in this strange place between worlds - not quite fine dining, not quite sports bar, not quite third world medical facility. They poured drinks with precision and smiled genuine smiles that made you forget about the institutional lighting above.

It was a good place, the old man decided, but it was good in the way that some things are good despite themselves. The oysters were cheap, fresh and cold and tasted of the sea. The burger was true. The bartenders were real. These things mattered more than the missing doorknobs and the lights that made you feel like you might be asked to fill out paperwork at any moment.

In the end, that was what it was: a place that served honest food in a dishonest room, with people who made you forget about the room altogether. And maybe that was enough. The old man knew that in life, as in steakhouses, you take the good where you find it, even if it comes with fluorescent lights and bathroom doors you have to handle with paper towels.

"It is good," he said to nobody in particular, and ordered another round of dollar oysters. The games played silently on the TVs above, and somewhere, beneath the too-bright lights and behind the knobless doors, life went on in its strange and...