Jackson Street Tavern — Restaurant in Omaha

Located just south of Omaha's Old Market area, Jackson Street Tavern was selected for us by the coordinator of a conference we attended, otherwise we likely would not have chosen it ourselves.

No IPA on tap and no Wi-Fi? Unheard of, but that was the case. Off to a bad start, particularly because the Dodgers were playing in the first game of the NLDS against the Nationals and I wanted to see the rest of the game.

The draft beers they had were $7 or listed "Market Price", slang for "too expensive to list on our menu", so I went with a local bottle of Zipline IPA for $4.50, the least expensive beer on the menu. I also tried Zipline's Porter and both were cold and good.

Also cold were the fries that came with my "French Dip" ($16). The sandwich was about the size of half a Subway footlong with about as much meat (the real thing, not the ones they show you in their commercials). The sandwich was OK, but for $16 a few more ounces of beef and warm fries would have been nice.

My wife had the "Local Wagyu Burger", coming with caramelized onion, cheddar cheese, bacon, tomato, lettuce, and "aioli" on a brioche bun as well as more cold fries. The burger was decent, but not worth $15. A similar burger at Dempsey's or The Burger Stand at The Casbah back in Lawrence would top out at $10 for example.

Long and narrow, the space has brick walls (in an old building) and tall ceilings, making the obnoxiously loud patrons even louder and impossible to carry on a conversation with the person next to you. The short blonde hostess who failed to even greet us on arrival was impersonal and unfriendly, showing us to our table with barely a word. Our server was semi-friendly and fairly efficient, the highlight of the night and that is not saying much. Our server did manage to have the nearest TV changed to FS1 so I could watch the end of the Dodgers vs Nationals game, which the Dodgers won 4-3 by the way ... one down and ten to go to the 2016 World Championship ... HOOAH!

Jackson Street Tavern Gets A Measly 3 Bombs Out Of 10 ... More...

This was a really hard one to review, honestly. Mainly because so many things went well, and they did well, but at the end of the day, it was some straight forward pub food for $50 for one person, and I can't see that being rewarded with 4 or 5 stars. It's like that meme where it's the overpriced burger starter pack, and I think this place had everything except the EAT sign. Lol

But seriously, nothing in Food, Atmosphere, or Service, was 3 star. They did well. So I guess there's an establishment rating (3 stars) and then the in restaurant experience (excluding the price) rating. Here's what I have on the breakdown.

Food: Wings were bomb for the first two bites. Great flavor, good texture and seasoning. Amazing blue cheese dressing. After the first two wings for some reason the experience became average. Not sure why. Maybe it just got predictable really fast or lacked enough sauce to keep filling your nostrils with that buffalo experience. But I think the wings were A tier. Not S tier, but definitely A. I would recommend.

Nebraska Burger. The actual beef patty was 🔥. Very good. The whole burger in composition was above average, but lacked a flavor punch a good burger should have. Caramelized unions were so so. Still 4/5.

Service: Good. Not the highest rating possible, but attentive, nothing amiss, friendly, overall good. They were on their game. I'd give it 4.5 if I could. Waitress was on top of it.

Atmosphere: Again, nothing spectacular, but well done. Liked the Edison bulb style lighting actually filling the restaurant, and tavern ambience. Just nothing over the top.

At the end of the day, it's a good place. Just hard to see having to shell out $50 for wings, soda, and burger. A date night being a Franklin is hard to stomach unless that's just not a worry to you. I imagine for downtown Omaha, rent is ridiculous, so you can't be cheap. It's going to be hard to put something really special together, but it felt like more could definitely be possible for the...

The vibe here was great. Good lighting, great decoration. Good chatter throughout the restaurant. Immediately inspired good conversation and I appreciate that a lot. Server was quick to bring us drinks and take orders.

Appetizers we got the charcuterie and the bruschetta. Bruschetta was ok, there was a lot of balsamic and it made it all uniformly sweet. It was pretty one dimensional. You couldn’t taste the tomato, basil or mozzarella. The charcuterie was very upsetting actually. Ratios were way out of wack. 4 pieces of toast, 2 jams, mustard, apples (red delicious, questionable choice), grapes, Nuts, ham and salami. The salami was great. That was the only thing on the tray that was great. Artichoke hearts out of a can and canned pears!!! That was upsetting for the price. High school cafeteria pears!

Entrees were pretty good, I tried everyone’s. Fried chicken (entree and sandwich), was very good. Not sure if they brined the chicken, it wasn’t very salty, but the breading and fry job was fantastic. Very crispy. The chicken was moist. Toppings on the chicken sandwich were nice and light and the bun held up well under the grease. Sweet potato fries were VERY sweet, but I thought it went with the chicken well. Mashed potatoes were fine, they were good because mashed potatoes are good but nothing to write home about. Beef stroganoff is not my favorite but I thought it was fine here. The chicken Parmesan was really nice, tomatoes and sauce were very flavorful, that was probably my favorite dish on the table.

Overall, I’d return here. It was a great place to meet up and tell stories and hang out. It would be a great place to take your family. The food, for the most part, is pretty good. Location is great and it was fun to...