Jams Old Market — Restaurant in Omaha

Jams was one of the only restaurants open on the 4th of July, and after a call to verify, my wife made a reservation for 8 pm.

When I walked in with the family, I was NOT surprised to see the restaurant only about 30% full - everyone was outside - it was the 4th of July again.

Red brick, reclaimed wood floors, bar - center, wrap-around-design, metal, glass interior, separate, step-up seating in the back and a nice wine wall on the west side feels a tad bit nicer than the other open-ceiling businesses in the charming Old Market area.

Our server, Traci, was busy when we arrived. When she dropped water at our table, I told her to get caught up then come talk to us. Our night was going to slow down - on purpose. It was 7:50 PM, on a 8:00 PM reservation, so my group was early, and the fireworks displays don't start until 9:30 PM on the 4th. There was nothing but time.

Once Traci came back, which was about 10 minutes, I ordered the Chappellet Mountain Cuvee for the table. Wife and daughter got pasta. I was going to order the steak and frites, but Traci talked me into the $50 Ribeye special.

Wine was pulled from the wall, so it was room temperature, and when Traci came by I asked for her to cool it. Boy did she ever. Had to wait for it. Maybe another 10 minutes, but once she came with the wine and was pouring it, the food was being delivered.

It was the most perfect delivery of a dinner I've ever had - anywhere. Three people delivered our food and wine within seconds. Temperatures were perfect on the steak and the wine. The sugar-coated pecans, braised cocktail onions, sautéed mushrooms, gouda-covered mashed potatoes, and the beautifully prepared steak made for a pleasant umami overload that was complimented by the mountain cuvee.

My wife's lobster/shrimp mac and cheese was loaded with goodness and topped with a hunk of fried sweet potatoes that made the presentation "tall." I think she had some issues with the structure the chef built. Everyone enjoyed the dinner so much, we could not finish everything. Yes - Really! Gave the last glass of wine to the server, since her shift was about to end.

Traci was an excellent server. She knew when to come in and make recommendations and treated us like there was no burden. Again, it was the evening of the 4th of July and about 9:15 PM when we left.

Here's my recipe for success for Jams - Go with a big appetite. Splurge. Have fun with all the playful...

I've been to Jams a few times and enjoyed my experiences. Today was disappointing. A Bloody Mary took 10 minutes, and the special requests for that drink were not honored. No apology for the time it took, or when the server realized several minutes later that she'd forgotten the extra olives we asked for. The restaurant was not exceptionally busy, so the inattentive server was frustrating. We saw her very few times during our hour in the restaurant. Our 2 salads (Dave's, Whiskey Steak) were both tasty, and arrived quickly, but were both teeming with very large, unevenly cut chunks of raw red onion. I'm not a professional chef by any means, but if I'm making a salad at home with raw onion in it, even I know that those slices need to be razor thin and uniform. The onion in these salads was neither. The prep cook in charge of onions either has very poor knife skills, a very dull knife, or both. Get a mandolin slicer if that's the case. My dining companion and I both had to go through and pick out every chunk of onion from our salads, otherwise any bite containing onion was totally overpowered by that flavor. The server failed to notice two big piles of red onion beside each of our bowls - I would've noticed and asked if there was an issue in my own serving days. So I politely asked the server if there was a kitchen manager I could offer some feedback to. She brought him out and I showed him the onions I'd had to pick out of my salad, and pointed out that they were cut unevenly and too large, and totally overpowered the dish. His response: "ok."

No "I'm sorry." No "thank you for bringing that to our attention." No "yes, those are giant chunks of raw onion and that's not correct. We will work on that." He just stared at me like I was the idiot for not wanting to eat the giant chunks of raw red onion.

I would've given 4 stars if he'd been at all receptive to feedback. I don't know if I'll be back to this...

My partner and I love to eat out. He always says I should have written an Omaha food blog cause we discuss the experience in depth with great detail. Well, last night I wish I had a blog. Let me explain. We wanted to eat in the Old Market so we decided we would try Jams American Grill - Old Market since we really love Jams Midtown. We thought it would be a relatively safe choice. WRONG! First, we were eating later (7:30) so the crowd was gone (or was never there) and there were lots of really great tables available. But the host seats us in a booth near the kitchen where we have to see and hear every movement in the restaurant (Note: do not drive the cart of glass wear across your tile floor from the kitchen to the bar. It's noisy and disrupts our already painful dinner and seriously... it was only 1 tray). So the host tosses the menu on the table and walks away. Not real friendly. At all. Then the waiter comes. Nice enough. Not real knowledgeable but not afraid to find out. No fault there! It took 30 minutes to get our first round of drinks. My lemon drop was great. Michael ordered his dirty martini as per usual. When it got there? No olives. At all. We even discussed the desire for bleu cheese olives. Waiter got us some eventually. We never heard what the soup was. But I got four cheese tortellini Michael got the half chicken. Again mine was good. His was greasy and a little undercooked in my opinion. It also took a loooong time to get there. We were in there until 9:30. We never asked for another minute. Just was too long and we basically sat and stewed about how poorly this was going. Luckily the other tables around us commiserated and we made new friends. Needless to say, we didn't enjoy ourselves and I still ended up cooking for Michael when we got home. Could have saved the $140 and I wouldn't have forgotten the olives in...