Jay's Restaurant & Lounge — Restaurant in Sanborn

We went here for supper Saturday night, what a disappointment. Took a long time for anyone to acknowledge us or bring us menus. A young boy came over gave us menus and asked for our drink order, when one of us tried to order a beer he was told he’d have to go up to the bar to order it, so he just got a soda instead. After about 20 minutes a waitress came over to take our order. I ordered the small cut of prime rib medium rare with a baked potato, my husband ordered a rare sirloin, and the other orders at our table were chicken fried steak and a bacon cheese burger with sweet potato fries. Our orders included a trip to what they call the “Colossal” salad bar, more like a “Colossal” mess! It contained some pasta salads, potato salad, and pea salads, nothing looked fresh. The pasta in the pasta salad was undercooked and crunchy. The soup was near empty and the cubed pieces of beef tasted old and were not edible. As we were sitting there someone one started stocking the containers at the salad bar, instead of refreshing the containers they were pouring new product right over the old, gross. When our food came out the first thing I noticed was my old brownish cold foil wrapped potato, it looked and tasted like it had been cooked that morning. I looked at my prime rib and it was brown, not pink like a medium rare should be. I asked for them to take it back as I ordered it medium rare, not well done. The other things that were not okay, the hamburger patty was very thin and had no flavor, the sweet potato fries were over cooked shriveled up pieces of nothing. The gravy on the chicken fried steak looked like mayo, straight up from a can and barely heated. My husbands sirloin was not rare, but cooked medium. When they brought my prime rib out it was the same piece and the waitress asked me if I wanted it cooked more…. What? I sent it back because it was to done and you cooked it more! At this point, I had lost all expectations of having a good meal and took it. I asked for creamy horseradish and they brought out raw. It was so bad, it was funny. When I bit into the prime rib it tasted as though it had been microwaved and had a weird beer, yeast flavor. Just, no! I asked for a doggy bag, because literally that’s who I was taking it home to. The last thing that made this night one to remember, was the waitress asked if we would be paying with cash or card, we thought that was kind of weird. We said card, and without any explanation, she brought us our bill and it had a credit card surcharge of 4.00, so we told her we’d pay cash since they charge a fee for us to use our card. The bill was 100.00 for 4 people with no bar or appetizers. The whole experience was off, my expectations were low, since I had been warned that the food and service were not the same as it had been before changing ownership. We will never be back. This is not a good representation of NW Iowa cooking and service. It’s just bad, do yourself a favor and find a place that prides themselves on good service and good food. Just...

Hopefully someday this review and number of stars will increase however after going to this restaurant since I was a kid and many many times into our adulthood our experience tonight have changed our view for probably some time. Tonight we treated ourself to a really nice meal out - steaks and drinks. My husband had to send his entire meal back - a filet mignon. It was not medium rare hot pink center. It was black and dark colored and smelled. Our service was very sub par as waitress just stood there. Absolutely no social distancing measures put into place by our governor. No offer to make the meal right was still charged. The manager/owner just came over to drill is on how much was eaten and defend the meat comes in fresh and not frozen and cut 2 days ago -- well if it wasn't properly handled and refrigerated property doesn't matter if you cut it 4 hours ago. Maybe apologize and ask questions. Definitely...

Fries and chicken that had been in the fryer were not good. They came out, and you could taste the old gross oil. Pasta on the salad bar was not fully cooked, and the dressing it was in was all on the bottom. Salad was browned on the salad bar. Prime rib was done the way I like yet no flavor or seasoning. I asked for steak sauce to help. I asked for a Disaronno and Squirt, and I was told that they only had cheap well. Mashed potatoes had hard chunks in it. Green beans were awful. They were dark and wrinkled up. To be honest, the food was just not good. The waitress was very nice but the quality coming out of the kitchen could use a...