The Ivy House is ALMOST as good as having lunch at Grandma's house. In fact, when I visit my Meme in Williston, this is about the only place she'll agree to go to. Located in the tiny town's main drag, the huge Victorian-style house offers a maze of quaint, cute dining rooms usually filled with familiar local faces. These days, the folks in Gainesville and Ocala have heard the good word of Ivy House and often make the 20-minute drive to savor the flavor alongside the Williston residents.
They have a southern style menu filled with yumtastic dishes like Fried Shrimp, Chicken Salad Croissants, Pulled Pork Sandwiches and more, but I come for one thing and one thing only: The Krispy Chicken Special. Baked golden brown with butter and crunchy rice krispies, the chicken breast is served on a positively packed plate consisting of a dinner roll AND crumbly cornbread, fresh salad with the sweet and tangy house honey mustard dressing, and a vegetable of the day that is guaranteed to be country-fied (think field peas or collard greens.) This is truly one of my favorite meals of all time and, when paired with their super sweet Raspberry Tea, it reaches another level of DELISH, ya'll.
Another sweet selling point of Ivy House is their sincere Southern hospitality. They will happily accomodate special events like birthdays and showers with private rooms decorated to the nines with special personalized place settings. The ladies at the front door treat every guest like a dear niece or nephew when they enter, and the servers continue the graciousness from greeting to check. The Ivy House is a true gem and has earned it's reputation as a WIlliston institution.
Sad to say that our latest lunches at this restaurant have found the food to be going slowly down hill. Â Last week the Crispy Chicken special was anything but, unless you count the layer of Rice Crispies on top. Service was spotty and a tad on the flustered side of professional. The restaurant is still very pretty and nicely decorated and it remains the best in Williston, but no longer worth a special trip...
Review Source:This was our first visit to the Ivy House. Â We were a party of four and ordered off the lunch menu. Everything tasted fresh and was nicely served. Â The corn bread and desserts were outstanding. Â The prices were reasonable. Â Liked the atmosphere and it was fun browsing in the gift shop after we finished our meal. Â We will definitely go back.
Review Source:The Ivy House is classic Southern style cooking in a renovated Victorian home in Williston. They also have a sister restaurant in Alachua in what appears to be an even more impressive Victorian house. The atmosphere here is nice enough, but a little over-done on the country-cute and huntin' and fishin' themes. I would have rather if it had been decorated with antiques like someone's grandma's home instead of this over-done approach that looks like it's halfway decorated for Christmas (they have wreaths up and garland . . . seriously . . . it looks like Christmas-time at Smokey the Bear's).
That said, it the food is very good. I had the BBQ shrimp and grits and it compared well to the same dish in Savannah, Georgia, where shrimp and grits is a trademark dish of many local restaurants. The grits were just perfect and the sauce on the shrimp was great too, while the shrimp themselves were fine, it was hard to tell if they were fresh or frozen. The only real difference between the dish here vs. in Savannah was most places in Savannah you can taste the freshness of the shrimp (not at Paula Deen's though!). The sides tonight were green beans and yellow squash, plus a roll, cornbread, and salad are served alongside your main dish. We also had the fried green tomatoes which were very good. The green beans were some of the best I'd ever had and the squash and roll were also great while the corn bread was soft, moist, and almost more like a spoon-bread than what I think of as corn bread, but very, very good all the same. I got coconut cake for dessert which was sweet, buttery, moist and quite good.
The staff is attentive and as I said, while the atmosphere isn't exactly how I would have done things myself, it's fine and the location has a good amount of seating. Have I had better Southern-style food? Yes. The Beaver House in Statesboro, Georgia is probably better, and for seafood Robinson's near Cedar Key may be better, but overall the Ivy House is pretty good. If you like this type of food, you'll enjoy The Ivy House.
Very good place in a town that I doubt is known for its restaurants. Â I went there with my father - and although the interior design is a bit feminine, it was the quality and uniqueness of the food that was that took center stage.
I had a salad with rolled turkey. Â Very good, and somewhat creative for a salad. Â My father had the special (a crispy baked chicken dish) that was also excellent. Â It was served with several side items ... no shortage of food that's for sure! Â
Great variety, quick and pleasant service, and some eclectic menu choices.
If you pass through Williston - you should give it a try!
I visited family who recently moved to Williston, and we ate here for lunch. We all had one of the house specialties, the crispy chicken, and we all though it was delicious. In any meal I'm bound to be able to find something I feel can be improved upon, but for overall value, ambiance, and hospitality, Miss Mimi and her team can't be beaten.
It was just good, unpretentious food at a reasonable price, especially given the portion sizes. After eating lunch here my dinner was.. nothing! I was still too deliciously full from lunch. I'd recommend the Ivy House.
I'd never heard of this place when a friend from Ocala suggested that we meet here for lunch. Â She raved about the food and promised it was worth the drive. Â I checked out their website & I was intrigued. It looked promising.
It was ... OK. Â If I lived in Williston I would probably eat here fairly regularly, but that's probably more of a comment on Williston than on the Ivy House. Â The house is beautiful. It's in good shape & it's nicely decorated inside. The waitress was very friendly & helpful.
Unfortunately, the food was just average. Â They had a pork chop sandwich special that I tried. It was heavily breaded & deep-fried. Â It needed salt. Â There was nothing bad about it as such, it's not like it was dripping with grease or anything, there just wasn't anything special about it.
My friend had the chicken salad & it looked like there was more mayonnaise than chicken. Â Maybe that's tasty if you're in to that sort of thing.
Overall I'd have to say that if I happened to be in Williston at meal time I might stop in, but I wouldn't make the trip just to go to the Ivy House.
Ivy House has some of the best country style cooking I'v eaten. The decor is magnificent; I felt as if I might have traveled into the 1900's. We got the raspberry tea and it was probably the second best raspberry tea I've had. The chicken dish is has a very flavorful and the lobster tail was great. I was amazed how good string beans and carrots tasted. Their biscuits melts in the mouth, just amazing. The corn bread is about average. Â The serves was good. The almond pie was very good.
This is a great place to treat a love one for dinner or some out of town guest. I was not sure what to expect when I stopped there, but was really glad that I did. If your in Williston/Gainesville area or looking to try a great place, you will definitely enjoy this place.
I've heard people come for miles to visit the Ivy House. If you want to be treated with perfect Southern hospitality, than it's worth the trip. The restaurant has a long history , the house having been built in 1912. But this is a story you will have to ask the 3 generations of Hale women that run the place to expound upon.
My mother is indeed a smart woman and suggested we stop here for lunch. I was expecting something much fancier, but I was glad to discover that it wasn't. Marjorie Hale started the restaurant and cooks with old family recipes. In fact, my mother wanted to know if the Fried Green Tomatoes were cooked with corn meal or flour and Ms. Hale was loathe to give any details because of the secrecy of this family recipe. We decided if this woman was guarding her food this carefully, we had to try the tomatoes, corn meal or not. Â Although they are made with flour, this much we ascertained, (to the chagrin of my mother who believes that corn meal brings out the tartness of the green tomatoes), it was well worth the sampling of the family treasure.
The waitress was quite the saleswoman but was generous in letting us try the things she suggested at no charge.
They have quite a different lunch and dinner menu. I would've liked to have been able to choose from the dinner menu, but I did enjoy the chicken salad croissant I ended up with. My mother raved over her salad. And the sweet tea was perfection. The waitress convinced us to get dessert. The best thing was the buttermilk walnut pie which is a variation on pecan pie, a little lighter and less sweet, and very good.
I would love to go back for dinner the next time I'm in town because the menu was quite intriguing...
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