J Mark's Restaurant

A friend offered to take me here for dinner while I was in town. While I'd heard the name in passing before, I'd never had a chance to stop in -- and now I know I'll be back to explore their broadly varied menu.

As we had other evening plans, we dined a bit on the early side, meaning half-price wine from the bar. I'm not sure what the house Pinot Noir was -- I'm reasonably sure it was from California -- but it was a smooth choice, and complemented my garlic chicken pasta nicely.

The service was great -- friendly staff, and they clearly were watching out for each other. Our drink orders were taken by a different server almost the moment we sat so we could benefit from the happy-hour discount, without waiting for our regular server.

Our only mistake was ordering the vegetarian egg roll with tamarind sauce as an appetizer -- not because it was bad, but because it was so filling for two people. Neither of us were able to eat more than about half of our pasta entrees -- a shame, as both were extremely tasty.

If you are local, there does appear to be some sort of "regular" membership program. It would have given us some form of discount on a bottle of wine had we not gone in for the by-the-glass pricing, but instead, our server gave a small discount off the check. Worth looking into, if you're of a mind.

Never again.....

We went there for lunch today. When we walked in it smelled like dirty dish towel...that should've been CLUE #1.  So instead, we sat outside on their very nice patio.  After looking at the menu for a bit and asking our waitress for her suggestions we ordered:  chopped salad shared {$5.95 with an entree order}, 1/2 rack of ribs-came with coleslaw and a side, for  me a Cajun chicken sandwich with green beans [I forgot to say no butter b/c they were swimming in it}.

It took, no lie, 30 mins to get our food.  We did ask for rolls and got those right away. When it looked like it was going to take longer than expected we asked for the salad to be brought out first so we could munch on that.  Another 15 mins goes by. Food finally comes out. Still no salad :(. Ask for the salad, it finally appears.

My chicken was like a hockey puck very similar to a chicken jerky, it was so overcooked and dry and SMALL [it must've been like a 3 or 4 oz portion] the bun was at least twice it's size.  And they use the shredded lettuce on the sandwich, like the kind you use on tacos.  Friends half slab of ribs was sooooo SMALL too, she actually looked at me and said 'thank God we ordered the salad". Black beans and rice were so HUGE they were almost a meal in themselves. They were very bland.  Chopped salad was so over-chopped that every time you tried to get it on your fork it like fell off.  

Then we waited another 10 mins to find our waitress so we could get the check. Finally the manager came over, asked how our food was, and we asked for the check. He left promptly and then he was gone.  Our waitress had to come back out with the check..... so NO buddy it wasn't good and I see where it comes from!

Took almost an hour and a half for lunch...mostly with us waiting around.

J. Marks was a great place for a cheapish dinner. It's similar to a T.G.I. Fridays but a step above. Good food and big portions. Nice for a casual dinner with friends. I ordered the chopped salad for an appetizer and penne vodka and added chicken to it for dinner.

The chopped salad was large and very tasty. And the penne was huge and had great flavor. And a henrix gin martini to wash it down. Delicious.