Editor Pick
Cheap, Decent, all American Comfort Food
- June 4, 2009
- Rated 3 of 5 by
Wasatch from heber ctity, Utah
We usually stay in Springdale when visiting Zion National Park in large part to eat dinner at the Spotted Dog, which is only open on the weekends in winter. All other restaurants in Springdale are grossly overpriced for the food quality, so, with the Spotted Dog unavailable, we opted to cut our room bill from $62 in Springdale down to $35 by staying scenic 22 miles away in Hurricane to eat at JBs. JBs is a restaurant chain reminiscent of Denny’s but with better food– great value for what you get.
The salad bar is center piece of the dinning area. While not on the scale of the salad bar at Sizzler, it is pretty decent, featuring two soups of the day (cream of potato and Florentine Beef, beef vegetable soup heavy on spinach. Both were excellent); a salad of mixed greens and choice of six dressings, par for the course in ordinary, everyday restaurants; vanilla and chocolate pudding, both are terrific; I don’t generally like tacos, but I liked the beef taco on the salad bar; the peach slices had a weird taste, but the Mandarin Oranges were fine. There was also a collection of typical standard salad bar stuff– chucjs of ham, baby ears of corn, carrot slices, red beets, mushrooms, coleslaw, peas, croutons.
I’d grade JB’s salad bar like this: better than average stuff: taco meat and coleslaw; much better than average: chocolate and vanilla pudding; cream of potato soup and beef Florentine soup; avoid the weird peach slices. Everything else was standard.
The salad bar can be ordered separately or as a cheap add on to meals and as part of half a sandwich with salad bar. She ordered the half sandwich, a "Ham Melt", or hot ham and cheese sandwich. The sandwich was excellent, with nice smoky flavored ham. The sandwich was accompanied by what is sometimes called steak fries, thick French fries that lack crunch. Neither of us much cared for those as we prefer fries as crisp at potato chips.
I ordered chicken fried steak, a classic Western comfort food, a breaded, deep friend hamburger drowned in white gravy. Disgusting, but yummy. You must try it somewhere on your visit to the West. JB’s version had its good and bad points. The crisp breading was outstanding, the "steak" was good, the gravy was OK but the accompanying mashed potatoes, the classic accompaniment for Chicken Fried Steak, were ruined with too much pepper in them.
Two very filling and overall pretty good dinners for $26 including tax and tip is hard to beat, which is why we head for here for dinner if the Spotted Dog, where dinner for one can easily run $26, is closed.
Lunch: Sandwiches: 8 Burgers, chicken, tuna, pot roast, turkey club, BLT; 6 salads; chicken tenders, shrimp, salad bar
Breakfast: waffles, pancakes, blintz, French toast, coned beef hash, country ham, steak, biscuits & gravy, eggs, cerial, fruit
dinner: chopped steak, country fried steak, liver & onions, meat loaf, pot roast, three types of chicken, shrimp, white fish, salmon, sirloin or NY steak, all the sandwiches under lunch.
There is small selection of Senior dinners from the main menu with smaller servings and lower prices.
From journal Free visits to the National Parks
Editor Pick
More than Decent Comfort Food
- January 16, 2009
- Rated 4 of 5 by
Wasatch from heber ctity, Utah
We usually stay in Springdale when visiting Zion National Park in large part to eat dinner at the Spotted Dog, which is only open on the weekends in winter. All other restaurants in Springdale are grossly overpriced for the food quality, so, with the Spotted Dog unavailable, we opted to cut our room bill from $62 in Springdale down to $35 by staying scenic 22 miles away in Hurricane to eat at JBs. JBs is a restaurant chain reminiscent of Denny’s but with better food– great value for what you get.
The salad bar is center piece of the dinning area. While not on the scale of the salad bar at Sizzler, it is pretty decent, featuring two soups of the day (cream of potato and Florentine Beef, beef vegetable soup heavy on spinach. Both were excellent); a salad of mixed greens and choice of six dressings, par for the course in ordinary, everyday restaurants; vanilla and chocolate pudding, both are terrific; I don’t generally like tacos, but I liked the beef taco on the salad bar; the peach slices had a weird taste, but the Mandarin Oranges were fine. There was also a collection of typical standard salad bar stuff– chucjs of ham, baby ears of corn, carrot slices, red beets, mushrooms, coleslaw, peas, croutons.
I’d grade JB’s salad bar like this: better than average stuff: taco meat and coleslaw; much better than average: chocolate and vanilla pudding; cream of potato soup and beef Florentine soup; avoid the weird peach slices. Everything else was standard.
The salad bar can be ordered separately or as a cheap add on to meals and as part of half a sandwich with salad bar. She ordered the half sandwich, a "Ham Melt", or hot ham and cheese sandwich. The sandwich was excellent, with nice smoky flavored ham. The sandwich was accompanied by what is sometimes called steak fries, thick French fries that lack crunch. Neither of us much cared for those as we prefer fries as crisp at potato chips.
I ordered chicken fried steak, a classic Western comfort food, a breaded, deep friend hamburger drowned in white gravy. Disgusting, but yummy. You must try it somewhere on your visit to the West. JB’s version had its good and bad points. The crisp breading was outstanding, the "steak" was good, the gravy was OK but the accompanying mashed potatoes, the classic accompaniment for Chicken Fried Steak, were ruined with too much pepper in them.
Two very filling and overall pretty good dinners for $26 including tax and tip is hard to beat, which is why we head for here for dinner if the Spotted Dog, where dinner for one can easily run $26, is closed.
Lunch: Sandwiches: 8 Burgers, chicken, tuna, pot roast, turkey club, BLT; 6 salads; chicken tenders, shrimp, salad bar
Breakfast: waffles, pancakes, blintz, French toast, coned beef hash, country ham, steak, biscuits & gravy, eggs, cerial, fruit
dinner: chopped steak, country fried steak, liver & onions, meat loaf, pot roast, three types of chicken, shrimp, white fish, salmon, sirloin or NY steak, all the sandwiches under lunch.
There is small selection of Senior dinners from the main menu with smaller servings and lower prices.
From journal Christmas in Las Vegas, Almost