We visited Jacob Myers based on recommendations from several people. Honestly, I hadn’t even heard of it until a few weeks ago when a friend posted on Facebook that she was going there for her birthday! Suddenly, I had people recommending it left and right. Jacob Myers is located in Dayton, Tennessee just off of Dayton Pike/Highway 27. I mean, you hang a right and it’s pretty much right there. It’s by a camping/picnic area and right across the street from a body of water that apparently is a river…although I’m not sure which one. Is this a branch of the Tennessee River? I’m feeling kind of dumb, but I couldn’t find this info on a map. Someone help me out!
We were fairly hungry fairly early, so we decided to head up to Dayton before the dinner rush hit. Jacob Myers serves lunch from 11-4 and dinner from 4-close, except for Sunday, when I am assuming that they serve from the dinner menu all day (11-6). We arrived at about 4:50 and were seated immediately. It was a beautiful breezy day, so we decided to sit on the deck. Our server, Kevin, came to take our drink orders when we’d had just enough time to peruse the menu and decide on an appetizer-fried pickles, which came with something called “spicy boom boom sauce”. The fried pickles were spears, which is my preference, and they were breaded, not battered. They were hot but not so hot that we burned our mouths, which is a good thing. The sauce was a mayo based sauce with something spicy, presumably some sort of pepper or buffalo sauce, mixed in. It was spicy but not overly so. The pickles were good, but still not the best I’ve had (alas, Durty Nelly’s, long since closed, will probably always hold that honor).
On the recommendation of a friend, I decided to get the dreamy mushroom chicken, which the menu describes as “a delectable blend of crème, button mushrooms and diced Tomatoes with a hint of
cayenne and garlic atop a whole grilled boneless chicken breast.” I decided on a loaded baked potato and side salad with tarragon vinegar dressing as my sides. The salad came out first, and it was pretty blah (see the picture below). Iceberg lettuce, carrot shreds, and a few cucumbers and tomatoes. I’ll be honest, it takes a lot to wow me with a house salad, and this one just wasn’t doing it. The dressing was okay, but the tarragon flavor was pretty strong and I’m not a gigantictarragon fan (I know, why’d I get it? I just wanted to try something a little different). The entree was huge with a lot of sauce. The first thing that I noticed was the gigantic slices of green onion. I like green onions, but I prefer them finely chopped. The next thing I noticed was that the “butter” on the baked potato was actually, um, buttery spread. A huge scoop of it. I promptly removed most of it. You know I don’t do margarine. So, there are my recommendations: use real butter and chop the scallions a little more! But I digress…now that I have the constructive criticism out of the way, let me tell you what I did like.
The sauce was nice, not overly salty, just enough so. The garlic flavor was not overpowering and there was just a tiny heat at the “back” of the bite from the cayenne. The mushrooms were very tender and flavorful. There was parmesan cheese grated on top, which I am sure I would have done if I was making this dish at my house. Honestly, I was a little unsure of how I would like the diced tomatoes on top of the chicken…it seemed like an odd addition to me. I really liked it! The tomatoes tasted very fresh and were nice and cool compared to the warm sauce. The chicken was nicely grilled and seasoned under the sauce. I would order this again. The baked potato was huge, and aside from the buttery spread, it was very tasty and fresh, unlike the baked potatoes you sometimes get that taste like they have been sitting around under a warmer all day.
Philip had a little trouble decided what to order. He (jokingly) considered the 16 oz. ribeye, then a burger, then the Reuben. On Kevin’s recommendation, he decided to go with the Jacob Myers burger, “a half pound angus burger topped with cheese, bacon, egg and crowned w/ a huge homemade onion ring.” Now, if you read my 60/40 burger post, you know we are not strangers to the idea of an egg on a burger. It’s a perfect combo! The presentation is meant to be pretty awe-inspiring with the big knife stuck through the thick onion ring. The onion ring had a nice tempura batter on it that was just a little sweet. The burger had a grilled taste and had lettuce, tomato, and onion on it. It was a tasty burger, not over-the-top good, but definitely good. The fries were just regular old frozen fries (I think) but tasted fine.
One of my friends had also told me that you can’t go to Jacob Myers without eating dessert. We were way too full to eat dessert there, but we ordered it to go. Kevin rattled off a list of about five cheesecakes (the only one I remember was pineapple upside-down….I pretty much tuned those out because Philip hates cheesecake), the chocolate thing (chocolate pudding and Cool Whip and some other stuff), coconut praline pie, buckeyes, chocolate chip cookies, oatmeal creme pies, and brownies. We decided on the buckeyes, which are peanut butter fudge balls dipped in chocolate candy coating. I was expecting something small (truffle-sized) but these were huge! If you’ve ever eaten peanut butter fudge, imagine eating it with a chocolate coating on it. Sweet and rich-we had to drink glasses of milk to tamp down the sweetness! Still, good.
I am not saying this was an out-of-this-world dining experience….but the ambiance is nice, especially with the outdoors dining…the staff was friendly, and Kevin was a great server. The food was definitely good. I’ve been told that I need to go for lunch as well, so I will be visiting them during lunch hours at some point in the future. If you are ever in Dayton and need a dining spot, this is a great place to go!
Jacob Myers Restaurant on the River is located at 185 Chickamauga Drive, Dayton, TN 37321. You can call them at 423-570-0023. They serve lunch from 11-4, Tuesday-Saturday, and dinner from 4-9 Tuesday-Thursday, 4-10 Friday and Saturday, and 11-6 on Sunday. Visit their website, www.jacobmyersrestaurant.com, and find them on Facebook. By the way, to avoid any confusion, the restaurant is also known as Jacob Myers Deli.
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