Magnolia Restaurant- Willow Springs

A new restaurant is open in Willow Springs in the town center complex.

When we moved into the neighborhood 5 years ago they promised that there would be a bar, shops, a restaurant, etc. So far that hasn’t quite materialized the way they expected. Magnolia announced they were opening in January and finally opened about 2 weeks ago.

We visited for the first time tonight. The restaurant is small (seats about 20-30 people) with a bar on one side and the restaurant on the other. There were 3 other tables there when we got there and the number remained steady while we ate. The restaurant aims to be upscale with marble floors, dark wood and white tablecloths.

The food is mainly eastern European with a American items thrown in. The staff and hostess were Polish and most of the patrons were Polish as well from the conversation going back and forth. Our waitress didn’t seem to speak English very well and said very little to us. After we had ordered she told us a few specials and said we could change our order, but since the order was already in we opted not to. To start there were 2 options each for appetizers, soup and salad. One was eastern Euopean (i.e. meat dumplings, beet soup) and the other more traditional American. One odd thing was that my husband and I ended up with different menus. They were mostly the same items, but mine had extra entrees and a few misspellings were corrected from his version. For the entrees it was half entrees like sausages, pierogis, etc and half of the traditional steak, shrimp and chicken. There was one dessert option that was a chefs choice of pastries.

I ordered a mixed greens salad which had a cider vinegar dressing and candied pecans. The greens were fresh and the salad dressing was refreshing. It did have a little too much kosher salt on the top. My husband had the tomato basil soup which came in a huge bowl. It was served nice and hot and was quite tasty.

For the entrée I ordered the chicken with spinach and mashed potatoes with a mushroom cream sauce. The chicken was a bit dry and there could have been more sauce, but otherwise was fine. My husband had the steak which came with green beans and potatoes. He said the steak was good. He ordered a glass of pinot noir with his steak and it came chilled. It was a generous pour and was good after it had warmed up. The waitress didn’t really come back and check on us and after dropping off the check didn’t return to pick up the payment for almost 15 minutes even though the restaurant was not overwhelmed.

Our bill came to $63 without tip which seemed high for the food that we got. I think the restaurant has a lot of potential once they get some of the kinks worked out with the service and maybe lower the price point. If I wanted to spend that much I could go to Courtrights down the street. We saw that they are also open for breakfast and we plan to try it again for that. It is great to see another restaurant choice in the neighborhood.

Magnolia Restaurant
Village Circle
Archer and Willow Springs Road
Willow Springs
Open daily (closed Mondays)

The owners are Lithuanian. Perhaps that's the language you heard.

I was just there the other day and saw the resturant but didn't have time to stop in. It's nice to see that they're finally making some use of that space. I'd be interested in trying it for breakfast as there aren't a lot of breakfast options in the area. If you do stop in for breakfast please let everyone know how it is.