Jury's

LTH,

Can't believe there's not a dedicated Jury's thread here - there must be and I missed it. If so, you can move this to an existing thread.

So, just got back from a nice lunch at Jury's today.

Here's what I had:

Jury's 1/2 lb. Burger with grilled onions, cheddar and bacon. Burger came quick and was cooked perfectly medium-rare. Great flavor as always, crispy bacon, quality cheddar, flavorful Vedalia(sp?) grilled onions. As good as always.

Had a starter of the cup-o-chili with onions and cheedar cheese. Jury's chili is pretty good and has a unique flavor that I always secretly felt my advanced palate was able to dicipher as Chickory (the spice often added to coffee offerings down in New Orleans - i.e. Cafe du Monde) but now I think that it's just a touch of cinnamon. Anyway, nice cup-o-chili.

I love this place and would be stunned if it weren't already a GNR - I'm too lazy to look it up.

Anyway, what lead me in part to choose Jury's today for lunch was the fact I received a $15 rewards certificate for my birthday month that expires at the end of September I had to use or lose. I joined their rewards program last year (free) and you get like $10 or $20 for every $200 you spend - not a bad return.

Anyway, with coupon in tow I went to Jury's, sat at the bar where I always do, grabbed the Sports section of the Trib from the bar as usual, ans settled into my customary seat with my normal bartendress serving today and the owner roaming the room. All status quo.

Service and food were wonderful, as always.

Upon receiving my bill, which was about $18 with tax, I noticed that only $9 was discounted when the server applied my $15 discount. Upon commenting on this discrepancy, we reviewed the coupon and I noticed the $15 amount in bold caps 15-point font but failed to notice the almost invisible 3-point font asterisk next to the $15. Reading in the 4-point legal font on the back of the coupon I discovered that the $15 applied only to "an entree". The chili did not count nor did my diet Coke. LOL!

I found this somewhat amusing and though certainly not false advertising it was at least a tad misleading and a sliver perhaps of questionable marketing practices. But, I digress...

Upon throwing a Ten down to cover the unpaid amount I noticed another interesting item on the bill. There was a stamp with lines for "Sub-Total", "Discount" & then "Total". Fine. But then, just atop these lines was a reminder that went something like this:

"PLEASE REMEMBER TO CONSIDER THE FULL COST OF THE MEAL PRIOR TO THE DISCOUNT WHEN FIGURING GRATUITY"

LOL - are you kidding me?

Being far from a super-sensitive guy I just sort of scoffed at this. This language was in a stamp that they used on the bill. It's been awhile since a restaurant made me feel like a sixth-grader. C'mon Jury's.

It hit me for a brief second to severely undertip, but I left my usual amount unfazed but this "kindly reminder".

It would take boatloads more than a deceiving discount and a patronizing stamp reminder to affect my patronage of Jury's but I found these idiosyncracies interesting.

Any thougts?

Bster

Jury's
4337 N. Lincoln Ave.
Chicago, IL 60618
773-935-2255

My impression is that many people using a coupon or discount tip based on the discounted price paid.

I don't begrudge a restaurant at all for reminding patrons of this, as it is their servers who stand to lose out.

I really do not like Jury's at all and do not understand why people rave about it as much as they do. I wrote about my experience in this post. Service (slow and aloof) and food (blah) greatly need improvement.

Hm. A few of my thoughts about Jury's can be found in the Burgers, Burgersthread, but here's one that I decided not to post a couple months ago. Bster, worry not, you are not alone.

I got one of those gift certificates for my birthday - pretty neat, because you don't have to use it on your b-day, just sometime within the month in which you're born. In my case, it was July. I sat at the bar and had perused the coupon same as you - the "fine print" confuzzled me a bit, so I specifically asked the woman behind the bar: "Is this good for food and drinks, or is it just the food?"

"Yeah, whole thing." So I figured one burger and a couple beers would fall within the $15 range of the coupon, or at least come pretty close.

After finishing I recieved the bill, which showed that only the price of the burger & fries was taken off the bill. The coupon had been taken from me so I couldn't go back and re-read anything to sate my curiosity, despite being told that the whole thing would be covered.

This lead to a situation where I wasn't sure if I had enough cash to cover the balance. I had calculated my order in my head so I knew I had enough to tip on the presumed balance - people that buy $53 worth of food on a $50 gift cert and then leave sixty cents tip ("that's 20%, right?") are probably damned to hell, in my mind.

I had to do a little 2-weiss-beer mental math and reconfigure, and thank god they take credit cards or someone would have ended up screwed. Initially, I wasn't going to post on this because I (previously) would have felt like a real dumbass feeling a little ripped off on a free burger for my birthday. Now I guess I know different: always post.

Regardless, I don't really plan on going back to Jury's. Their rep seems overrated IMO, and writing this makes me realize that I missed the burger special at Atlantic last night. Damn.

Yeah Whiskey I hear ya about Jury's...I still really like it but have to say that walkin' outta there for over 20 bucks with tax and tip (without coupon discount) for cup-o-chili, burger, and diet coke bothers me. And, this is on "Burger Day" at Jury's too.

Atlantic's burger day provides just as good of a burger, maybe better, at less than half of the burger day price at Jury's - WOW!

It's back to Atlantic for me next week. See you there!

I'm also starting to get just a hint of a "you're privileged to eat here" vibe and attitude from Jury's...just a hint now...but it scares me.

As an aside, though I know some disagree, it is AT LEAST just as important (and I would argue more important) to post an objective negative review about a place as it is to post a positive review. Don't be discouraged in the future from posting something bad - I find a bad review often much more helpful as it could help me avoid places I might otherwise try.

Bster

I had a similarly strange experience at Jury's a few years ago. We went for the free birthday burger, submitted our coupon, got the bill, left cash for the amount charged (including a mental adjustment for the free burger -- I used to wait tables and am perhaps hypersensitive to this calculus) plus a customery 20% tip, and left everything on the table.

A few days later I got an angry phone call from the owner (manager?) insisting we hadn't paid the entire check. Huh?

I pled my case repeatedly and somewhat indignantly, reminding him we'd paid in cash so there was no way for me to tangibly 'prove' the amount we'd left, but I was quite certain we'd paid all plus a fair, even generous tip that accounted for the free item. He harangued me for the better part of 10 minutes, and eventually one of us hung up on the other.

Now it's of course possible that a nearby diner, or even--much as I hate to imagine it--a staff member, could have taken a portion of the cash. Or a bill might have fallen from the inside of the check holder. And that's a drag for both the management and the staff of a restaurant.

Either way, though, getting shorted by customers is an occupational hazard of the restaurant business. On rare occasions during my waitressing days, I'd get shorted, and you just had to accept it as a rotten stroke of luck, covering the rest out of pocket, and hoping for a generous tipper the next night to make up for the shortfall.

In my book there's no excuse for a restaurant owner--especially a few days after the perceived infraction--calling a customer at home to harrass him or her. Jury's may well have a new owner/manager at this point. I wouldn't know, as I've never been back. And I'm careful now to physically hand over the bill if I'm paying in cash. A good lesson learned, I suppose.

ChristyP wrote:I pled my case repeatedly and somewhat indignantly, reminding him we'd paid in cash so there was no way for me to tangibly 'prove' the amount we'd left, but I was quite certain we'd paid all plus a fair, even generous tip that accounted for the free item. He harangued me for the better part of 10 minutes, and eventually one of us hung up on the other.

Now it's of course possible that a nearby diner, or even--much as I hate to imagine it--a staff member, could have taken a portion of the cash. Or a bill might have fallen from the inside of the check holder. And that's a drag for both the management and the staff of a restaurant.

This happened to us at a German restaurant in Lincoln Square (no longer there). Our party of four left cash on the table (including generous tip) and walked blithely out. Once outside, we stopped to gaze into a nearby shop window, and this was why we were still there when the waitress came out after us to collect for the dinner. I think she totally believed us that we had, in fact, paid, but nevertheless there was no money on the table when she went to get it. Either a customer or another employee had grabbed it. I didn't feel accused--like I say, I could tell she trusted that we had paid--but the bottom line was our money hadn't made it into her or the restaurant management's hands, and that wasn't her or the management's fault, so we went inside and paid again.

That was the last time I've paid cash without being very sure the cash has been collected by the person who it is intended for.

I used to live in the area and have been there a few times, was always happy with the burgers and service. On one occasion, the waiter pressured me and my guest to fill out those info cards that allow for the sending of the birthday coupon, etc. Oddly, I have never received any of those things (yes, I printed clearly), although my friend did. What is the point of having customers fill out these things if you're not going to follow up and input the data into whatever system you have? I did see my friend's certificate when we went back, and it does clearly say up to $15 off any entree, so I don't know why anyone would assume it's a $15 gift certificate good on drinks, apps, etc. Anyone who has ever used an Entertainment book that charities sell is familiar with these sorts of coupons.

I like Jury's burgers, but I haven't been impressed with anything else on the menu.

back to the original post: the disclaimer on the bill is obnoxious, but having been a waitress, it is unsurprising that many diners fail to tip based on the total before discount.* Most probably just see the final total and unthinkingly tip based on that. Anyway, I'm glad you ultimately gave the server an adequate tip. The obnoxious message on the bill was a management decision and not the fault of your server.

I went to the Atlantic last night - wow! what an awesome burger. The juice actually dripped down my chin. Many thanks for the tip on the Atlantic, Bster! Decent nachos, too.




*edited to add: especially at a place like Jury's where they have so many complicated discount offers, coupons, birthday clubs and whatnot. If they are going to be so fussy about these things, they might as well not offer them, IMO.

I concur with the perceived attidude problems at Jury's...I really, REALLY want to like this place (burgers are in fact tremendous in my opinion). But again, always sense a bit of snootiness from the owner to the bartenders to the waitstaff.......and agree that everything else I've tried on the menu is pretty bad..

The jury's burger is seriously one of the best "pub" burgers in chicago. It's hard to compare it to masters of the craft like Kuma's . .but is is still one of the top 5 in Chicago imo.

I'm surprised at some of the comments about the staff. Not that I don't believe them, but I've also felt very welcome, almost family like, at Jury's. I think the burgers are really good...def not Kuma-level though. Everything else is just decent. Nothing great, nothing bad. It's kinda my, "I've had a bad day and just want a pleasant dinner w/out a lot of fuss" place. The gf always comments how it is so homey there.

I was going through some old mail and found a Jury's coupon shoved in between old bills and credit card offers. 0% APR for X months? Astounding! Anyways, it was for an anniversary dinner. Seems like it's pretty much the same story as a couple of us have posted about upthread.

FREE ANNIVERSARY DINNER FROM
JURY'S! VALUED UP TO $15.00!*

No strings attached!
Valid until October 31, 2007
Bring this card before the expiration date!
Expired cards will not be accepted!
Happy Anniversary! To help you celebrate we're buying you
dinner! Just bring this card with you by October 31, 2007
and choose any menu item up to $15.
It's our way of saying thank you and helping you celebrate
Your Anniversary!

* Must present this card to server anytime prior to expiration date.
Good ay day of the week? Not valid with any other offer or discount,
one per table, dine-in only.

I wish I knew how to center text, so we can all get the full formatted glory. I don't know if they've updated their copy since the above conversation, but there you have it. Looks like I won't be using this one since Expired cards will not be accepted! Oh well. I do enjoy the one line saying "no strings attached!" followed by...a few strings. I feel like volunteering to jump through flaming hoops and play chess with the devil to save $7.

I just had the turkey burger at Jury's and it was really good, better than I thought it would be. I ordered it on a pretzel roll, which makes anything better. It was 1/2 lb of turkey and came with tomato, lettuce (nice dark leafy stuff!) red onion and quite a bit of sautéed veggies. I was trying to be good. So I only asked for a half order of fries on the side (also tasty). Potatoes are vegetables too.

I assumed that lunch on a Monday wouldn't be so busy, but I was wrong. I think there was two tables available and only a couple of seats at the bar. It was have been $12 before tip.

Pie Lady wrote:I assumed that lunch on a Monday wouldn't be so busy, but I was wrong. I think there was two tables available and only a couple of seats at the bar. It was have been $12 before tip.

It's probably busier than a normal Monday because a lot of people have the day off today.

D'oh! Forgot it was a holiday. For the lucky, anyway.

I've been to Jury's and I think their burgers are very good. At least I've been able to get in there which is not the case with Kuma's which always has a long line when I've gone. I did not detect anything flawed about attitude or service. I've signed up for their offers and get emails quite frequently from them. The way I look at it its better than many restaurants do....at least they are providing something off for customers which is nice I think in these economic times.
I don't think Jury's is worth a special trip but if you are in the area and would like a burger its worth it.

I've yet to try a regular burger, but I plan to one of these days. I'm also getting coupons at least once a month, and the place is a nice date-night standby. Good prices, good portions, nice atmosphere (and I never got a bad attitude from staff either).

They are offering five dollar burgers for the bears packer game. How nice is that. Also someone doing card tricks. At least they try to give customers a break. Just sayin.

Jury's is the neighborhood restaurant my husband and I go to often when we just don't feel like cooking. Their deals are great, they don't bomb you with e-mails (usually one per week or less), and while nothing on the menu could be considered innovative, most everything is solid. I've been dieting for almost 9 months now and have had their turkey burger more times than I can count and I agree with the poster above who said that they are better than most. I've always had pleasant service with a willingness to make substitutions (like veggies for fries).

Tobermory wrote:I've always had pleasant service with a willingness to make substitutions (like veggies for fries).

I believe the veggies are part of the choice, which I love, instead of having a choice among just fries, onion rings, or slaw.