More Breakfasts From Mrs. J's Restaurant

Having been perplexed by the strange biscuits during my last visit to Mrs. J's Restaurant in downtown Orrville, Ohio, I found myself again in need of sustenance on a Sunday morning. Preferring to give my business to a local mom and pop place rather than a national chain, I decided to give Mrs. J's another go. When I arrived at 9 AM on Sunday morning, while the place was definitely hopping, there were still three or four booths still open. As with my first visit, it wasn't apparent whether I was supposed to wait to be seated or simply seat myself. Fortunately, another couple walked into the restaurant at the same time as I did and immediately sat themselves. Trying to fit into the crowd, I did the same.

After a few minutes, my server stopped by with a glass of water and some much needed coffee:

Between the food I had eaten last time and what appeared on the breakfast portion of the menu, it surprised me a bit when I spied packets of Sugar In The Raw sitting in the sweetener holder:

Since I had tried (and not particularly cared for) the sausage gravy over biscuits the last time, I decided to try out something else on the menu today. I wasn't feeling the love for carbs this morning, so my menu choices were simplified down to one food group: eggs. Fine, an omelet it was! While there were only a couple of specific omelettes listed, you could essentially build one to order if you chose.

Not wanting to go the route of building my own, I decided on the Western Omelet:

With my omelet, I had my choice of breads for toast; I chose wheat bread. Overall, I'd say that my breakfast today was average. Nothing in particular was wrong with it, but neither did it endear me to Mrs. J's in such a way that I would swayed to return if I didn't already happen to be in the area. Everything was hot and tasted appropriate (crunchy for the toast, tender for the eggs). The filling of American cheese, ham, and onions was nicely heated through and weren't overly salty. The only oddity I noticed was that at one end of my omelet, it was seasoned. At the other, no seasoning whatsoever. My server was attentive without being obtrusive when it came to refilling my breakfast beverages as well as checking in on me.

On my second visit for this entry, I was bound and determined to try something a little more substantial and carb-laden. During my previous meal, I noticed something on the menu called the "Pancake Sandwich." Intrigued about this interesting sounding dish, I finally decided to order it for today's breakfast. After a bit of a delay (it was Sunday during peak breakfast hours), this finally arrived at my table with maple-flavored syrup:

This was a short stack of pancakes with two strips of crispy bacon between them and finally topped with a single egg cooked to my prefernce; I chose sunny side up. As somewhat expected, the egg had been served unseasoned. I added some salt and pepper and ate the egg first. It was cooked well and the yolk was nice and runny. After finishing the egg, I skipped the cup of margarine and went straight for the maple-flavored syrup instead. The bacon and pancakes were cooked thoroughly, and the syrup added a bit of sweetness to balance out the saltiness of the bacon.

Overall, today's dish was a decent breakfast. I think what I've come to terms with over my trio of visits is that Mrs. J's serves a basic, no frills breakfast menu. While the biscuits in my original review were a bit off-putting, everything since then has been good, but not great. That being said, the price has ALWAYS been right. My pancake sandwich today cost a mere $4.35 and it was quite filling. Looking around me, I noticed lots of families and friends who were out for Sunday breakfast and some great conversation. I have no qualms about continuing to recommend Mrs. J's if you live in the Orrville area. While the food might not be particularly inventive, every small community needs a place like Mrs. J's and Orrville is well served by this simple eatery.

A Nutty Muffet At Bishop's Fine Foods

Little Miss Muffet
Sat on her tuffet,
Eating her curds and whey;
Along came a spider,
Who sat down beside her
And frightened Miss Muffet away.

Fortunately, the Nutty Muffet has nothing to do with the mental state of the little girl in the nursery rhyme and much more to do with an unusual creation at Bishop's Fine Foods. When I first started writing about Orrville's tightly knit collection of eateries, I hadn't intended on including Bishop's with that crowd. Being located south of Orrville at the intersection of Routes 30 and 57, it existed in a very small area labeled as Riceland. However, when I pulled up the actual address of the restaurant, it was listed on Yahoo Maps as an Orrville eatery. And given the feedback I've received from other locals, it is definitely considered to be part of the Orrville family, if on the outer edge.

Bishop's Fine Foods was located at 34 Wadsworth Road, Orrville, OH 44667 and can be reached at 330-683-9922. There was no website associated with the restaurant at the time of this review. Parking was available in a lot just outside the restaurant and along the side of the building.

Here was a shot of the front entrance to the restaurant:


Once inside the front door, I was greeted warmly and escorted to my table where I was handed the menu:






There was also a breakfast menu on the very back:


While I was definitely here today to try the much lauded Nutty Muffet, I had also been told that Bishop's was equally as well known for their homemade onion rings. Since I consider myself to be somewhat of an onion ring aficionado, I could almost predict what I was going to order being even looking at the menu. For only an additional $3.49, I could put my burger in a basket with a side of onion rings and my choice of any additional second side. Noting that the homemade coleslaw was already going to adorn my sandwich, I decided on going with another homemade side, the baked beans:


This was brought out almost immediately after placing my order, as if it were my salad course. First off, let me state that these were very good baked beans. They were saucy without being soupy, the beans were creamy without being mushy, and the balance between the sweetness, acidity, and smokiness from the bacon left me enjoying this pleasant, if not fairly large and filling, side dish. I only ate about half of this dish because I wanted to make sure I left room for my dinner.

Only a few minutes later, my dinner basket arrived at my table:


Here was a close-up of the Nutty Muffet:


And here was a shot of my Nutty Muffet with the crown of the bun removed:


A Nutty Muffet was essentially a double cheeseburger that had been topped with a combination of the homemade coleslaw and the same toasted and ground nuts used for the sundaes that are served up at the counter. When I first peeked under the crown to check out the interior, I noticed a fairly surprising lack of ground nuts. I called over my server and she indicated that sometimes the kitchen places the ground nuts underneath the coleslaw. While I looked for the missing topping, my server volunteered to go off and get me small cup that I could administer myself.


Once I had rectified the problem, I took a bite. The burger patties, while hot and juicy, were on the thinner side. It honestly reminded me of the SkyHi burger at SkyWay drive-in. What made this burger unique, however, was the addition of the coleslaw and the grounds nuts. You could actually taste each component quite distinctly and strangely enough, they all worked very well together. The nuts had a predominant hazelnut taste to them, but when I asked about them specifically, I was told that they were a blend of different nuts that had been toasted and ground. The acidity from the coleslaw worked well to cut through the fattiness of the burger.

When I was up paying my bill at the cash register, I asked about the origin of the burger. It seems that one of the original owners, Mr. Moffet (I believe she said Moffet and not Muffet) was looking to put a unique burger on the menu. After trying a number of different toppings, he settled on the homemade coleslaw and the ground nut blend that they already used for their sundaes. Through what I'm sure was only a small evolutionary nomenclature change, the Nutty Muffet was born. Was this the best burger I've ever had? No. Was this a good burger with a unique flavor? Absolutely.

Lest I forget the other item sharing my burger basket, here was a shot of the homemade battered onion rings:


I could tell when they were put down in front of me that these were batter dipped. The onion inside each ring was tender and cooked properly. The batter was a little uneven, but this didn't bother me too much as they were a sure sign of being dipped before fried. The fried coating, however, was a little too doughy and a bit on the greasy side. They did not have the nicely crisp exterior that I've come to expect from a great onion ring. Don't get me wrong: these were definitely good, but just not exceptional.

When the check came, I was also pleasantly surprised. For only $7.50 plus tax and tip, I had eaten a very filling and surprisingly cost-conscious meal. The fact that the food was quite good and had largely been homemade was another positive for Bishop's Fine Foods. In my mind, Bishop's does not qualify as "destination" dining if you live more than twenty minutes away. However, being that it is located on Route 30, if you are headed down into Amish country, and most definitely if you are heading to someplace like Kidron to visit Lehman's, this might just be a nifty side stop to make along the way.

A Very Odd Biscuit At Mrs. J's Restaurant

For the last four months, I have found myself in need of a good meal while in downtown Orrville, Ohio. While I have already written about Jerry's and Ming Hing, I never seemed to be in town at the right time for another local restaurant, Mrs. J's. Apparently Mrs. J's is only open for breakfast and lunch and as I am normally in Orrville in the evenings, I have never had the opportunity to dine there until today. Since there was a sizable gap between when our musical group warmed up and when we were to play, I decided to head on over and check them out.

Located at 114 North Main Street, Orrville, OH 44667, they can also be reached at 330-683-0666. There was currently no website at the time of this writing. Parking was a breeze as Orrville was kind of a sleepy little town and even during the Sunday breakfast rush, there was plenty of streetside parking available.

Here was a shot of the exterior of the restaurant:


Once inside, I was greeted with a long and narrow dining room. To the left was the grill area and a counter area with barstools. To the right was a long line of booths running from the front to the back of the space. It was fairly full at 9:15 AM, but there was a booth open towards the back. There was no sign telling you to wait for a server or seat yourself, so I sort of lingered at the front of the door for a minute or so and when no one made an obvious attempt to walk towards me, I just decided it must be self-seating.

Fortunately, at every table were a number of menus already waiting, so while I waited for my server to come over, I started perusing the menu. Here were some shots of the menu:





I noted how the food listed on the menu matched the feel of the restaurant, both were basic and simple. Not knowing if I could even get a sandwich at 9:15 AM, I decided to stick with the breakfast foods category. My server finally returned with my glass of water and a fresh cup of black coffee:


I will say this about Mrs. J's coffee, it's fresh and not bitter at all. And I was never in want of a refill as all of the servers walked around offering to top off your glass.

For my breakfast I decided to go with something I haven't had in a while, biscuits and sausage gravy. The menu proudly advertised that it was homemade. Sadly I should've realized that the "homemade" adjective only applied to the sausage gravy and not the biscuits. After a few minutes, my breakfast arrived at my table:


As you can see from the photo above, the halved biscuits were pretty much smothered in the sausage gravy. Of course, the first thing I did was to taste the gravy. I could immediately tell that this was freshly made as the milk flavor sang through the sauce. The sausage was also nicely spiced as well. Sadly, that's where the love stops for this plate of food. I was a bit shocked that when I ate my first spoonful of gravy that is was barely lukewarm. The biscuits I expected to be room temperature, not the gravy. The gravy also had a strange sweetness to it that didn't play all that well with the spice from the sausage.

And in what turned out to be the strangest flavor in all of this were the biscuits. After managing to dig out a biscuit from the onslaught of gravy, I tried a bit by itself and I could swear it tasted like vanilla. The biscuit wasn't sweet, per se, but the scent of vanilla kept hitting my palate with every bite. Even when I paired it with the more strongly seasoned sausage gravy, I could still tell it was there. Texturally, the biscuit also fell short; it was more cake than flake. When I asked my server about the biscuits, she confessed that while the gravy was made every day in-house, the biscuits were outsourced from someplace else.

With my biscuits and gravy, I also decided to get a side of the freshly cut homefries. Here was what I received with my breakfast:


While these were cooked all of the way through, these were grossly underseasoned and in need of some additional contact time with the flat-top grill. I guess what I was missing was their sense of character. I don't normally put ketchup on hash browns/homefries, but in this case, I did and it helped out somewhat.

The bill, clocking in at a very reasonable $7.39, was paid at the front of the restaurant at the cashier's register. I have to give a marginal pass to Mrs. J's Restaurant. While the atmosphere felt very down home in an everybody - knows - your - name kind of way and the price of my meal was decent, the food was only so-so. Hopefully they'll rethink the whole making the biscuits from scratch instead of using someone else's, because that really was the weakest part of my meal today. The homefries could easily be fixed by adding seasoning and cooking them a little bit longer on the grill.

While I certainly wouldn't recommend you driving any further than ten minutes to get to Mrs. J's, if you happen to be in Orrville and in need of breakfast or lunch, definitely give them some thought. While you might not be blown away by the flavors, you'll definitely leave with a full stomach and a not-so-empty wallet.

Another Visit To Jerry's Cafe

Following my last meal at Jerry's Cafe in Orville, Ohio, I managed to get a little more of the backstory from one of the other member's of my mother's handbell choir. It seems that when Jerry initially bought the bar, it had a rather typical rough and tumble crowd. Over time, Jerry worked long and hard to turn the place into a more family friendly place that serves really great food. When I told this member what I had tried for dinner, the burger and onion rings, he told me that the next time I return, I definitely needed to try the sausage vegetable chowder and the fried fish. Oddly enough, I do remember seeing the sausage vegetable chowder on the specials board the last time I ate at Jerry's and thinking that it sounded like an odd candidate for a chowder. I was informed that not only was it delicious and a signature item on Jerry's menu, it was also an award winning soup.

Finding myself in Orrville for another choir rehearsal, I decided to return to Jerry's Cafe and try out some of the suggestions I had received after my first visit. Once again, I was warmly greeted and told I could sit wherever I liked. I choose the Ohio State room once again since it was sequestered off the main area and had decent lighting (which usually translates into better photographs). As soon as I sat down, I was greeted by a nice basket of freshly popped popcorn:


As I remarked in my last entry on Jerry's, this was a nice way to greet customers and for those of adult-beverage ordering age, a good way to push drinks from the bar. While I did enjoy a couple of handfuls of popcorn before I ordered my food, I decided to limit my intake so that I didn't get too full before receiving my dinner. I decided to start with a cup of the sausage vegetable chowder:


This was an excellent soup, creamy and well balanced. The large chunks of sausage added a lot of textural and flavor elements to the soup. There was a mild pepperiness to the soup, the kind that tickles the back of the throat. What I really found interesting, though, was the mild hint of anise flavor that seemed only barely discernible in the aroma. Knowing that most Italian sausage had fennel seed in them, I asked my server what kind of sausage the cook used. She wasn't entirely sure, but thought that Italian sausage in one form or another might be an ingredient. The soup, while it may have contained cream, was primarily thickened with potato.

After finishing up my soup, I decided to take a small detour and try some of the chicken wings:


While there were several flavors available, I decided to see what Jerry's take on standard Buffalo-style wings would be. Truth be told, I'm a sucker for wings, even bad wings. Most of the time, the chicken skin is flabby and is normally discarded. I've only ever been to a handful of places that cooked the chicken wings correctly; Jerry's is now on that list. The wings were hot, juicy, and the skin was nice and crispy. Better yet, the sauce was an impressively tasty version of what I consider to an authentic Buffalo sauce. The cayenne spice and vinegar combined with butter nicely coated the wings and my tongue when I ate them.

For my final course, I went with a fried fish sandwich:


The fish, Alaskan pollack, was dipped in their beer batter before being fried to perfection. Served on a nicely buttered and grilled bun with lettuce and tomato, the only way this sandwich could've been improved was with the additional of a little homemade tartar sauce ... OH, WAIT!


May I introduce some of Jerry's homemade tartar sauce? I tried some of the sauce by itself and picked up a hint of the Dijon mustard that I was so excited to receive with my burger the last time I visited. I liberally applied the sauce to my sandwich and took a bite. I was rewarded with a flavorful stack of ingredients. The bun did an excellent job holding the entire sandwich together. The fish was hot and moist and the crispness from the lettuce offset the creaminess from the fish and the tartar sauce. Everything worked very well together and quite honestly, I think this was the best fried fish sandwich I've had in a very, very long time. It was at the same time a leap into a sense memory from my youth when I used to take fish stick sandwiches to my confirmation classes every week as well as a modernized and much more sophisticated version that I could enjoy as an adult.

Having eaten here at Jerry's Cafe twice now, I remain incredibly impressed with the level of food being served here. It takes real commitment and skill to bring out the best flavors of the food you serve and even when a fried-from-frozen product is served, such as the onion rings, they are done with great skill. I'm unfamiliar with what the post dinner bar crowd is like, but I can assure that during dinner hours, the place is entirely family friendly and accommodating to both children and adults without being noisy or congested. I have visited a number of rural places that served something unique or interesting, but until I ate at Jerry's, I don't know that I've ever come across a place that serves something that I can see myself craving enough to drive that far to get.

Jerry's Cafe may very well be one of those hidden gems in Orrville about which only the locals know. Hopefully with the encouragement of my last review and this one, you will take the time to seek them out. The food is simple, unpretentious, quite a bit is homemade, and best of all, delicious.

Ming Hing And The Nicely Fried Eggroll

I recently found myself in downtown Orrville on a Sunday night with an hour to kill before choir rehearsal was scheduled to begin. Finding my options limited to mostly fast food restaurants, I parked my car and began to walk around to see what was open. Fortunately on the corner of Market Street and Route 57, a single restaurant had it's marquee lit, Ming Hing. Knowing that I was unlikely to find a restaurant in the same league as Wonton Gourmet in Cleveland, I settled into the notion of having a more Americanized Chinese food experience.

Ming Hing was located at 100 East Market Street, Orrville, OH 44667 and can be reached at 330-682-8808. Unsurprisingly, there was currently no website attached to this restaurant.

As I approached the front of the restaurant, it occurred to me that due to the size of the storefront, this might be a take-out only kind of place. Here was a shot of the exterior of the store:


Once inside the front doors, I immediately realized how wrong I had been. Not only were there tables at which to sit, but there were multiple rooms of tables. Like many other Chinese restaurants with tables, I made a second assumption that there probably was not tableside service. At least I was correct in that assumption. I walked up to the front counter, looked over the menu and placed and paid for my order. I then sat at a table just off the main entrance and took a snapshot of the lunch buffet hot line that had been advertised in one of the windows visible from the street:


Looking over the menu, I had decided to go with one of their combination platters, the garlic chicken. I asked for it to be prepared extra spicy and when I heard my order taker utter "ma la" to the cooks in the kitchen, I nodded vigorously and said, "Yes! Very 'ma la'!" I counted on the fact that it probably wouldn't be too "ma", which is the numbing sensation you get when you consume actual Szechuan peppercorns, but if were remotely "la", meaning spicy, I figured it would be fine.

After about ten minutes or so, my food arrived at the table:


Here was a shot of the garlic chicken, extra spicy:


Composed of tender chicken slices, green bell peppers, broccoli florets, mushrooms, pea pods, and bamboo strips, the dish was clearly an American version. While the spice level on this dish was somewhere around medium for me, the amount of sauce used and the sweetness of it were tell-tale signs that this dish had been created or modified to fit American tastes. From an Americanized Chinese point of view, however, this was a tasty version of garlic chicken.

Along with my garlic chicken, the plate overflowed with pork fried rice:


The rice by itself was a bit bland and one-note. The chunks of roasted pork were nice, but there weren't enough of them to really make a difference in the overall flavor of the rice. Once I finished most of the garlic chicken, there was plenty of sauce left over to combine with the fried rice. While the combination didn't elevate the fried rice to a new plateau, at least it made the rice easier to eat with chopsticks and the flavor was better than no sauce at all.

The third and final component on my plate was the fried egg roll with pork and cabbage:


Of all the components on my plate, the egg roll was probably the best executed. Crispy without being greasy, hot and juicy on the inside without the filling being too moist, this egg roll was very tasty. I longed for a little hot mustard to dip my egg roll into, but by this point of the meal, I was nearly done and didn't have the desire to walk back up to the front counter just for a little bit of the spicy condiment.

On the whole, Ming Hing did a decent job of Americanized Chinese food. While the fried rice was a bit on the dull side, the food was hot and tasty and the egg roll was nicely done. I will be the first to admit that Ming Hing is not a destination restaurant and in fact, if it weren't a Sunday and other restaurants were open, I'd probably recommend other establishments over this one. But, if you are driving through Orrville on a Sunday or have a serious craving for Americanized Chinese food, you won't do too badly at Ming Hing.

  

Jerry's Cafe and the Nearly Perfect Onion Rings

Over the course of the past year, I have been asked on a fairly regular basis to fill in for several of the handbell choirs that my mother directs. It seemed as though almost every week someone would be unavailable for rehearsal. Seeing as the only other hobby I have outside of work is writing about food, more often than not I was available to help her out. While it had been nineteen years (ugh) since I had played a handbell, it didn't take me long to get back into the swing of things.

The church at which my mother is currently the director of music is located in Orrville, Ohio. Known primarily for the Smuckers company, sadly there are very few choices for eateries that aren't of the national fast food variety. There are a few bars here and there, but those weren't the kind of places I was looking for to get a decent meal. For this past rehearsal, I decided to arrive at the church a little early and see if I might be able to scrounge up something that didn't require the order taker to ask me if I wanted to "super-size" anything.

After driving around the small downtown area, I decided on something that looked like a bar, but had a name that was decidedly incongruous with the exterior, Jerry's Cafe:


Located at 226 West Market Street, Orrville, Ohio 44667, they can be reached at 330-683-8696. Google identified a website associated with this business at http://jerrysinorrville.com; however, pointing my browser to that address left me with the message "Server not found", so I'm not sure exactly what is happening. No other websites came up that seemed directly tied to Jerry's Cafe. Well, hopefully this one will after it posts.

When I walked in, the first thing I noticed was the dichotomy of the patrons and the surroundings. It did indeed seem to be a bar, but it was well lit and there were several families with young children seated at various tables around the outer walls. One of the servers walked up to me and showed me to a table in a room behind the bar known as the Ohio State room. It was pretty obvious that this homage to the Columbus-based football team was aptly named. As I surveyed the room, I noticed a dry erase board with the daily specials:


My server left me with a menu to peruse while she went to fetch some of the complimentary popcorn that is served to all of the guests. Here were a couple of shots of the menu:






While the interior of the restaurant certainly had the feeling of a bar, the menu was ambitious enough to leave me with the impression that the owner was just as dedicated to the restaurant business as he was to the bar business. My server quickly returned with my popcorn:


I asked her about the burger that was the special for the day at only $2.25 versus the one in the menu. She let me know that the daily special was roughly 1/3 pound rather than the 1/2 pound Angus burger that is on the menu. There was some confusing language on the menu about extra toppings on the burgers (such as bacon). Apparently, all of the burgers off the menu come with either onion rings or french fries and were $8. If you decided that you wanted something extra that the burger didn't normally come with, THEN you paid the extra fee. It seemed a little silly to me since one of the burgers listed was a bacon cheeseburger. Had I gotten just a plain cheeseburger and added bacon to it, would it have cost me an extra $0.75? I didn't really bother to ask.

When I inquired about the freshness of the french fries versus the onion rings, she sadly hung her head and said that while at one point they were made from fresh, both were now fried from frozen. She did add that both were very good. Having heard this numerous times from other servers who insisted that their restaurant's fried items were terrific only to be served a limp greasy mess, I opted to go with the onion rings.

I should also mention that the popcorn was actually quite good. I was pretty darn hungry and had to make a point of only eating a couple of handfuls of the freshly-popped buttery, salty kernels as I had a 1/2 pound burger coming out of the kitchen fairly soon. I know the point of the free popcorn is just as much about making guests thirsty as it is about giving them something to nosh on, but I did enjoy having a bit of an appetizer before my platter came out.

After about fifteen minutes or so, my dinner arrived:


Here is a close-up of my burger:


The bun was very nicely buttered and grilled. I had ordered my burger medium, but unfortunately, it came out somewhere between medium well and well done. There wasn't even the tiniest bit of pink on the inside of the patty. I'm not sure if my burger was just a fluke and the cook accidentally overcooked it or maybe we have reached a point in modern society where anything less than medium well just won't be served to customers for fear of lawsuits. That being said, I was equally as pleased at how incredibly juicy it was. Had it been totally dessicated, I probably would've sent it back to have them re-fire the burger; the juiciness saved the burger. While the melted cheese was simply American cheese, the bacon was quite nice. I could tell that it had been prepared at the same time as the burger as it was crispy, but not overcooked and hard.

I next turned my attention to the side item, the onion rings:


While they did suffer the fate of most frozen onion rings (the onion inside tends to detach itself from the breading), Jerry's version was fried expertly and left no oily residue on the paper lined basket at all. The coating was crispy and the perfect thickness to provide a nice resistance, but not so much breading that the onion got lost. I have to say that hands down, this was probably the best fried-from-frozen onion ring that I've had in a long time. The fact that you can get this side instead of french fries at no additional cost was also a big bonus.

The last thing I wanted to mention were the condiments. I know that might seem silly, but I was very surprised with what I received. I had asked my server to bring me mustard and ketchup with my burger platter and while she brought regular commercial ketchup, this is what arrived on the platter itself:


To the right is actually Dijon mustard. I actually love Dijon mustard on my burgers, but so few places actually have it that I have just gotten used to eating regular yellow mustard instead. The fact that it was provided by default really said a lot about the commitment to food that Jerry's Cafe had. The other surprise was the sauce on the left. What I originally thought was simply mayonnaise for my burger turned out to be a dipping sauce for the onion rings. On first taste, I got creamy, tangy, and a slight burning at the back of my throat. The mayonnaise and cayenne pepper I immediately identified. The "tang" I had originally thought was a bit of lemon juice mixed in with the mayonnaise turned out to be sour cream. The interesting thing was that while it was fairly easy to pick up the spice from the dip when simply eating it by itself, when I paired it with an onion ring, the spice faded into the background and was very subtle, but still effective.

I finished all of my onion rings and most of my burger before crying, "Uncle!" and asking my server for the check. While my burger wasn't exactly cooked the way I asked for it, $8 for such an incredibly juicy burger with some of the best fried-from-frozen onion rings I've had in quite a while made this an excellent dinner, and more importantly, a spot I will definitely return to in the future. Add in the homemade dipping sauce for the onion rings and the Dijon mustard as standard condiments and this cafe really does have something special to offer.

After talking with a local about Jerry's before the handbell choir rehearsal, I learned that the homemade sausage vegetable chowder (which was actually listed on the dry erase board in the photo above) is not only outstanding, but has also won a local tasting competition. I think a nice bowl of that may just be on the my radar the next time I decide to visit.