J Bar

Went for happy hour Margaritas as we have many times in the past. Margaritas tasted really bitter. Bartender offered to sweeten — which helped slightly but the drink was just REALLY BAD. We thought maybe they forgot the tequila — we couldn’t taste any in the drink. Finally asked for another drink which he accommodated. Also had the calamari appetizer which was a bit «rubber-​bandy» and the j dog which was the best thing. Decided not to take any more chances and went elsewhere for dinner. Won’t be back.

J Bar has salty food that is mashed together with little distinction between the food elements on the plate. Sure, it’s the bar and if you want better food head over to Janos right next door. However, is it that hard or challenging, with such a limited menu to begin with, to create yummy, spirited food?
Save your money. If its the nice view you want grab some food from a taco truck, which is on par with J Bar but cost infinitely less, and head up to Skyline, park and eat it on the hood of your car while you admire the view.

Got a groupon for this place. Was really really awful. The service was pretty meh too – they put us at a tiny table under a light that was really harsh. They ceiling fan wouldn’t work and it was hot and stuffy. The food itself was really less than wonderful. This place is definitely just a restaurant in a hotel. Don’t waste your time if you’re driving from a different part of town or you’re not staying in the hotel.

This was my 3^rd visit. We went for the calamari, which had always been the best ever. Tonight it was awful! Instead of lightly shaken in flour and sauteed in a fabulous sauce, it was overly breaded and fried — not to mention cold. My husband had the t-​bone steak special. For $ 28, he got a tough steak less than a half an inch thick. We were highly disappointed in what had previously been one of our favorite places to dine. We will not be back.

I stopped by J-​Bar to try out the $ 5 appetizer for the contest going on.
The appetizer tasted good, but the presentation needed some work. It came out it in what looked like a plastic chip bag.
Aside from that, the restaurant peaked my interest enough that I’ll want to come back and try their Sonoran style hot dog.
The best part of the visit here was definitely the view, we sat on the porch while there was a monsoon rolling in and we could see tons of lightning. I would definitely time a visit with a sunset or some other atmospheric event.

I’m almost embarrassed to say that I hadn’t heard of JBar before. We stopped in to try the Unilocal Appetizer and am confident in saying that we will be stopping by many more times to come!
We were on a mission to try as many apps as we could in one evening, so we let them know we’d only be trying the appetizer. I found it adorable that it came in a cellophane bag with a cute little tag with their information on it. I love when this kind of attention is paid, the appetizer was potato chips, after all.
We had the kiddies with us, so ordered two apps, one for the husband and me to split and one for the kids to split. (They were taking their tasting and voting jobs very seriously). The appetizer was amazing! I love, love, loved it! It was purple potato chips with a magic chile con queso sauce, black beans with chorizo and cabbage and radishes. It’s only too bad that licking a cellophane bag is frowned upon or else I would have been doing that.
Even though we were really only going to spend around $ 10, our server, Jack, still came and checked up on us a couple of times. He chatted with us about other items on their menu for the next time we’re back. We most certainly will be back. .. he had me at «nachos».

So this one is part of the Unilocal has an app for that food fight. Ill be posting a review just for the app and then I’ll update at a later time once I actually have a full blown meal here!
This was the third stop on my quest to try all the apps from the food fight.
Let me start this one off by saying… Holy Smokes! What a way to set the bar. The other restaurants in the challenge need to really bring it to beat this app. From a value point of view this app was thought out and wasn’t chincy like some of the others I had. The presentation was thoughtful and the flavors danced around on my palette and left me ready to order the main course! So what was it you ask?
It was the exclusive J Baritos appetizer. Purple potato chips, chorizo black beans, chile con queso, and cabbage and radish slaw. This was all served in an interesting translucent pouch with a classic J bar tag to match. This appetizer was split with another person and we both were able to get a good sense of the flavors and enjoy this app for more than a mere one or two bites.
I think the idea of this food fight was a challenge to the chefs bring to intellect, creativity, and skill to a plate, impress the client, and stomp the competition. Chef Janos Wilder did just that! I give this one ⁵⁄₅ stars very impressive.

My husband and I love J Bar. It is one of the first restaurants we tried when we moved to Tucson 6 years ago and we are still big fans. Janos is a super nice guy. One time we were there to watch a friend’s band during the monsoons and the restaurant was packed. We were standing on the side watching and he got an extra table set up just for us! The nachos are the best deal and delicious. My husband loves the combo plate. I like the shrimp tacos, vegetarian dishes, everything. Everything has always been delicious and very creative and Janos likes to incorporate local ingredients when possible.

We didn’t eat but the vibe I got from the hostess was not cool!
We strolled in with about 8 people to see what this place was all about since we got stuck at the Paloma due to the gas outage.
As soon as we walked in she complained about our drinks in hand. Not a problem but can you tell me in a nicer way that you aren’t apart of the hotel. Ya don’t have to be rude about it right?
So we had a couple scouters go in and right back out they came. This place is not for large parties but I would have totally came back with my honey to try it out if they treated us better.
I won’t be back…

I know Janos is a good cook. I have been multiple times to his main restaurant & also to his new one downtown. 5 stars or very close for sure. I had also been to the J-​Bar 3 times prior to tonight, each time going away highly disappointed at getting mediocre food for a relatively high price. My wife has been back a number of times, but I have not… until tonight. I am currently in search of the Holy Grail of Hamburgers & two well respected sources said J-Bar’s burger was right at the top. My wife doesn’t eat beef but said the fries were also topflight. Here’s the description of the burger right off the menu: House ground 9 oz sirloin studded with foie gras, smoked poblano chiles and mushrooms, with roasted chiles, Manchego, our cured bacon, garlic fries and toasted torta bun — $ 13.00. Let’s get the fries out of the way. I am admittedly not a huge fries fan, but generally like anything w/​garlic. Except I didn’t taste any garlic… just salt… a lot of salt. And the texture was mushy. Give them a solid 1 on a 1 – 5 scale. As for the burger, I ordered it medium rare, but it came medium. In this case I don’t think it mattered, except on principle. They mix a bunch of stuff in w/​the meat, so it comes out pretty moist. However it had a really weird, kinda musty aftertaste which I can still taste & which I didn’t care for at all. Was it due to the mushrooms? The foie gras? I dunno. I love manchego cheese… couldn’t even taste it. I love chili… couldn’t even taste it. I LOVE bacon… you guessed it… couldn’t even taste it. How do you NOT taste bacon unless it was just completely left out? HUGE disappointment. If someone offered me a choice of burgers FREE, this would be way down on my list… not even on it if limited to 10 choices.
As far as the service, some people have really dinged J-​Bar for it. I have never had anything but excellent service at all 3 of Janos’ places. My daughter used to work for Janos @ the main restaurant & I assure you that his training is extensive (I thought at the time maybe even excessive). So if people got bad service, it wasn’t due to lack of training.
The ambience I liked, but I do agree w/​some posters that the tables were bottom rung. Probably the highlight of the visit was the really cute hostess that greeted us, but that’s a pretty weak highlight & not reason enough to return.

For the price and ambiance, this place is great. It is connected to Janos as a little sister restaurant and bar, and serves a full menu and is just as good but it is not as upscale as Janos. They have a happy hour with $ 5 margaritas and ~$ 2.50 sonoran hot dogs that are scrumptious. The view of the city is nice, too.

J-​Bar serves interesting southwestern food in a casual atmosphere. The dishes are often spicy and strongly flavored which I love. I’ve never had anything there that was less than very good and the prices are moderate, especially compared to Janos, next door.
The absolute best bargain in all of Tucson is to go for Happy Hour, sit out on the Terrace, order a J-​Dog and a half price beer. Dinner for two with tip for less than $ 15.

I recently visited Tucson for a conference and based on a glowing review on
, I decided to have dinner at J Bar. My bad.
First of all, J Bar was located in the parking lot (yes– you read that right) of the Westin in a stand-​alone building. The interior at J Bar had black tables reminiscent of a cheesy 80’s disco. Mercifully, the hostess offered us a table outside on the patio which had better ambiance even if it faced a recently built Tucson housing community.
I had a bad feeling about the future of our meal at J Bar once we received their wine «book» which was stained and coming apart at the bindings. The menus were plastic and cheaply made. I wanted to leave right then but felt badly as we were only one of two occupied tables in the whole place so we stayed.
Taking a deep breath, we each ordered a glass of wine (Albarino for me and Shiraz for Mr. Shari H) and some guacamole to start which were all fine. Then, I made the mistake of ordering their «Eggplant Torta» which turned out to be a vegetarian sandwich on cheap white bread with potato chips! The sandwich’s interior was comprised of a gritty portabella mushroom, an anemic slice of eggplant and some tasteless melted cheese. My one bite was utterly gross. The waiter commented as he cleared away my full plate of food but didn’t remove the charge from our bill. Seriously — this was the worst dish I’ve had all year. My husband got the marinated Flank Steak which came with a heavy cheesy enchilada of some sort that he liked it well enough.
So, for several glasses of non-​fancy wine, an order of guacamole, the disgusting sandwich and the Flank Steak, our bill came out to $ 70 pre-​tip. Can you say OVERPRICED? I cannot tell you how much I wished I hadn’t stayed at J Bar and won’t be consulting Frommer’s for restaurant recommendations ever again. Ever.

Great ambiance, good service, nice views of the city on the outside patio. All in all, good for a date. As for the food, not so good. Good calamari and guacamole. The chips that went along w/​the guacamole were a bit stale and we had initially ordered the gespacho off the summer special menu that had a weird salty flavor and wasn’t very good. For the entrees, we ordered the combo plate and the duck flautas. The combo plate was a good sampling but the duck flautas did not quite float my boat. For dessert, we had ordered the flourless cake w/​dulce de leche ice cream. That was pretty good and wouldn’t mind ordering it again.

Recent re-​visit to J-​Bar. A little disappointed this time. The room was really chilly b/​of the doors being opened all the time. My hands were cold and everyone was sitting with a jacket or sweater on.
My dinner companion was pleased with his chile relleno appetizer and steak main dishes. I was delighted by the salad-​wow, the flavors were great and the ingredients were amazingly fresh. But, the shrimp tacos I ordered were not much to rave about. Aside from the flour tortillas which seemed in-​house made, the dish just lacked flavor. Nothing «popped» on the plate. I’ve had much better shrimp tacos in other non-​Mexican restaurants. And, I’ve had some really great food here at other times so, I was a little let down this time.
We did have to ask for bread and butter but the service was otherwise attentive and pleasant.

Well, my dining friend and I were really hungry when we got here. We were seated right away, and the hostess was really nice.
The service was slow most of the night. It took awhile for our server to get to us. When he did we ordered our drinks. (Tried the cranberry habenero mojito and it was good, not great.). It took forever to get our drinks, but at least the server came back and told us the bartender was slammed.
We ordered two appetizers: Crispy Calamari and goat cheese and sun-​dried tomato relleno. And for entrees the Shrimp Mojo de Ajo and the Bistro Fillet.
The calamari were really, really good. And the relleno was good as well, though almost too much goat cheese. But the appetizers were the highlight of the night.
The shrimp in the entrée were good, but not that special. Same with the coleslaw it came with. The garlic fries could have been good except they put the salsa fresca right on top of them and they became mushy. Eck.
The fillet was absolutely over cooked. It was so chewy we only ate a few bites. The mashed sweet potato’s were really good, but the squash was just, ehh.
It is a good thing the appetizer portions are so big because we filled up on that. We were so underwhelmed with the meal that we decided not to order dessert.
The ambiance is trendy and fun and the view is beautiful. I just expect more from the food from a chef who was once so highly rated. If I were to ever go back it would be to sit at the bar and drink and enjoy appetizers…

J-​Bar is probably my wife’s favorite restaurant in Tucson. And that’s not a bad thing. There is much to be liked about J-​Bar. The appetizers are great (especially the nachos!), the entrees are flavorful (try something of the Recession Busters menu) and the deserts are unique and delicious (yum!). Throughout the summer they have a concert series that provides a perfect soundtrack to their menu.
All in all, it’s a pretty great place to eat. There really is just one thing that keeps me from giving J-​Bar a 5-​star review: the waitstaff.
I don’t know if their sections are too big or if their training is lax or if we just happen to continually catch the one bad one that night, but we’ve never had a waiter/​waitress who is even decent at the job.
Giving a table time to peruse the menu before ordering is one thing, but making people wait 20 minutes to order is another. On our most recent visit, we waited about 20 minutes to order, another 20 minutes to get the desert menu after we were clearly finished and 15 minutes after desert was finished to get the bill. We were really thankful that a separate person came through the room with water or we’d have not had anything to drink for most of the meal.
If they can get their waitstaff straightened out, this place’ll be just about perfect. Unfortunately the waitstaff ruin what would be a great dining experience.

By the way, update. I went when the plastic was off and wonderful views were experienced by all. Everyone was chilling, having some nice conversation… when the server spilled an entire margarita on my husband. We all laughed. No harm, no foul. The server was beyond embarrassed and that round of drinks was comped. Still, this only proved my point about the wait staff. Is there absolutely no training, or what? The best part was when my husband’s shirt dried, it was stiff as a board. I guess from all the sugar.

As someone who is not really into fancy schmancy restaurants, I wholeheartedly recommend J Bar as a quality fancy schmancy restaurant (though it really isn’t, but it can pass off as one if you are looking to gain brownie points for a date)!
Anyhow, the thing that makes J Bar great is the food! Chef Janos Wilder pays homage to Mexican street food, but puts his own twist on it in an unpretentious and creative way. The drinks are tasty, and they have a great (and cheap — especially considering since it’s located in La Paloma) Happy Hour.
Budget conscious folks should wait until the summer (and you *will* be here in the summer, right?! That’s when Tucson’s the best!) where there are awesome dinner and drink specials to be had. The patio is also spectacular for watching monsoons make their way across the desert.
Also, Janos frequently walks around the restaurant, talks to his diners, and asks them how they like everything. It doesn’t affect the flavor of the food, but it’s a nice personal touch and enhances the dining experience overall.

The food was phenomenal, the service was great, but the location sucked. It took us a while to find it, even with a GPS unit! We almost gave up, but I’m glad we didn’t. Everything there looked and tasted fantastic. You definitely have to try the Chocolate Jalapeño Ice Cream. You’ll be sorry if you don’t.