Soul Food Bistro – Be Treated and Fed Like You’re Family

Soul Food Bistro is a restaurant created by the folks at The Potter’s House church. They’ve got two locations and serve soul food like your Southern Grandma used to make.  I’ll venture to say there’s no restaurant in Jax where you get a warmer welcome walking through the door. You feel like you’re having dinner at grandma’s house. The folks running the place are amazingly warm and friendly people. This is the perfect place to come if you’re having dinner by yourself because everyone in the place treats you like family. A lot of places say they treat their guests like family. These people really do.

Chicken @ Soul Food Bistro

Chicken @ Soul Food Bistro

Food: Soul Food Bistro offers wonderful affordable food served cafeteria line style. They charge $7.99 for dark meat chicken, $8.99 for white meat chicken with two sides and a corn bread or dinner roll. There’s are lots of other options and they have a daily special as well. If it’s a soul food entrée you love they probably have it. We started off with the fried chicken. It’s solid fried chicken. I’ll be surprised if you don’t like it. It’s Crispy and not super greasy. One of the special side options offered on Saturday mornings is oxtail rice. I’ve never had to before but it sounded interesting. It was salty in a good way. The rice and the oxtail were melt in your mouth tender. There was great flavor. I’ll order it every time it’s available. Honestly I expected mediocre chicken tenders here. My 13 year old was along for dinner and pretty much orders chicken tenders anywhere they are offered. He loved them and I loved them too. They were great! They were very tender with good flavor. One of the other sides we tried was the Mac n cheese. There’s two major categories of plain mac n cheese in my opinion, smooth and creamy or grainy. Their Mac n cheese is of the grainy variety. It’s Baked with a cheese layer on top. It’s pretty good. We enjoyed it. It was nothing to write home about though. Next up was Mashed potatoes and gravy. It was decent but nothing to write home about either. Next up were collared greens. These were really good! They had great flavor and make you think of the kind grandmama used to make. Last we had to sample the corn bread. The corn bread was good. I enjoyed it. It didn’t blow me away. In an age where every restaurant is constantly trying to milk a few extra cents out of you for the price of a soda it’s nice to see one under $2. Soul Food Bistro charges $1.79 for a Coke.

Salad @ Soul Food Bistro

Salad @ Soul Food Bistro

Service: The ladies working the cafeteria style line were some of the friendliest people I’ve ever dealt with in a restaurant. They offered great Southern hospitality and you can tell they really have genuine care for other people and have a genuine desire to make sure you have a great experience. The wait staff who look after you once you’re seated and eating are amazingly friendly and were very patient with my hyper two year. If you need your day brightened up you should stop in to soul Food Bistro.

Broccoli @ Soul Food Bistro

Broccoli @ Soul Food Bistro

Soul Food Bistro

Soul Food Bistro

Without question this is one of the best overall restaurant experiences we’ve ever had in Jacksonville. We spent less than $10 per person and left full.

Soul Food Bistro

Soul Food Bistro

Positives:

  • Good soul food
  • Caring staff who will brighten up your day.
  • If oxtail rice is the special don’t miss it.

Negatives:

  • If you ate here every day you’d be 1000lbs before you knew it.
Soul Food Bistro

Soul Food Bistro

Soul Food Bistro - Potters House on Urbanspoon

Chicken @ Soul Food Bistro

Chicken @ Soul Food Bistro

5 Comments
  1. Pingback: Sunday's Modern Soul Food Eatery - Limited Menu Not Limited Flavor

  2. Soul food Bisto? Hardly! We decided it was time to check it out. Based on reviews we thought the food would be really something to remember. Well it is but not in a good way. Chicken was over salted and very greasy. Sides were uninspired mash of recognizable and bland twsting mac and cheese( not sure if it really had real cheese). Since it’s more self service I noticed drink refills were hard to get and staff seems like I was bothering them to even ask. Won’t be back for sure.

  3. Pingback: Best Family Friendly Restaurants - Round 2 - Jacksonville Restaurant Reviews

  4. I have been eating at Soul Food Bistro for years. I am an ex-Restaurant Manager and Chef and have not had any bad food there. I have a very good palate and find the food to be exactly what the review said. You think you are at Grandma’s house for Sunday Dinner. As for the staff…..well, let me tell you, I could not be treated any nicer and more attentively! Give it another shot and then make up your mind whether or not to return.All restaurants, no matter how great and awesome they are, have a bad day on occasion.Case in point..Mouzzina, (Chef Cat Cora) in Orlando.) Will I go back? You better believe it! In my 45 years in the restaurant business(17 in New Orleans and 10 in Savannah) I think I know a thing or two about Cuisine!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *