2 for $30: Maggie's Neighborhood Bar & Grill

The Hot Brown at Maggie's Neighborhood Bar & Grill. (Credit: John Rott)

Loyal suburbanites, my parents refuse to travel downtown or to the Highlands for dinner. There’s a Longhorn Steakhouse not 10 minutes away — why go all the way down Baxter Avenue, they’d ask. So how can I satisfy my prejudice against chain restaurants with my family’s unwillingness to leave Jeffersontown?

Maggie’s Neighborhood Bar & Grill is how. The restaurant sits off Taylorsville Road, about a mile before Watterson Trail and the heart of J-town. It’s an easy-to-miss joint, nestled into a strip mall on a stretch of road with nothing but strip malls. Most motorists would pass right by Maggie’s, but they shouldn’t.

The decor is a tad generic, but certainly nicer than you’d find at a chain. The dining room is dim, and the booths have fancy glass light fixtures hanging above the tables. The bar is expansive. My wife and I were seated in a booth and fascinated by the flat-screen televisions at each of the tables. A nice touch at a sports bar, but inappropriate at a place where the chicken candied-pecan salad is $11. Don’t most people go to nice restaurants to get away from eating in front of the TV?

We turned the TV off and ordered. The bar has a wide offering of beers and wines, but the menu is too pricey for fun drinks. Maggie’s has a nice, broad selection of entrées. The cash-strapped could go with the Maggie’s burger — with decent dressing offerings — for $9, while people unrestrained by budgets could choose the Parmesan-encrusted cod ($14) or the slow-roasted prime rib ($18). My wife chose Maggie’s Hot Brown ($12); I waffled between the chicken Parmesan ($14), the chicken linguini ($12) and a flatbread pizza ($12) before opting for the linguini.

The Hot Brown arrived with the Mornay sauce boiling. The dish was tasty. My wife is not usually a Hot Brown enthusiast, but she thoroughly enjoyed the dish. The linguini was a generously portioned dish. The chicken was tasty and the creamy Alfredo sauce was delicious and thick, the Cajun spices offering a memorable extra kick.

We were pleased with our food and the service. The fancy decor betrays the restaurant’s more casual atmosphere, but the whole experience is not off-putting. It’s the type of thing my dad and mom would be comfortable with. The total came to $25.44. We rounded it up to $30 to acknowledge the prompt service and piping hot food.

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