Jacob Restaurant

Très bon, pas cher (on paye au poids), varié, c’est très sympa ! Seul petit danger pour un estomac européen: la tentation de tout tester qui mèné à une overdose de viande en sauce riche ou panée. Une bonne idée à consommer avec modération.

They serve buffet of consistent quality. My favorites are salmon, tilapia, avocado, and corn (though occasionally too sweet). Worth a walk cause one can always get something good.

Never disappointed at Jacobs! Food is great and fresh mostly because their food goes quickly. Gets busy at times. Don’t be scared to try the pies at the front. Sweet potato and coconut. Can’t go wrong here! You simply just can’t.

**came here one saturday afternoon w/​my lover after his opera show. i’ve heard a few things about this place and a couple of ppl comparing this restaurant whenever i post info about a southern style spot that i have been to with good soul food… came in outside look very nice thought it would be a nice restaurant to our surprise it gave buffet set with seating area to the right… hmmmmmm!!!
sorry to say this place disappointed me in many ways when it came to the food
–rib to hard bbq sauce not baked on
–cabbage had way to many vegetables in it nnnnnever!!! had cabbage like this b4 disgusting!
–had watermelon not sweet taste like i was sucking water from a piece of fruit
–oxtails were lacking in flavor and the very caribbean feel of them all together
–the collard greens were not cut they were like eating gigantic ass leaves w/​no flavor
sorry but if ever in harlem and i have a taste of soul food i will keep it to #sylvias hands down. so sorry to say i/​we won’t be back
trying to compare this place to excellence in brooklyn no wwwwway!!!
signed
i love to eat and i do it consistently & tip well
mr.von teese & fam
xoxox **

Great service, great food and great attitudes !
They have pictures of black people everywhere and lovely music, I feel so at home here.
Their food ranges from southern good and Caribbean food. You pay whatever your food weighs so pick whatever you want & enjoy.

This place is amazing! I went drive to NYC this weekend to drop my grandmother off at home after staying with me for 3 months. My aunt took us to Jacob’s Restaurant and this was probably one of the best places that I have ever visited in NYC. The food was delicious and the price was unbeatable! We will definitely be visiting Jacob’s again!

This was some of the best soul food I had other than family cooking. They had ox tails n beans n rice. I love how they made the beans just like how I like it. Whenever I go back I’m going there.

Decent buffet food that hits the spot when you need some comfort and are in the area. I’ve only been here twice; I came in last week and got a small container with the following items:
1. Mac n Cheese – cheesy, yummy goodness. It was congealed, but that doesn’t bother me. Still tasted great.
2. Veggie fried rice – was good, had a lot of veggies and egg in it, wasn’t too oily
3. Oxtails – I only got 2 because they were huge. Unfortunately, I was a bit disappointed by the ones here. They were a tad tough and not falling off the bone. I prefer them cooked a bit more.
4. Fried plantain – tasty, ripe, and sweet
5. Candied yams – very sweet and tasty, but I questioned their freshness???
The bill came to $ 7.89, which I thought was reasonable, although I dislike paying for food by weight since the dollar amount always comes as a big surprise (!)
The seating area was a nice size and pretty clean, as was the buffet area. Seems well-​managed by a good staff, though I didn’t get any smiles from the cashiers when they were ringing me up.
Would return here to try the beef short ribs and definitely the mac n cheese if I was in the area.

Self serve buffet restaurant, you pay by the pound. I got jerk chicken, yams, oxtails, mac and cheese, turkey, curry goat, okra. I thought the food was pretty bland. I’ve had better oxtails, jerk chicken, curry goat, etc elsewhere. I thought this place was known for their carribean food but maybe they are known more for their southern food. I ended up getting almost 2 pounds of food, it cost me almost $ 12, and I was still hungry afterwards. I wouldn’t go out of my way to come here

A clutch place if you’re craving some comfort food. The macaroni and cheese, rice and peas and candied yams have NEVER disappointed me. Every time I’ve gone the side dishes are great. As far as the protein, it’s usually hit or miss. I’ve tried the salmon, meatballs, jerk and fried chicken. The salmon is always salty, the meatballs are mushy with little flavor the jerk chicken is good but SPICY and the fried chicken is decent.

was a very good experience good food friendly service
no complaints
would recommend

Love love love LOVE!!! I went here and was completely overwhelmed but in a good way! This place has EVERYTHING you could think of in terms of soul food! I 100 000% recommend this place to anybody with good food on their mind! PLEASE go and go NOW!

Love the food here I usually eat in the place is always cool clean and accommodating you can self serve from a large assortment of hot/​cold food and you can sit and watch from 2 large screen TV’s or sit a chat it up with folks from my hood go early for lunch before everything is picked over and enjoy and the do catering

Went here for dinner when the weather was still warm. They have seating indoor and outdoor. The indoor seats were all taken and my group ended up sitting outdoor. It was quite nice sitting outdoors and the area is sectioned off. This is a buffet by the pound type of place. It’s self served and the food is priced at $ 5.99/lb. They have a wide range of food to choose from. Lots of meat like ox tail, bbq ribs, fried chicken, jerk chicken, and more. They do have rice, pasta, fish, and vegetables too. There is free water you can get yourself if you’re eating in. I had a little bit of everything. The meats were overcooked, probably from the warming tray. The non-​meat items that I had were fine. Not a buffet person, since the food is usually not the best because it’s been sitting there for quite some time. But the food here had a lot of flavor and one of the better buffets.

So this place is a giant buffet with just about everything you could think of eating. I had no idea where to start so we asked one of the local patrons for her recommendations:
1 Macaroni and cheese
2. Greens
3. Yams (she cannot eat them because of her diabetes)
4. Ox tails
It was all friggin amazing and highly recommended. Definitely worth the trip.

I thought this place was just OK, until I sampled other buffet style places in the area. Jacob’s is the best of the bunch. However, where it fails is consistency. Yes, the same foods are there pretty much every day, but sometimes the fried chicken is very good and sometimes it’s dry and gets thrown out after I take a few bites. It has more good days than bad days though, so I give it four stars.

It doesn’t matter how good their food is if it ends up spilked in the bottom of the take-​out bag. Very flimsy Styrofoam containers that’s a little rubber bands just doesn’t hold. Girl at the counter was rude too.

Nice buffet restaurant!
Clean and they have many varieties of both hot and cold buffet!
Chicken was nice, and also kale salad was great!

*** Quick Do It Yourself Service, Fast Checkout ***
First, not sure if it was just my internal body temperature, but it was hot when I visited Jacob; there definitely was no a/​c blasting or it was just on the lowest temperature you could possibly set it to. You serve yourself and can choose as many items you want. Note: The cost is dependent on how much your to-​go box weighs. I got an assortment of food. I really enjoyed the fried chicken, collard greens, and the steamed vegetables. There’s been previous reviews on how delicious the mac n’ cheese is, but it wasn’t anything that great in my opinion. Overall, if you’re looking for a quick, cheap, filling meal, then come to Jacob Restaurant.

Talk about options! From the mac n cheese to the salad bar– had a little for everyone! Came right before the lunch rush and everything tasted yummy!

I don’t really get the great reviews? I put a little bit of everything into my plate because I was so eager to try it all, but it was all… fine. It wasn’t that good, honestly. With the exception of the lasagna which was SUPERB, the rest was all very bland. I guess the fried chicken was okay. The mac and cheese left a lot to be desired, the fish tasted kind of weird, and the yams were WAY too sweet.
I’m honestly not very picky and I love cheap buffet food but when I took home everyone’s leftovers because they weren’t into it, I couldn’t even eat them! I hate wasting food but it was truly an unappetizing pile of mush.

All you can eat buffet charged by the weight of very good and well cooked soul food, was one of the best soul foods Ive had here.
The great thing is that you can choose what you want and take as much as you want, and after that you just weight your plate and pay for it.
They have pretty good deserts as well. Cant wait to go there again.

Everything here is delicious! Best buffet I have ever been to hands down!
The trick here is how to ration valuable real estate in your styrofoam contain to maximize your gluttony. As much as I hate to go for ribs, fried chicken and wings (you are paying for the weight of bones you don’t eat) I can’t help but get some of everything. The greens are the perfect balance of succulent and sweet, the yams, the mac and cheese, you can’t go wrong with anything. I had the nerve to get a slice of red velvet cake and it was amazing.
Price is totally reasonable. A true asset to the soul food scene.

Eat here!
Slightly better than the other location…
Pay by weight, but it’s still pretty cheap.
The food is GOOD. You have many choices and most of them are good. Perhaps stay away from the fried chicken because it will be dry unless you get it right when they bring it out.
This is a go-​to place for my family. Soul food buffet — can’t beat that with a bat!
No hassle, cheap and consistently good soul food that you can grab and go or inhale very quickly there.

Ça change mais trop cher ! On paye au poids ce que l’on mange et Ça coûte cher et c’est pas super ! Bref je vous le déconseille

Après un Gospel endiablé, nous voilà dans le quartier de Harlem (n’ayez pas peur, ça né craint pas !).
Les restaurants qui nous entourent né vendent quasiment que de la «soul food». Aie, c’est quoi ça ?! La nourriture de l’âme? Bizarre !
Alors voilà la petite minute culturelle: la soul food c’est simplement de la nourriture afro-​américaine (cf soul music), c’est pas très connu en France, sûrement parce que ça né correspond pas à notre culture (la nourriture est grasse et on mange vite!).
Bref, arrivé au Jacob Restaurant, on est vite perdu ! Devant nous des tas de «bacs» avec de la nourriture (d’ailleurs, faîtes attention, ce n’est pas des pommes de terre mais des bananes plantains!)
Heureusement, un client super sympa nous a aidé. Le principe: on prend une petite boîte en plastique que l’on remplit de ce que l’on aime, et ensuite, le prix se détermine au poids. Mais cette façon de fonctionner est traître ! On prend, on prend, et finalement on cale vite et on né finit pas ! Be carefull (mais né vous inquiètez pas, on peut emporter ses «restes»!)
Le plus du restaurant c’est que l’on peut prendre des fruits aussi, toujours avec le même principe. C’est pas mal car à force de manger au resto tous les jours, on est en manqué de vitamines !
On arrive à la caisse et on né paye vraiment pas grand chose. En plus, le serveur parle français, et nous fait de la place sur une table de 4, trop chouette !
J’ai aimé le petit sigle de Unilocal sur la porte d’entrée, à quand ce phénomèné en France ?!
NB: La Ginger Beer est vraiment délicieuse, (c’est au gingembre, miam), mais faîtes attention les amis, malgré le nom, il n’y a pas d’alcool dedans ! :)
Du coup, je conseille vraiment cet endroit, pour l’ambiance, ça dépayse complètement, et les gens sont vraiment très sympas (même s’ils se sont un peu moqués de nous quand on a calé au bout de la cinquième bouchée!).
La nourriture n’est pas au top, mais ça change de tous les fast-​foods, surtout qu’il y a des fruits.
Et juste pour la Ginger Beer, bim, 4 étoiles !

Un restaurant déniché au hasard dans Harlem. Très bonne adresse si on est dans le coin. Un self service où ‘on choisit ses compositions de plats. Nourriture afro-​américaine excellente avec prix plus que modérés. Clientèle locale et familiale avec chanteuses ou chanteurs qui y sévissent parfois. Très sympa tout ce mélange !