JL Richards

In a word: For better, for worse, for Richards the pourer.

The specs: #00920   
668 Janesville St., Oregon 53575
Official web site

Latest JL Richards news and reviews

JM ate the steak tips over mashed potatoes.
Nichole ate the goulash with green beans and a roll.
The bill was about $6/meal.
JM gave JL Richards a B-; Nichole gave JL Richards a C+ (see our grading rubric).

Let's start with the bad: JL Richards is a deli serving the metro Oregon area with chafing dishes filled with basically blah, average, just-above-cafeteria-grade food.  The salad bar accompanying the feast is smaller than average and has little Sconnie originality, preferring instead to focus on only the most pedestrian offerings.  Our meals of steak tips and goulash, while certainly OK, were not worth the autumn drive out of town.

That feels pretty negative, but it's really not.  In Oregon, it may well be one of the better offerings for take-out.  The value of the meals was actually pretty good.  You get a lot of food for not too much money.  And the service was excellent. Staff quickly came to take our order and offered us ample samples of whatever we were curious about.

As a deli, JL Richards has a wide selection of meats and cheeses and prepared salads (like macaroni and potato).  They do a brisk wedding trade (no less than two brides-to-be were there sampling wares) and word of mouth counts for so much in that business that they must be doing it right.

So south siders, you may want to stop in for grillable meats or special sauces (a high school friend of JM's is among those behind the Croix Valley, which we found here) and maybe a quick lunch or dinner when you've other things to do.  JL Richards' niche is pretty small (wedding deli and liquor store) but it fits.