Jimmy’s Restaurants

We’ve been visiting this restaurant since it opened in Watford, a couple of years ago. The appeal with this chain is that it was originally named Jimmy’s World Grill and the concept is that you pay a set price (cheaper lunch time but less food choices) and have a series of «stations» where you help yourself to an array of food from the buffet. Each station is for a different style of food so you’ve got a section with pizza and pasta (choose the pasta and choose the sauce); there’s a chinese section, an indian section, a mexican section, salad bar and sushi.
In the past when we visited (as is my particular liking) I took advantage of the indian section where you could get a dosa (Indian savoury pancake) made in front of your eyes.
As I have a loyalty card for Jimmy’s I regularly get emails from them about promotions and they do specials on Mothers/​Fathers day and I can get a free meal if I go there on my birthday. So when I got an email telling me they’d
«reopened following an extensive refurbishment and increased its’ offerings to over 100 dishes from China, Mexico, India, Italy, Japan, and beyond! You can now enjoy even more global specialties, such as Japanese Sushi, American burgers, Waffles & Pancakes, our live pizza station, and our unlimited Mexican taco bar, combining authentic recipes with unlimited fillings and toppings of your choice.»
As my daughter jets off to her job abroad tomorrow, we took the opportunity to go and enjoy the «increased offerings». Sad to say, it might offer more for the meat eaters out there but if you’re vegetarian the offerings are a little thin on the ground. Previously they would have a panneer curry or a tofu one in the chinese section. Vegetable curry, Thai green vegetable curry and a spinach and corn curry were the only asian offerings. Of course there are samosas, pakoras, bhajees, chutneys, yoghurt and mint sauces but they’re really accompaniments. They’d changed the dosa area and made it a «naan station» but when my daughter went there to get a naan made was told to take the ones already made and sitting on a plate getting cold — not impressed! I did actually speak to indian chap who was replenishing the food and said I was disappointed there was no paneer or more vegetarian indian main meals to choose from and he just responded that they’d changed their menu. Yes, I could see that without him telling me!
Numerous people were helping themselves to burgers yet, just over the road was a Gourmet Burger and diagonally across the road a McDonalds so quite an expensive way to eat a burger I would’ve said.
When you arrive you are now asked to pay (rather than paying as you leave as was formerly the case) and the price is £16.99 per person. Admittedly soft drinks are now free and you just help yourself. They’re not bad as you get all the regular fizzy drinks (Pepsi, R Whites Lemonade and Fanta) and you can choose the vanilla, strawberry, cherry and lime variants of these, plus they have cordials that you can add to your glass. Then there’s 3 slush machines which seemed very popular — bright red, bright blue and bright yellow — I wonder what chemicals were contained in those and the incidence of hyperactive children resulting from imbibing thereof?
The dessert table gives you a number of different options, there’s a waffle maker, there’s a chocolate fondue, there’s various cakes, and a soft ice cream dispenser. They also do bananas in syrup (although there no bowls just plates for dessert and the gulab jamun is a single ball in a tiny drop of syrup (formerly you helped yourself to a couple from a large bowl!). Also there was a bowl of whipped cream with chocolate powder sprinkled on top which was labelled «tiramisu» (no it most definitely wasn’t!).
We didn’t starve but, by the same token, we were a little disappointed by the lack of vegetarian options and said as much to the manager as we were leaving. He thanked us for giving our «feedback» and said he’d speak to the chef.
On the whole, I felt that we’d had a very expensive meal considering the limited options we had. I don’t favour their pizza which is thick based and, yes they have pasta but we eat that a lot at home anyway!
I’d like to give them the benefit of the doubt and hope they’ll add some more vegetarian mains to their menu so we may well go back and give it a try but it won’t be any time soon!

Went here with a friend and her two sons (2 and 6) on a Sunday lunchtime.
To be frank, for the money per adult head you might as well go to a restaurant and choose exactly what you want rather than gamble with this place.
I was so sick that afternoon and Monday, I didn’t know if I was coming or going. My friend though was okay, so that is why I have put 2 stars and not 1. (Although she mainly had salad, so not sure if this is the reason she wasn’t handcuffed to the toilet and sink post-​lunch)
The selections are okay, but none of them are particularly great standards and it is mass produced tosh that you get here. The quality of the meat, meant that I was just taking the sauce around the food or the veggie option and when I inspected the chicken closer there was no way I was going to be eating that!
Service was poor, waited an age to get our drinks and even then they were wrong.
Never going back — ever.