Just in Thyme Restaurant
Located in a strip mall setting with old home dining room style seating, Just in Thyme boasts ‘home cooking comfort food’ that is, given its typical audience, largely prepared for neighborhood locals. It does not draw a large tourist crowd, appealing more to early-bird patrons who prefer to be home in time to enjoy the 9:00 Matlock rerun and a cup of herbal thyme tea. Service can be taxing but pleasant, surprising for an institution that has remained for decades in the same place, even surviving years ago a fire in one of the upstairs apartments that temporarily closed the restaurant. The menu is solidly American fare, steaks, chops, seafood, salads, catering not to culinary enthusiasts, but to folks desiring a standard meal at a standard price, where friends go to say hello, or groups convene because reservations for families are easy to score. There is nothing fancy about the food, ambiance, service, or evening you will (possibly) enjoy, and nothing special either. It is not clear that the herb, thyme makes a special appearance in any of the dishes, especially given that it derives from the genus Thymus of aromatic perennial evergreen herbs in the mint family Lamiaceae. Is there a hint of mint in the cooking? Not that most people can discern, but thyme’s distant Mediterranean cousin, oregano makes an appearance in more than salads. So perhaps the next generation will rename the restaurant, ‘Just in Oregano Genus’? Well, only if you prefer to have no customers with such an awful restaurant name, but something ultimately has to give at Just in Thyme, because by the time you next consider a visit, it may be just in time to consider an alternative, especially given the owners, as of this writing, are trying to sell.
