J. Lights Market & Cafe

I am very disappointed in my experience at J Lights tonight. We are from out of town and came here with our daughter and her husband and grandson that live here. The mandatory 18% service charge should not have been charged because of the rudeness of the girl taking the order and the amount of time it took to get our food.We waited over 45 minutes to receive our 2 orders. The first order was a cheeseburger , wings and a Negroni.( they didn’t even know what was used to make the Negroni) the 2nd order was a sandwich, cheeseburger, and kids burger. We were the only people that ordered food and the only people in or out were f the restaurant and it should not have taken 45 + minutes. There was no apology just rude comments “ not our fault” when we questioned where our food was.Food was okay when we finally got it but overall a disappointing meal

Excellent location and interesting and eclectic menu! We had craft beers at Highwire and got dinner, and sat out enjoying the beautiful night lights. It's a wonderful restaurant and I'm definitely going back. quite a few vegetarian options as well.

We love this place!! The sweet potato sandwich is bomb and I’m not a vegetarian or anything but will definitely find myself craving it. Great staff and good drink selections. I just wish they had a location in Lakewood!!

This place has such a great vibe! All of the staff were super nice and welcoming. It’s a seat yourself and order at the counter type of place. The food was to so tasty!! It’s in a darling historic Tobacco plant.

Allen served us drinks tonight and couldn’t have been better! We had some really good whiskey sours and enjoyed the service. Have eaten food here too and it’s very good! Great Atmosphere as well at Golden Belt

My colleague and I have immensely enjoyed various lunch items from J. Lights. Everything we have ordered has been delicious! The salads are fresh, wings are amazing, and the salmon cooked just right. The presentation of their food is beautiful and makes you want to eat it. This is our new favorite lunch spot!

Good food great service Nice place

service is great! my favorite sandwich is the turkey club! the bread is perfectly crispy. love this place!!!

Our family loves Golden Belt, and we’re excited to have finally tried J Lights. I had a burger and fries, and even with a couple changes (cheddar cheese, medium well) they accommodated. My husband and girls both got the chicken sandwich and enjoyed it. The fruit is great! It’s fresh, delicious, and no melon like we often see other places. The portions were plenty big, and I love Boylan sodas and was glad to see they had several flavors. I would’ve given them 5 stars but we had a very long wait. We ordered around 6 (thinking we’d have plenty of time for two roosters afterwards) and we didn’t get our food - after having to check on it - until 6:45. As good as it was we probably wouldn’t be able to go back with our kids (5, 3, & almost 1) but highly recommend it to others! And the wait may be atypical for them, but they weren’t super busy.

Our family loves J. Lights Market & Cafe! We started coming because we followed our favorite trivia duo for music bingo on Fridays. We always get the loaded fries-plenty of toppings (on busy days can be a little on the cool temp side) and plenty of fries we can share with toddler. The salmon blt , and any sandwich are delicious. The kids PBJ is BIG for toddler and great fruit cup as a side. Wings are also a great choice, as I have never found them over done or dry. OH yeah the selection of drinks! My husband loves trying new beers, so having the bottle shop and different breweries on tap is a great option. I love a Coke in glass situation, so I am happy to have that option too.

The manager at J. Lights was very responsive in taking action to right the situation. It seems the trained bartender was sick, so it was a staffing issue that is not the norm. I will give them a try again in the future.—I tried reaching out via email and Instagram prior to writing this review, but I had a horrible J. lights experience on Tuesday. My girlfriend and I ordered two drinks from the bar. The two employees (very friendly) told us they had never bartended but thought they could make our drinks. The drinks were undrinkable. We ordered the two simplest drinks (a mule and spiked soda) to make it easier for the employees but the mule had probably 2 ounces of simple syrup and ginger ale (not beer) and my spiked soda was spilled when the worker tried to flip the soda bottle into the cup - it was also horribly sweet (tasted like there was no liquor). The employees were VERY stressed so I didn’t want to complain to them, but I would truly appreciate a refund for the $20 drinks we could not even enjoy. I wish the employees had just said the bar was closed - if you are going to advertise a full bar, at least have employees who know how to make simple drinks. We frequent golden belt but will not return to J. Lights.

I was very disappointed in the crispy chicken Sandwich. It was way over cooked it was dark almost black and so crispy hard I couldn’t even bite into it. I could not eat it. It was also the thinnest smallest piece of chicken on the bun I can’t believe that they would serve that and charge as much as they did. I have had other positive experiences in the past year ordering here , but will not recommend it any more or order from here while at hi wire. I should have taken it back but I had already left and did not want to wait another additional hour for food to be ready again.

Great spot in downtown Durham for a light lunch! Food is delicious!

For our first time trying this restaurant, we placed a small online order for takeout on a Saturday evening (around 6) while we were at hi-wire and the food was expected to take around 45 minutes. Instead it took over an hour and was missing fries - those took an additional half hour for them to provide. I’m not sure if this was unusual for them but needless to say, the service was not great. The food was good, however - the chicken sandwich is super crispy and their fried okra is tasty too. I would be willing to give the place another try on a different day/time.

Underwhelming food somewhat absurdly overpriced (including a 4$ delivery/service fee to bring it out to my table). I wanted to give this place two stars for the general vibe of it's location, but ultimately couldn't justify it. I got a burger, my buddy got a chicken sandwich and didn't hate it. The fries seemed dec. YMMV.