Who is EatJxn?

Who is EatJXN?

Glad you asked.

I’m just a regular guy with three kids and a wife. I like to eat, and I love to visit new places and meet new people during this fun journey we call EatJXN. Here at Eat Jackson, we stay busy running lots of different directions. We cook at home a lot, but we eat out a lot, too.

I’m just a regular guy like you. No snobby foodie here, just someone who appreciates and loves great food, service and atmosphere.

We got busy, so we added a “Mrs. Eat Jackson.” 

Sometimes when I need a little help, I get “Mrs. Eat Jackson” to help me out. She’s just a regular girl, born and raised in Jackson, who loves the local Jackson food scene – and cooking – as much as I do. Sometimes she drags her “mister” along with her. (No, I’m not married to Mrs. Eat Jackson.) But her hubby is usually good for a funny comment or two.

Together as a team of two couples and some kids, we cover a lot of ground and a lot of tables in Jackson, MS, and well beyond…because sometimes good food is Worth the Drive.

Where We Eat

Eat Jackson loves local restaurants. We prefer to eat in places that don’t have thirty or more locations just like them. Some of the best food we’ve had was served on a paper plate with light shining through the roof of the establishment. Sometimes, we even let folks like you send us your reviews and pictures of a place to post here on EatJackson.com.

Since we started this, it’s true that we’ve grown a lot bigger. But we are still all about keeping it real and keeping it local. We write about what we like and only write about what we really eat. We do take money from some restaurants in exchange for their promotion in our Eat Jackson Restaurant Directory. And we also sometimes get free meals here and there. But we don’t take money in exchange for a positive review. If we have a bad meal or a bad experience – we tell the restaurant – and we don’t write about it. If we like it, love it or dream about it at night – you’ll hear about it here on our web site. If you have any questions about how all this works, please ask.

The Eat Jackson Mantra

I’m for FOOD. Good food.

I’m for SERVICE. If your business’s service was terrible, I’ll probably say something. If you respond to fix it, I’ll probably let everyone know you did that, too.

I’m for ATMOSPHERE. Atmosphere doesn’t always mean $500K in interior decor. Atmosphere is another word for experience. Provide me with one. It might just be an old, old jukebox, or an old waitress that’s been there for 62 years.

I’m for LOCAL. I admit, I’ve eaten plenty of fast and chain food. I might even talk about it. But I’m vested in locally owned businesses. I love them. I love owners that make their own paycheck – without the corporate system. I’m a small business guy myself. I’m for local, and we’re going to focus on supporting local in our media company and through everything we do with Eat Jackson. That’s just the deal.

I’m for JACKSON. Yes, I’m not always in Jackson, so you may hear Clinton, Raymond, Ridgeland, Madison, Flowood, Flora, Collins, Magee, Gulfport, Hattiesburg, Starkville, Oxford or Vicksburg and anywhere else that’s worth the drive for the food… But Jackson, Mississippi and it’s metro area is the place we’ll spend most of our time.

I’m not a foodie snob. I’m a guy that likes food. I don’t order Italian dishes with a snobby accent, and I don’t have a $200 bottle of wine habit. We’re just real people. Eating real, GOOD food.

Finally I’m for you guys. You make this fun, because I hear about all the stuff that I might not have tried, and places I don’t think to go.  I don’t know where this might go, but I’m thinking that we should see if restaurants will give our followers a little something special for coming in.

(Update: We’ve achieved a fair amount of success in this area and have created something called the EatJXN Card. We’re going to continue to giveaway food samples and meals here on EatJackson.com, Facebook and Twitter, but the easiest way to get rewarded on a daily basis is to flash that shiny EatJXN Card around like you’re a superstar because you definitely are to these restaurants! Try it – and see what happens. We think you’ll be happy with the result. Also, search Twitter and EatJackson.com for #eatFREE – where you find it, you’ll find a chance to win free food from an outstanding local restaurant.)

Note & Important Disclaimers:

Recently folks have asked “do you get paid to eat at these places?”  We don’t write good reviews in exchange for food or cash. We do ask restaurant owners if they’d like to give away some food on Twitter or Facebook. Often they say yes, and we help promote those efforts to sample their food out into our community. But we don’t write reviews based on anything but our real experience.

Much of the time, a restaurant doesn’t know we are coming there until after we’ve been there… It’s actually more fun to surprise them with a note later, saying “check EatJackson.com – we’ll be talking about you!!” If they do know, we get that the experience may be skewed, so we try to let you know that we were asked in, so you can gauge our stories better.

There is a list of restaurants that provide rewards to EatJXN Cardholders on our web site. These restaurants pay for the privilege of being listed on that page. They don’t pay much at all – only enough to weed out those businesses that aren’t that great or that wanted to take advantage of the system and make it unfair for the rest. But they do pay a bit to be there, and I want you to know that. Being on that list, however, is not a pre-requisite to be reviewed on EatJackson.com or discussed on our social networks. We’re doing the best we can to keep the site full of honest food reviews and food-related discussions – and to keep rewards flowing your way at the same time – and to cover our costs for doing this hobby turned full-time job.

Last But Not Least

We are not professional food critics. We just like good food, good service and a good dining experience. We support locally owned small business, and we want to help those business owners by letting YOU, our readers, know about the experiences we have and giving you a chance to sample the food or experience at these places for free here and there.

Sometimes our experience is bad, but most of the time it’s a positive review, and we get to share our experience with others!  If you agree, fine. If you don’t, leave a comment, tell us about your experience. But be nice about it.

P.S. Many of you out there have the MLA grammatical standards memorized. I don’t. I’ll try and use spell check, but other than that, I make no promises.  Feel free to comment.