The Best Restaurants in Jacksonville, Texas

Jonathan Wilson grew up eating at Stacy's Barbecue, the Jacksonville institution that closed for good in 2018. He left his job, renovated an old roadside produce stand known as the Tomato Shed, and opened JW's in October 2020 to fill the hole Stacy's left.

Texas Monthly wrote it up as a worthy East Texas stop, then in June 2025 named it to the magazine's list of the top 100 barbecue joints in Texas as an honorable mention. The kitchen runs two kinds of ribs, a sweet version rubbed with apple pie seasoning and brown sugar and a traditional dry rub, alongside brisket, pulled pork, turkey and house sausage. Fresh vegetables on a barbecue plate are rare enough in Texas to be worth mentioning.

Rob Gowin left the corporate world in May 1995 to carry on his grandparents' East Texas cooking, and what began as a small lunch counter grew into the town's event kitchen. The restaurant now occupies the renovated old city jail, police station and tax office. The iron cell doors are still hung, one of the heavy iron jailhouse tables was refinished for dining, and the women's cell is a small dining room.

The food is Southern with some reach, chicken fried steak and shrimp and grits alongside daily plate specials. The pies are the reason people drive in from Tyler and Rusk, made on site in rotating flavors including lemon icebox, chocolate cream, coconut cream and brownie fudge.

Ritual is the daytime restaurant inside a larger downtown project that also includes an apothecary, a yoga studio with a seven circuit labyrinth on the floor, and Hotel Ritual, a seven bedroom Tudor mansion that reopened in August 2025. Texas Lifestyle Magazine covered the whole operation as an unexpected wellness destination in East Texas.

The luncheonette itself is a light filled room serving breakfast, lunch and brunch. The chicken salad comes with bread and butter pickles, the BLT leans on the tomatoes this county is known for, and the kitchen makes its own ice creams. The strawberry cake has its own following.

The Patio is where Jacksonville goes when it wants a seafood dinner without driving to Galveston. The board runs shrimp several ways, oysters, catfish and crab cakes, and the steak side of the menu covers ribeyes, T-bones and lobster tails.

It also functions as an all day counter, with breakfast items, burgers and frozen confections, which is why locals treat it as a default rather than an occasion. It keeps the longest week of anything on this list.

Roma opened on April 5, 2023, in the storefront across from Jacksonville City Hall, and the Jacksonville Daily Progress covered the ribbon cutting the chamber held on opening day. The menu is New York Italian rather than Tuscan, meaning pasta, pizza, seafood and hot subs in large portions.

It is the only sit down Italian kitchen in town, which in a place this size makes it a genuine addition rather than a redundancy.

Be clear about what this is. Ruby's is a small East Texas chain, not a Jacksonville original. The family opened its first restaurant on East Gentry Parkway in Tyler and now runs five locations plus a food truck, with recipes the family traces to Guerrero, Mexico. The Jacksonville store is the newest of them, roughly 2,000 square feet of dining room on South Jackson.

It earns a place here anyway because it opens early on weekends and closes late by Jacksonville standards, which makes it the most reliable full menu Mexican option in a town where several independents keep short and shifting hours.

Legends is the town burger counter, a long running independent on South Jackson that grinds the order fresh rather than pulling a patty off a warming tray. The draw is the toppings bar, which lets you finish the burger yourself instead of accepting somebody else's idea of a dressed cheeseburger.

It is listed in both the Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce member directory and the city tourism guide, and it is the answer locals give when a visitor asks for a burger.

The Drafthouse is the only place on this list that works as a night out. It pours Texas craft beer and Texas wine, runs live music on a patio with a fire pit, and keeps pool tables, cornhole and giant Jenga inside.

The kitchen is better than a beer hall needs to be. Build your own burgers, pulled pork tacos, Baja fish tacos, a brisket sandwich, wings, and a loaded baked potato with pulled pork are all on the board, and it stays family friendly earlier in the evening.

Yamato covers the category no one else in Jacksonville does. The menu runs hibachi entrees served with fried rice and vegetables, bento dinners, noodle dishes, and a full sushi and sashimi list with classic and specialty rolls.

It is a straightforward neighborhood Japanese restaurant rather than a destination, but it is a real kitchen with dine in, pickup and a patio, and it is a member of the Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce.