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Jack’s City Grill fun dining experience

By Bryan Stevens

Jack’s City Grill, which opened back in 2009, is one of two restaurants owned and operated by Tony and Christina Vella in Johnson City. The other is the well-known Cootie Brown’s.
Like Cootie Brown’s, Jack’s City Grill boasts an energetic, eclectic atmosphere that’s difficult to summarize, but shabby chic or terrifically tacky are probably good catchphrases to describe such design schemes as bottlecap-encrusted birdhouses, an explosion of mismatched colored light bulbs in vintage chandeliers, a colossal wine-bottle tree in the corner of one of the dining rooms and painted window panels hanging from the ceiling depicting fun scenes. To add to all this, the restaurant was also decked out with Christmas decorations, giving the riotous display of color a festive seasonal mood. The tables — in different bright shades of yellows, green and reds — feature graffiti-strewn tabletops.