Restaurant Review of Ann’s Sandwich Shop in Jacksonville, FL

Ann’s Sandwich Shop

803 E Duval St

Jacksonville, FL 32202-1123

(904) 358-6429

Ann's Sandwich Shop

One of the exciting things about this site (at least for me) is to try new places or places that I have always wanted to try. For the many years that I have lived in Jacksonville, Florida, I have been a regular to a little sandwich place near the football stadium downtown. That place is Russ-Does, of which I have not yet written a review for. The history of these little sandwich shops is kind of cool. Most were built to cater to the blue collar workers at the shipyards in that region. In just a few miles of the stadium there are several options for a sandwich, only avail during lunch Monday thru Friday. At some of these places you can get a nice breakfast as well. Someone once told me that I needed to go across the street from Russ-Does Sandwich Shop and try Ann’s. On this particular day I did.

This is the point that I want to give a disclaimer. This review is from a personal experience and greatly formed my opinion that I will share with you the reader. If you are a big fan of Ann’s then I will not fault you for that. In no way shape or form do I want to seem as if I am trying to cause any kind of slander towards this establishment. At the same rate, I do not want to apologize for this summary. The reason for this ‘disclaimer’ is that my personal experience at Ann’s Sandwich Shop on Duval St in the shipyards area of Jacksonville was so bad that I cannot imagine someone going there as a regular. Let alone feel the need to recommend Ann’s to anyone, ever.

Ann's Store Front

As I was en route to Russ-Does I had to pass Ann’s Sandwich Shop, so I thought, let me give them a try. I parked in the front of the main door noticing the numerous hand written signs taped to it. The signs mentioned the new hours, the burger and fries, the hot dogs, and other ’specials’ available. As I walked in to the empty restaurant at just after 1 pm on a weekday I was first hit with a stuffiness that almost made me walk straight out the door. It was then that one of the workers there yelled to another worker that was closer to the air conditioner switch “WE HAVE SOMEONE HERE, TURN BACK ON THE AIR”. (I can’t make that up). In Florida there are only two times when the a/c should be turned off in a restaurant, never and never. Luckily the a/c did not take long to cool the place down. When I walked towards the dining area to see that there was really no clean tables in the whole place, one of the workers told me to go back and order at the counter. Already in an uncomfortable mood I looked at the menu of burgers and hot dogs and fries, basically all the items that were on the door were repeated on the sign. But the special of the day was fried fish, corn, fires, a roll, and a tea for just over $7. It looked as good as anything else.

Lunch at Ann's

As I ordered I thought about the strawberry cake that was pre sliced and sitting under plastic wrap at the register, but I could see that most of the slices were not completely covered. Well, they did have sweet potato pie, but it looked like a couple of customers wanted to test the pie to see if fingers could mash into the slices, they can. I ordered the special and went to get my drink. The un-sweet tea was less than tasty. I had to take some of the ice out of my cup because there were ‘things’ or ’specs’ in the ice. Now the task to find a clean table, I gave up. The table that I settled with had a used drink cup on it and I had to get a few napkins to wipe it down. The table next to me was a little cleaner but had a broom leaning against it. That broom was never touched the whole time I was there. Behind me were a few tables filled with garbage bags full of holiday decorations that I am guessing they intend to put up. My suggestion to the staff and owners would be to clean the tables and scrub the floor that was stained with the rust stains from the tables and chairs first. The two televisions that I saw were turned off and there was no music playing which prompted me to ask if they were about to close. They informed me no, that they are open until 3. So all I got to listen to was the staff complain about having to wipe tables or the schedule and their personal life.

Broom Against Table

Now my food is ready, seeing as to how busy they were (sarcasm)…. They left it at the counter for me to go and get, and not bring it out to me. I found a little bit of humor that they did not even put the dry stale roll on a plate or even a napkin. The corn was scooped straight from a can and heated up. It was still in the cans juices and not even heated to a proper temperature. The fries were from a frozen bag and not served hot enough to soften them up. The fish was good, it was very good. The tartar sauce was horrible and served warmer than the fries. I picked at the bread, ate a couple of fries tasted the corn ate most of the fish and decided to find a drive thru to finish my lunch experience. On my way out I could see the kitchen though the pass through window, I am not a health department worker but from what I could see did not look sanitary. I am absolutely amazed at the number of workers in the shop (maybe 6) and the filth and lack of quality provided to the customer.

There are so many things that went wrong with my visit to Ann’s Sandwich Shop that I cannot even think of how they are able to stay in business. Not only for the bad service, and the bad food, the cleanliness of Ann’s makes me wonder if they get a pass from the health department. Those of us that do these visits to restaurants and sandwich shops for Pie’s Plate try to give a second chance in hope the establishment has been able to redeem themselves. Maybe they can fix their errors, but I will never go back to Ann’s Sandwich Shop and will never recommend it to anyone. 

Review by Pie, email: pie@piesplate.com