Three of my coworkers and I were in town this week on business. Thursday night the desk clerk at our hotel recommended The Loft for dinner. We decided to give it a try since we hadn't had much luck with restaurants up to this point all week. We decided to sit on their beautiful patio. We were pleasantly surprised at the atmosphere of the place and even more surprised by our waiter, John. He was very engaging, making recommendations and keeping us laughing so hard my sides were hurting. Anyway he recommended something called The Norwood for our appetizer and a strange looking and unique tasting local beer they had on draft. Can't remember the name but it was quite different but definitely good, as was the appetizer. We loved the shrimp and dipping the french bread in the sauce. We asked him what he liked on the menu since we had never been there and had no idea what to order. John joked that if we didn't get the 20 ounce rib eye he didn't know why we even came there. So we did. Well one of us got the filet. I ordered my steak well done and John got on me again and told us there was no need to get a steak if we were going to burn it. He said he had worked at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse in another city and nobody's steak had more flavor than The Loft's (That's pretty high expectations) but we wouldn't get the full experience with anything over medium rare but he finally jokingly agreed to order it at medium for me. I'm telling you, we all 4 agreed when we left that this guy is the best waiter we've ever had anywhere we've ever been. (And that's no exaggeration this guy is incredible) John was right. I don't like any red at all in my steak but in this case I gave in because he was right on point when he was talking about the flavor of the steak. It was unbelievable! The absolute best steak I have ever eaten and the least done steak I have ever eaten without sending it back to cook it more. If all steaks tasted like this one, I'd never order over medium. (But, of course, that's not the case everywhere) Anyway, we were all stuffed after our entrees but somehow John talked us into something called bread pudding. Never heard of it and sounded not very good just by the name but John said if we didn't like it, he would pay for it himself. Needless to say, we paid for our own bread pudding. It was the richest, sweetest dessert and wonderful. We don't have bread pudding in Eugene, Oregon but I sure wish we did. Overall, The Loft was the best experience we had in Laurel the entire week we spent in the town. Hopefully we'll get sent back to Laurel by the company again and hopefully some other company hasn't grabbed up John and he will still be working there and will be our waiter. He said it was fine to ask the host to let him be our waiter and I HIGHLY RECOMMEND you do just that when you visit this incredible restaurant. I'm not lying when I say he should be selling cars or houses or whatever. He makes you laugh, he makes great food recommendations and if you didn't know better, you'd swear you've known him for years. He makes you feel like you're dining at a 5-star restaurant in New York. I guarantee you if we ever get sent back to Laurel, MS we will eat at The Loft every night we're in town. read more