Tap It Local — Restaurant in Chesapeake

This Tap It Local is located in the Dominion Commons Shopping Center. This place is fairly easy to get to and there is ample parking available as well. Indoor and outdoor seating is available. My visit here was in the afternoon on October 18, 2020.

I don't normally come all the way out to Chesapeake that often. We came out to try the place during the Chesapeake Restaurant Week 2020. We came in around 4 pm. The bar area was pretty busy. It was clear that there were was little social distancing at that part of the restaurant. When we came in, we asked to be seated in the non-bar area, but they put us there anyways. At that time, we had to wait a moment for someone to come back and they moved us over to the main dining area, which was empty.

After a few moments, our server Deo came to the table. We were given the regular menus, but asked for the restaurant week menu and ordered our drinks. When we got that menu, it was different than what was online. I ended up pulling up the menu on my phone from the restaurant week page to show him what is online. He did honor that menu online, but you could tell that he was surprised and didn't know that was out there. We were ready to order at that point and I went with the Bacon Cheeseburger and my mom went with the All American Burger (both on the Restaurant Week menu).

After about 8 to 10 minutes, the burgers came to the table. The burgers looked really good and they were. The burger was hot and juicy and cooked the way as requested. All in all the food was great.

Now, for the observations and experiences during the overall visit. As noted above the food was great and was never an issue. Service was lackluster at best and the primary reason for the two star rating. One thing off hand is that the server rarely wore his mask properly, or not at all. There were several instances where there was no coverage with the mask and other times just covering the mouth, but not the nose as well. Also, it was hard to get a hold of him when we needed to ask for a few things such as mustard, ketchup, and extra napkins. I did ask at one point when he did come over to ask to speak to a manager, but either the manager was busy and never came over, or was never notified we wanted to speak to them.

In the end, the food was great and I hope this was just an off day. This place is about 30-40 minutes away from where I live, so I won't come this way very often. Although this experience will not have me rushing back, I would try them again in the future and hopefully things will be...

Disapointed with the service and food. We have had food and drinks here for a few years now and tonight was the worst. The visit started off well enough, the waitress was attentive when we were first seated and even brought a sample of the beer we weere thinking of trying. Once our beers and food were delivered we didn't see our server again- Would have ordered more beer and wings but she didn't come back. We sat there for almost 20 mins w/o service, food or drinks. We flagged another employee for more wing sauce and napkins. The wing and sauce quality has become very inconsistant over the last several months we have eaten here. We ordered 20 wings, 19 were delivered, they were bare of sauce, the celery was limp, translucent amd inedible. We made it quite obvious we were done by putting the discards from the wings, plate, used napkins and empty pint glasses at the end of our table, even then no server appeared. My husband had to go find the server to ask for our bill. She did come and drop off the bill and gave us some story about getting there at 2pm (?) and explaining her absence in service because she was busy changing Kegs that keep running out and said they were very busy- it was 5:35 pm on a friday afternoon when we arrived and there were open tables and plenty of staff visible standing around talking to each other. Unfortunately for the server we left her a $5 tip on $41 tab that would have been much more (I was a waitress/ bartender for 20+ years)if we could have ordered more and the service been better. We don't expect to be entertained by the servers but definitly don't expect ot be ignored either.

With a new wing competitior coming to the same area Tap It needs to retrain their kitchen and waitstaff for consistentcy...

Had our first visit to Tap It Local, and it was a mixed experience. The food was generous and delicious. I would not describe Tap It as a warmly hospitable place. There was not a "Have you been here before?" question, so the opportunity to introduce the menu, special, or general attitude and environment was lost.

I ordered "unsweet tea" and instead received ice water. Even after three table checks, the server still gave us a bill with a charge did the tea. When I asked, she removed the charge.

Kristin ordered a burger that is topped with "onion rings," but there were none when hers came to the table. My French dip was delivered without au jus. The server who brought them to the table didn't notice that the plates weren't complete; when our server did a table check, our server didn't notice the missing au jus either. I did not bring these things to their attention, wanting to observe the attention to detail.

Now for the great part! Our meals were fresh and hot. The fries and onion rings were delicious. Kristin enjoyed her burger, and my sandwich was very tasty. Our server tried to take her plate while she was still actively finishing her meal.

We were hoping that Tap It would be a great experience and become part of our regular rotation. Instead, the experience was unsatisfying. We will return for another try (and speak up if any issues occur, to observe customer service in action), but without the eager anticipation we had before today. Hopefully the welcome and service will be just as great...