Lesley's Restaurant Bar and Grill — Restaurant in Falls Church

Sometimes a night is just another night. Sometimes it isn't. Then again, sometimes a night can just be the night and that makes it something else.

Driving around about 11 at night in Falls Church, Virginia isn't everyone's idea of a wild evening. I was with my best friend. We were starving. It was raining and dark. The streets had become darker due to all the businesses being closed. We turned onto Hillwood Avenue. Hillwood is more residential than the adjacent streets. It was quite dark. My friend said, "hey there are lights on at that place over there."

I turned around. There it was. "Lesly's Bar and Grill." I used to eat early and eat at very regular times. I had a desire to control things and be fat. Eat early and often.

My friend and I have been working tremendously hard over the past weeks. Being a lawyer is busy. Trying to be a good lawyer is very busy. But, it sure has been rewarding.

While she sat in car, I went in to see if they were serving food. I walked up to this bar and I was completely sideswiped by the bartenders cleavage. My friend did not believe I was offended. I was not offended. It was more in appreciate of the shear purposefulness and magnitude of the thing. She was very nice and said they were serving food. I retrieved my friend from the car and the cold dark night.

The bar was serving Mexican food and had a Mexican theme. There was soccer and female boxing on the big screens. Also, there must have been 1 to 1 waitresses to customers. It was fantastic service. As nice as everyone was, there was a also a sense of heat to the room. Why do you ask that? Well, when we walked in, about 5 minutes into it, the two giant bouncers were having to separate two guys. One was jumping up and down doing the "lemme at em!" routine. There was equal part happiness, regulars mingling, and passion/danger. The mixture of it all was appealing to the senses.

We had Coronas, tongue and carnitas tacos, and a nicely fried chimichanga. The freshest rice and beans to go along with it too. This place will give any hipster taco bar a run for their money. The beer is cold as hell too.

We sat and analyzed the female boxers, we watched all the people interact, and we just sat there enjoying being there in a place we didn't think we would be in at any moment prior to actually being there.

We just existed. Some laughs, some danger, and some comfort. When you stop trying to control everything , when you stop spending your life on a mindless loop of control, life can be pretty great. It feels like I'm at a point in my life where I am Huey Lewis and the News and I've got my bright colored suit on. As good as life can get. Someday your colorful suits won't matter and you'll be playing cover songs at jr. high proms.

I felt like all of me was right there in that place. Right there at Lesly...

I’ve never been to this establishment when it was under the old management so this review is a true first time experience review.

Service: My family walked in for dinner around 530/600pm on a Saturday. There were 3 people at the bar, a couple dining inside and 2 couples sitting outside. From what it appeared, there was 1 server taking care of everyone. The server greeted us and told us to sit where we liked. While waiting for our server to take our drink order, another couple walks in to order food to go. It took some time for our server to take our drink order so by the time he came over, we put in both our food and drinks orders. After about 5 mins he comes back and tells us they are out of oxtail. After placing a different order we wait, and wait. He eventually comes with our drink orders, but forgot mine. He was running everywhere, like literally running, making drinks, taking orders, bringing out plates of food, etc. I’m not too surprised at how long the food took to come out, only because we did order fried red snapper and I realize that it takes the most time to cook since it is fried fresh when ordered.

Food: we ordered brown stew chicken with rice and baked Mac n cheese, fried red snapper with rice and peas and baked Mac n cheese and the kid had a bacon cheeseburger with fries. The stew chicken and fried snapper were great. Both flavorful and a decent portion. The snapper was fried crispy and came topped with onions and the brown stew chicken was tender and well seasoned. The Mac n cheese was not good in my opinion. It was made with penne pasta instead of elbow macaroni and the cheese tasted like the canned nacho cheese sauce with jalapeños that you buy at the store to pour over your nachos. I was disappointed about that. The rice and peas were good, but the stew chicken was cold. Not semi warm, but truly cold. You can tell the food was plated and sitting while they probably waited for the fish to fry. This was also disappointing. Overall the food score was a 8/10 for taste but a 7/10 for it being cold and the Mac n cheese being so bad.

Overall: At some point during our meal, we ordered food to go and what we wanted to order, we were told they were also out of. So we ended up taking jerk wings to go. The owner did come over to our table and check to see how everything was. He seemed kind and friendly and thanked us for coming in. I would possibly try this restaurant again in the future, maybe after new management has been running things for a while to see if there are any improvements. Right now overall they are a solid 7/10 and I would highly recommend to go early since they seem to get busy and run...

I recently visited Lesly’s for the first time, despite my initial hesitation due to older reviews, and I was pleasantly surprised. The food was exceptional - we had the lomo saltado and carne asada tacos, both were delicious - make sure you ask for the boss’s hot sauce!! The drinks were fantastic, and the happy hour deal was a great bonus. The bartender was incredibly friendly and attentive, improving the overall experience

New ownership has a strong vision to transform this place into a relaxed neighborhood spot. While there are still improvements to be made, such as removing the slots machines and updating the decor, everyone seems really motivated and dedicated to making changes.

I will definitely come back frequently and am excited to see how this...