Colonial Tavern — Restaurant in Fredericksburg

We went there last night as our second date spot of the night, as the first one ended up being a disappointment. The lady that sat us was super nice and welcoming and let us sit outside. We were out there for about 10 minutes and no server came out so we decided to see if we could sit inside with the hopes that we would get better service. We were sat by the stage and waited another 10 minutes before the server came over to tell us she’d be right over to us. At that moment another table came up to us and let us know that drinks took an hour for them to get. We looked around and saw that it wasn’t that busy, the restaurant was definitely full, but it didn’t seem “hour wait” busy, so we thought nothing of it. Our server came over shortly after that to get our drink order and as we were waiting that same table that had previously approached us told us that they had been waiting over an hour for food and forewarned us to be patient if we wanted to eat there. Normally we would take a chance but it was after 8 PM and were really hungry, so when the server came to drop off drinks I asked her how long food was taking and she was honest about the fact that the wait time was significantly longer than normal and was extremely apologetic, which we really appreciated. She made sure to tell us that it was not the norm, but she had also just entered a large party’s order and we knew it’d be a long wait after that, so we decided to leave. Two stars because the staff was really nice, honest, and overly apologetic about the wait. We hope to make it over there on a slower night to give it a second shot because the menu looked...

For starters, the food is always amazing. The service hasn’t always been the best, but the staff is always friendly. However, our visit tonight was disappointing. Our server was a wonderful lady who seemed to be doing everything. I’m not sure if she was a manager, but she was serving all the tables, bar tending, and training new employees. She didn’t have any backup and she was stressed out. It took a while to get our order in, and then we waited longer than usual for our food. We wanted to order drinks, but never got the chance. Our server apologized a few times after we sat there for so long, explaining that she was training all these new people. One guy was mostly standing around looking lost, not even trying to help her. Another walked around with food, not knowing what table it belonged to. I told her I noticed they were short staffed, and as a former server I understand the struggle. Unfortunately it got so frustrating watching all these other customers get service (even the ones walking to the bar to interrupt what she was doing) while we still waited for our appetizers that we just left. All we had was water, so no bill was skipped out on. I felt bad when she called to us outside to tell us our appetizer was ready, but we were just done. I’m sure she’s a great server, and she’s very nice, but whoever is in charge of hiring needs to get her some real help. She shouldn’t have to run the entire show by herself like that. We’ll probably wait a while to come back, so hopefully they have time to get their staff back to normal, but we...

This is definitely a place that is designed to cater to the college crowd, and to young professions straight off of a train commute. The food is delicious. The service is on-point. The walls are signed by all of the bands that they have had in to play. Oddly, there isn't much exterior signage facing the road, so you're better approaching from the railroad track side, to reach it without circling the block.

The cuisine is partly Americana, partly Irish specialties, partly British standards. The bangers and mash is well worth getting, because they use proper bratwurst sausages, and the potatoes are real mashed potatoes. Very flavorful. The shepherd's pie reportedly had every desirable layer, and was quite filling. (A second visit will be required to see if they have a trifecta with the perfection of fish'n'chips.)

The non-alcoholic drinks consist of Pepsi products and various fruit juices, and the available selection of alcoholic drinks was very large. Some of them looked tasty, and they offered a variety of hot ones as well as cold ones.

For augmented reality gamers, there's a good four places of interest within easy reach without leaving the dining room. You might lose whatever street cred you have by pulling out your phone and playing,...