The Olde Tavern — Restaurant in Hickory

With plenty of seating, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the most comfortable. It’s mostly a booth and table, and after feeling the spring in the booth, I moved to a table with chairs instead. Not bad, but not great either. There are plenty of screens to look at and it’s noisy enough to remind you you’re in a bar-type environment.

There’s a small bar past the dining area — probably the heart of their business. If you can grab a seat there, you might get faster service. The dining area seemed to be staffed with only two people, though one of them was doing nearly all the running. Apparently, there was also a party in a back room — something I only learned about from the staff, who were stretched thin trying to cover it all. Management really should have scheduled more help if they knew about the party so walk-in customers could still get service. Instead, we had long waits for just about everything.

At first, I thought maybe the slow service was due to the kitchen layout, since the servers had to walk to the far side of the restaurant so often. But once I heard about the party, the long waits made more sense.

The food itself was good — good enough that I’d tell people about it. My wife enjoyed the wings, and I had the Brisket Reuben with mashed potato cakes topped with mushroom gravy. She said the wings were solid, and I didn’t have any complaints about the Reuben. It was alright — not amazing, but I was hungry, so it hit the spot. The mashed potato cakes were a neat idea, though you only get two, so choose your bites carefully. It was enough to fill me up, but for the price, they could have added a little more of something somewhere.

We ate, we paid, and I still left a generous tip, though management really needs to do better about staffing.

We were in the area and decided to try it. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it, and I probably wouldn’t go out of my way to return. It was clean, though, and had a newer vibe — for an...

Let me just preface this review by saying this was the worst restaurant I’ve dined at it a while. The service was horrible. My first waitress asked us if we were ready to order, after being there for 2 minutes. We said we needed a minute to order and so she walked off and didn’t take our drink orders after SITTING at our table with us. . .weird. So after around 15 minutes elapse, another waitress came by and took our drink orders, appetizer and meal orders (albeit snappy when we asked if she knew were our first waiter went). The appetizer was good although 8 dollars for a couple pork rinds is a little steep. After this, we wanted about another half hour for our actual order to come out. All I had was a burger and fries, which were cold, and my Out West Burger was supposed to have bacon and did not! The waitress when asked about this assured me that I was wrong and my burger did come with bacon. Then, we never saw her again either. I asked another waitress for some ketchup, which didn’t come with my fries, and she was very nice but never brought me any after she said she would. Not to mention the bill was $50 for a burger and fries, salad, a few boneless wings and a side salad, and pork rinds🙁. I don’t recommend anyone going here. Horrible, bad food,...

Such a disappointment. This place was a really great place to eat a couple years ago. My wife and I went to The Olde Tavern for our anniversary dinner last night. (Monday Jan 28th 8:30-9:30 pm) Got the 12oz Ribeye and pulled pork plate. I received my stake first, it looked like a sirloin very thin and hard to cut through. Terrible quality. My wife didn’t receive her pulled pork plate until 15 minutes after me. When the plate arrived the hush puppies and fries were hard as a rock and the pulled pork was dried up and hard. We sent the plate back. We spent $78 and my wife didn’t even get to eat and I only ate a qtr of my meal due how awful it was and not cooked properly. I am not one to complain much but this was unacceptable. The waitress was polite but she should have put in for a complimentary service. The chef here is awful. Never again. And it says a lot when the owner does not post or respond to negative...