BILLY’S — Restaurant in Roanoke

We went to BILLY's with a party of three for a normal family dinner. While it's definitely a good and solidly operating restaurant, there are a few things that could be improved.

Food The food was standard but good, higher end Italian/American Bistro. We found nothing mind-blowing on the menu, but a lot of solid crowd favorites.

We ordered the Crab Cake (Ritz Cake), Bacon Wrapped Scallops, Shrimp & Grits, Pesto Seafood Pasta, and Scallops & Linguini. There was also complimentary house bread and butter provided to the table. Slight mention to the bread: it was overly hard both outside and in but the butter was very good quality and already warmed. Perhaps we had a bad batch of the bread.

The Appetizers were quite small and in my opinion not worth the price. We each got a single bite of the Crab Cake, and three Scallops for $22 is a bit stiff. Still, the Scallops were quite good and in an interestingly sweeter sauce while I'd say the Crab Cake was fairly average.

Moving to Entrees, all three dishes were well portioned for a dinner without being overbearing. This was definitely superior to the Appetizer course: both Pasta dishes had a rich and plentiful sauce with quality pasta. Each dish also had three scallops, which makes the Appetizer option seem an even worse value in comparison. The Shrimp & Grits was extremely buttery, in a welcome way, and not light on the seafood portion.

Service We had three servers as there was some kind of rotation, and our primary was very pleasant. My only gripe was that my wife and I ordered sides for our Entrees, which she forgot to put in. This ended up being okay with us due to the size of the portions but was still an oversight on her part.

Otherwise the service was within normal expectation: refilling water and checking on us after the Entrees came out. Nothing spectacular, but nothing poor either.

Atmosphere BILLY's presents what I'd call a "steak house" atmosphere: lots of wood and occasional fine wall/ceiling decoration but not as overtly masculine as a normal. We sat in the back near a larger room (I assume for events) with a view of the courtyard seating and bar.

Everything was clean and well attended to, if a little lacking in character. It's what you'd expect of a nicer restaurant that is following the template of "finer dining". I'm sure you can see the images online and judge for yourself, my only real gripe is the tables could be moved a bit further apart as it did feel like we were on top of other guests at times.

Overall I'd recommend BILLY's if you're looking for a familiar but slightly higher quality meal than your average Italian/Bistro eatery. It's not somewhere we're likely to frequent because of the prices, but it makes for an acceptable "special occasion" venue.

I'd recommend skipping Appetizers, at least the ones we had, and focusing on Entrees with a side. While I left this out of the Food portion, the cocktails we tried were good but again, standard for the price. The Liquor/Wine selection seems extensive if that's your thing.

You aren't going to get the wheel reinvested at BILLY's, but it never promises that, so check the menu and you'll understand what the vibe and...

I expected more based on the reviews but unfortunately it did not deliver. It was my birthday, first time at this facility and I was excited to try it. We came in a little before 4 pm on a Monday. There was no one at the front desk, we waited couple of minutes, noticing a female who was chatting with someone else in the back (she definitely saw us). After couple of minutes I poked my head around and asked if they were open, server said yes and that someone should be with us shortly. Female from earlier turned to be the host and took us around, barely cracking a smile if any. I asked if we could be seated outside and she seemed annoyed but took us out anyway. She just did not seem to be in a good mood or like she wanted to be there, maybe she was having a bad day. She had given us lunch menus which are served until 4pm, so I asked if we could get dinner menus as well just in case, yeah, she was not amused. Our server was nice enough, did not clearly recommend any dishes or drinks which I was kind of hoping she would. We got chips and salsa and a crab cake for our appetizer. Chips was good, crab cake was good but the vegetables (Lima beans, corn and such) did not go with the dish, in my opinion. I ordered a blueberry mojito which would have been much better had it not had cream in it. Cream did absolutely nothing for that drink except made it look unappealing due to curdling it created. My main dish was seafood platter with risotto and grilled veggies; for $49 I was expecting perfection but it was only mediocre. Lobster tail that should have been a star was completely over cooked, dry and chewy. Scallops were cooked just right. Shrimp was somewhere in between. Risotto had good flavor and good texture, veggies were soaked in grease. My son had the lamb shank and he said it was good. One of the worst things for me at this establishment was overpowering smell of marijuana that hit us the moment we walked inside the door. It was very dominant in the front area, but we did not smell it outside or in the other part of the restaurant. However, as we were about to walk out, it hit us super strong again, in the front area. It was definitely coming from inside of the building. It is completely unacceptable to allow use of marijuana inside of an eating establishment....

Is it bad when you feel the need to start your review while you’re still there? Spicy crab and corn chowder soup relies too heavily on pimento and ham (pork not identified in menu), often a cover for lack of freshness in seafood. Definitely need to put a note that it contains ham bits on the menu (sorry Virginia, not everyone eats or wants ham in everything).

Avocado dip desperately needs salt to liven it up. At least there were salt & pepper shakers on the table. Most of the celery was soggy & pliable (i.e., not fresh). Service: as you’ve barely had a chance to sit and process where you are, server is asking what drink you’d like. Watched a different server do this to the table next to us, guy let her know he needed time to decide what he wanted to drink. Give us a second. No herbal teas apparently. Asked for a hot water in lieu of that, and lip of the cup had a visible hair on the edge, which I removed in front of the server. At that point, you have to say “I’m sorry, let me bring you a fresh one.” Our server seems new based on lack of familiarity with the menu, so these are training & management issues, not the server’s fault. Will update and hopefully things improve. Let’s see what this side of risotto (unusual side option given that server says it’s made to order) and pimento sandwich have to offer…. Oh god. What am I looking at. Please do not say the risotto is “made to order” and it comes out 5 minutes later. A good restaurant will warn you that risotto can take half an hour to prepare fresh (that’s why it’s rarely a side). Risotto lacks depth of flavor. There’s so much pimento and use of it on the menu. Asparagus that we subbed for tomato soup for the pimento sandwich was thankfully not overcooked but my goodness, does the chef hate salt? I don’t even use that much salt in my own cooking, but you need it at least in a small dose to enhance and heighten the palate. OK, I’m just gonna stop. Can’t say I recommend this...