The Regency Room — Restaurant in Roanoke

This five star review is long overdue. My wife and I have been enjoying the Regency Room Sunday Brunch at least once a year since 2012. We usually try to make a reservation for sometime in December so we can enjoy the holiday atmosphere. If you do plan on visiting in December, you will want to call to make your reservation in mid-late October, as the December Sundays book up very quickly. There's a good reason for rhat...

Every time we have visited, every staff member from the parking attendant to the hostess to the servers to the kitchen staff have been absolutely top notch. It really shows that the staff here pride themselves on providing the highest level of customer service. As most residents of Southwest Virginia know, The Hotel Roanoke is a true destination landmark and showpiece for this area. Anyone visiting from any part of the world would be impressed walking into the beautiful lobby.

When you enter, The Regency Room will be to your left, up a short set of stairs. The brunch starts at 11:30 am. My advice is to book an early slot. It won't be too crowded yet and it will be a more relaxing experience. Some restaurants have their food set up all in one location, but here, make sure you ask the staff where different sections are located, so you don't miss anything. The lunch selections are in a room all the way in the back through a door that's easy to miss at first. There are usually three or four main course dishes, along with two or three side dishes and a full salad bar and soup selection. This is also the room where you will find the carving station. Every time I have been here, they have Prime Rib and it is AWESOME. There is also a section for breakfast that usually has several different options as well as an omelette bar. Finally, there is the dessert bar and it is great as well. Every time we come the selection varies a bit, but they always have their famous Flourless Chocolate Cake. It is out of this world.

As mentioned, the service here has always been great for us. Today we showed up about 30 minutes early and were seated right away. Our server was at our table in about 90 seconds and everything was great. It's really hard to find anything wrong with this brunch buffet. While this is certainly not the cheapest brunch buffet you can find in the area, it earns every star with its quality, selection, service and ambiance. For a date with your significant other or a special event for your family, you will be making a memory that will last a lifetime. If you are lucky enough to be here in December, take a walk around the hotel lobby and downstairs area to view the Christmas trees on display. Local organizations decorate them and locals vote on which one is best every year. It's a nice way to walk off that amazing dessert bar.

Having this hotel and restaurant available to us locally is really a treasure and we are blessed to be able to have it so close by. If you have never had the pleasure of dining here, call the reservation line and grab a spot today. I recommend calling to reserve for this Sunday brunch. You can reserve on OpenTable but I have had better luck calling during business hours and speaking to someone in person. One more quick tip for first timers, coming off 581, you will exit onto Williamson Road. Our GPS told us to drive up to Shenendoah Avenue but you can turn right on Wells, then left onto Commonwealth where you will see a parking lot to your left. Enter, take a ticket and park here to walk up to the front door if you don't want to valet park. Protip: go allll the way to the back side of this parking lot (closest to the hotel) and usually you will find empty spots. It's a much shorter walk from here.

Thanks to the whole staff of the Regency Room for helping us make many fantastic Christmas memories. It's a family tradition for us and we look forward to...

I used to work here in high school. Clearly things have gone downhill since then.

We did arrive 15 minutes late at 7:15pm. However, I don’t think that was the reason that we were not served food until 9:10 PM. Our server and managing staff provided the most pathetic excuse for customer service I have ever witnessed in any restaurant in the history of my 40 years of being alive.

I didn’t grow up with money, I had to work for it. I’m not writing this review because I’ve been a million fancy restaurants and I didn’t get my way. I’m not butt hurt. I am however very surprised at how awful the service was. It was so bad that it was insulting. It wasn’t just bad. It was purposeful and knowingly terrible on their part. They knew exactly how bad it was and they did not care.

It took us two hours to get an entrée. Well, one hour and 50 minutes to be an exact.

Our server introduced himself with confidence, and it at first seem like he knew what he was doing. It appeared as though he had pride and his ability to perform his job at a high level. And I quickly admired him for it. Oh boy, that would change over the course of a long…and I mean long dinner. The server took our drinks one time during that within the next hour and 10 minutes (I timed you fool!) of us sitting there. I had to ask the hostess for the server to come over and serve everyone a second round of drinks.

We did receive an hors d’oeuvre (or however, you spell it) probably about one hour and 15 minutes after sitting down along with our second round of drinks. This appetizer thing or whatever it was, that they thought was cute was actually an entire plate with one single cherry tomato stuffed with the tip of a cracker and some hummus. I know if you’re reading this you’re probably snickering. I laughed too! It’s the type of stuff that you see in some comedy movie - ridiculous spoiled rich people eating overpriced food….lol

It wasn’t just the server, it was the whole experience. Eventually we did get 2 drinks, one cherry, tomato, and salads after an hour and 10 minutes or so. Our waiter had not been educated by the hotel to know that he should take the empty drinks, napkins, salad plates, and all those plates that one cherry tomato was stuck on. He just left all these dirty plates in front of us at a restaurant that prides itself on being fancy and upscale. What BS! When our food came, the entrées were messed up for three out of seven people. We immediately and politely asked for the check because by this point because we’re running late for an after party, since it was after all a special occasion for us and we were about to get together for a particular reason. When the check came, they had charged us for all the stuff that they never served us even though we told the server and the manager on duty, those food items never came. So they corrected the check and charged us 20% gratuity and gave us 15% off of the food items. We reviewed the check a second time after some dispute and they had added drinks that we never ordered. Eventually after much discussion and two hours and 45 minutes later they gave us our real check with the things that we actually ordered. Realizing how bad the service was, they gave us 50% off. I’m sitting at home riding this and I still feel like we were taking advantage of. They should have paid us to wait for their mediocre food, deplorable and unapologetic service. To the hotel roanoke if you’re reading this right now I do feel hesitant to post these harsh words, but your Regency room needs improvement. The experience I had at the restaurant does not reflect the experiences I’ve had staying at the hotel and other events that I’ve been to. It’s your restaurant that desperately...

Two stars is for the service which was good, however I was served possibly the most disappointing (and bizarre) meal I have ever been served at this restaurant. I think people get tricked into thinking they're getting a great meal here because of all the pretense (the amuse-bouche, calligraphy name cards, which I'll admit are nice touches), but this is honestly one of the worst restaurants I've been to in my life.

My girlfriend and I had been to the Pine Room several times and really enjoyed it, so we thought we'd give the higher end restaurant at Hotel Roanoke a shot. We went for my birthday and they immediately offered us Prosecco on the house to celebrate. That was a nice touch. We got the spinach salad as an appetizer and it was actually quite good. I suspect the appetizers are being made by another chef judging the plating and quality compared to the entrees. My girlfriend ordered the poached salmon and I ordered the vegetarian entree, which was spaghetti squash with mushrooms. The salmon came out with no sauce at all. Just plain salmon with raw arugula and kale with nothing else on it. Very disappointing, especially for $31. The waiter had claimed it was wild caught when we asked, and it was quite obviously farmed. We buy fish all the time and can tell the difference. It came with "mushroom risotto" which was actually extremely salty risotto with a single mushroom that had not been cooked with the risotto.

My absolutely bizarre dish consisted of about two ounces of squash. Typically when you order squash at a restaurant you get half a squash that is stuffed. The plating looked impressive (sort of). The photo is after I dissected it, because the chef LEFT THE SQUASH SEEDS in the dish! Squash seeds mayyybe could be edible if they were roasted I suppose, but you cannot just cook squash and serve it with seeds! They are tough, slimy and hard to chew. Gross! The sauce on the mushrooms was salty and terrible. I never send food back and I sent this one back to the kitchen. I couldn't even bring myself to order anything else after that unappetizing experience and after seeing my girlfriend's meal. They offered us dessert on the house and we didn't even want to take a chance with it. I went home and ate leftovers.

The other thing that really bothered us is that they overcharged our wine by three dollars per glass. My gf didn't say anything because she didn't want to make a scene on my birthday, so she just paid it. Very bad policy to update the prices in your POS and not on the menu. There is a big difference between $12 and $15 per glass. I hope the manager sees this and makes some changes including replacing...