1710 Tavern — Restaurant in Tappahannock

I grew up in Tappahannock, my grandparents lived in Dunnsville and my uncle owns the house now. I went to SMS. Tappahannock hasn’t had a nice sit down restaurant in YEARS. This place has potential. My friends and I made a reservation for Friday night inside since the temperature had been ridiculously hot. We changed that to outside since things had cooled off. Parking is great right on Water St. we walked in and checking in was a bit unorganized but didn’t let that deter. We were taken outside to our table. What a great space outside! Our server was a bit green but has potential. We were offered the patio menu and cocktail menu. We were then asked if we wanted the indoor menu. We didn’t know that was an option so we said we would love to see if. My friend and I ordered the crab hush puppies, OMG good and the lamb lollipops, so good! I ordered the crab cake poboy which was ok, I wouldn’t order it again, though. My friend ordered the oyster poboy, she said it was good. My other friend ordered the scallops off the inside menu. He said they were good. However, the poboys were around $15 and the scallops were $38. There were four maybe five scallops in a pasta type bowl on something. In all honesty, for $38 put it on a bigger plate and make it look better. I was a little taken back by the lackluster presentation for that money. Our reservation was at 8pm so I realize things weee winding down when we finished dinner. I ordered the crème brûlée which is my all time favorite dessert. I was so excited. The only thing the server said wasn’t available was the popovers. We totally understood. The crème brûlée came out and it wasn’t brûléed at all. It was good but just had granulated sugar on top. I let the server know and the response was, “oh well, I thought it was burning”. Umm, you’re a server why are you telling us the desserts are make in house if you’re making them? She didn’t even attempt to apologize. IDK, would o go back? Possibly but I’d...

The food was absolutely amazing, and our server Jane was a total star—seriously, I’d steal her for my place if I weren’t based in Alexandria!

The only downside was our interaction with Greg. In front of my entire party, he felt the need to defend a dessert that was clearly missing the advertised powdered sugar. Whether it melted or was never there, the strawberry hand pies just weren’t sweet enough. I asked for two out of the five to be taken off the check, and while Greg did remove them, he launched into a long explanation about how the powdered sugar was actually a special, extra-fine strawberry powdered sugar he made himself.

If that’s the case, why isn’t it mentioned on the menu? It sounds like something that takes real effort—so why leave it out?

In addition to tipping as usual, I made sure Jane got $30—more than covering the $20 for the pies—because she more than earned it.

I came for a great experience, and everything was perfect… until Greg stepped in.

Greg it was simple feedback, and you made it more than it needed to be do not taking things so personally in...

This place definitely has the "Tavern" atmosphere going for it. My wife and I had been wanting to try it so when our friend's mentioned that they also wanted to try, we set a date. It looks and feels like an old Tavern, which we thought was really cool. The server was attentive, and service times were fine. The reason for 3 stars was quite simply the food. Nothing was "bad", but nothing was great either. In our party of 6, each said that they would not order what they had again. I ordered tuna, which was okay, (the carrots served along side the tuna were a far bigger hit than the tuna itself). Again, not bad but not great. My friend ordered the Duck, and was very underwhelmed. Another person in our party ordered scallops and when I asked her how her dinner was, the response was 'Meh". I really want this place to be great because it has such a cozy and inviting feel. At $75-$100 per person, I was just expecting more. The wine list was okay, but in hindsight I wish I had tried a cocktail...