OLD BEACH TAVERN — Restaurant in Virginia Beach

So where to begin, first off I want to say that we usually take things with a grain of salt, and this was not a understaffed issue, the front and back of the house were not weeded, and were not super picky or needy. However there are a few things that should be staples in any food service business and if those basic tasks are not met it can ruin the best food, which this definitely was not the best, it was not bad, it was just good but it was all ruined by the service. So our hostess was very nice. But then comes the waitress...... so it took a min for her to get to us, but once the drink orders were in that’s where the snowball started downhill. It took 5-10 min for our 3 drinks to come out, yet still no waters, by the way there were 4 adults one pregnant and two kids. It then took another 5-10 minutes plus asking the buss boy to no avail before our waters finally came. Now onto the food, so when you have as small of a menu as they do you think it would be easy to know it. So there is one burger, a Swiss and carmelized onion burger, and two people ordered it with the simple request of no cheese. When the burgers came they literally came with nothing, no lettuce, tomato, onions, condiments, etc. When asked about it the waitress said ohh I put them in as a build your own burger......ummmmm what where is that on the menu.....ohh wait it’s not on the menu so I don’t understand where all that came from. So at the same time the chicken Cesar salad came out with no dressing...The manager did stop by once to check on things before all this happened but for the most part he spent most of his time with friends at the bar. So back to the service, since no condiments came with the corrected burgers once again we asked for ketchup and mustard, after about 5 min and no sign of the waitress we flagged down a second buss boy and asked for the condiments, he also disappeared never to return. Finally we waved down another waitress who actually went and got the condiments right away, frankly the second waitress and back of the house did more for us than the waitstaff and manager, we flagged him down again to let him know what had happened and that we had no dressing for the salad, he said that was not right and would fix it...... well that was the last we ever heard from him, he never even stopped back by to check if things were taken care of, he went back to hanging out with his friends at the bar. At this point we felt like we were in a episode of bar rescue, could this really be this bad of an establishment this early in its existence. I am leaving a lot of little nonsense stuff out like no silverware until we had to ask after our appetizers came and had plenty of time to cool off, but I will add one more little thing. The kids meal was supposed to come with ice cream, which it never did, while we really didn’t want it it’s just another nail in the coffin for the whole experience and there attention to detail. So we payed and walked out, never to return, with not one sorry, how were things, or anything other than a obviously green waitress and a manager who was to concerned with the corner of his bar rather than the quality of his...

Sorry it's long but worth the read I promise. I would not recommend coming here for dinner in the near future. They are very new & have a sign outside that says "hiring all kitchen staff". THAT IS NOT THE BAD PART, it just needed to be said. (long story short come in during lunch when it's not busy or at least after that kitchen sign is taken down, 2 stars for waiting an hour & a half for food we never got & having no beer) We got there at 7 for a party of 5 (1 child) & got seated within 10 minutes (great!) Our waitor, the poor guy, really tried his best. He was back & forth from our table practically every 15 minutes. He took a while to come see us initially (maybe 10 minutes, but hey, it's opening week Friday & you're busy I get it) he asked if we'd been here before & know about the menu (that too, what's online is not what's in store, they have a short list that changes every night. We had 3 app choices, 6 entree choices & 2 dessert choices) again not bad, just didn't expect it. He left & forgot drink orders. A few minutes later he comes back for them... Being a tavern & advertising beer you'd expect they have beer, no. Barely anything. They were out of everything. My friend & I got water & a coke which took 15 minutes to get & the boys tried at least 3 different times asking if a certain beer ( all that were on the menu) was available (the waiter had to go ask about each one so that wasted a lot of time throughout the night). The first beers he brought out were not what was ordered & he said "these are on the house" (probably because they'd been sitting for over half an hour without drinks. Mind you, we ordered our drinks & food at the same time including an appetizer) the app came out after the beer & it was alright (I'm not a huge fan of crab dip but others seemed to like it) We're about an hour into waiting for food now, it's almost 9. The kid with us was starting to act up & we were starving at this point so we decide to leave money on the table & go. Our waitor sees us leaving & tells us we need to pay, no problem, we left cash on the table. No, he needs to make sure we had enough & had to wait watching him run around not getting our check just for us to be right on the money (it was 11 & change and we left $12). I blame no one for this bad experience. They were busy, understaffed, & new. I do, however, feel that the hosts up front could've easily prevented this by simply saying that it would take over an hour to get food due to kitchen staff shortage. I honestly don't remember seeing anyone there with food & we were not the only group to leave telling people not to go in. I'm sure the food & service is great any other time & I will definitely give it another go after they've gotten...

I would have given this place 5 stars, but I have to take three off because of their VERY poor practice with valet parking. I recently bought a house in the Kings Grant area and had seen this place from the road many times. I was extremely excited to try it as a potential new local haunt but when I finally had the opportunity, their valet parking policy almost caused me to leave immediately.

Now hear me out, I'm not opposed to valet parking in general, because it can be great. It was the way they went about it that I found rude, unnecessarily inconvenient to patrons, and just poor business practice overall. They take up their ENTIRE parking lot for valet spots... yes, the whole thing, not just a reasonable one or two rows, all of it. They have an unassuming stand in the corner, and no marking on the actual spaces that it's valet, which caused confusion with almost every potential would-be patron parking in the wildly empty lot, then getting immediately told off and told to park in the lots of the fast food businesses down the block--nevermind if those businesses need them for their own patrons and may tow you. Even though you are a paying customer, get out, unless you do valet.

A couple problems I observed with this: First of all, the lot stayed almost 80% empty the entire time. Some people parked elsewhere, bit the bullet, and walked back over. A good number of cars however, simply left after being told off and then finding no alternative parking at the other businesses. They hands down lost more patronage than they had that night, 100% due to the forced valet situation. In addition to this, many of the spots they put the cars in were closer to the front door than the valet stand, causing customers to drop the car at the valet, have a longer walk to the door, then walk PAST THEIR CAR back to the valet and wait for them to retrieve it??

Dear management, don't worry about me, for your own sake, do BETTER. I own a small business. This is terrible business practice. Take one or two of the parking lanes in your lot for valet and leave the rest for your patrons. Do not sacrifice potential business for the hopes of valet tips. Give your customers both options instead of forcing your own patrons to park in the lots of other businesses. This is a terrible and frankly ridiculous experience that benefits no one in the long term.

And if you are going to insist on this terrible idea, at least mark the spots to save your patrons the first impression of the "get out" conversation with...