Howlett's Restaurant & Tavern — Restaurant in Virginia

The experience alone was worth 5 stars from start to finish it was lovely. There were a few technical things so I had to subtract a star. It's a typical steak house type of vibe, with ample outdoor seating (which in today's time is nice) however lighting kinda sucks at night, we used our cellphones for light. They're located beneath an apartment complex, im not sure if that was the reason for no music, but again we played our own music from our cellphones. Our server (Sarah or Susan 😩 I feel just horrid that I cant recall her name because she was truly AMAZING) told us that's what most guests do.The staff is hospitable and seem to work together well. This is very important to, I want to feel comfortable and enjoy my meal. If there are internal issues I dont care to know, what I like is how they kind of anticipate eachother needs and work together. Now to the important stuff.... HOW IS THE FOOD???? The appetizers were good we had calamari, bang bang shrimp and mozzarella sticks. I wish I had pics but I guess we were hungry because we attacked it. 😂😂😂 They were all tasty the shrimp you get 5 mozzarella sticks 5 and calamari a small plate. It was decent for 4 adults. The bang bang shrimp was yummy if you like spicy, if not be warmed it has a kick. For supper I had sirloin Oscar it was cooked perfectly like literally perfectly it melted in your mouth I got to choose two sides , I chose onion rings and sweet potato casserole and it was topped with lump crabmeat and asparagus. I like my veggies a little crispy closer to raw so the asparagus was slightly overdone for me but still tasty. I did not enjoy the sweet potato casserole I gave it to my dad, it was much too sweet. Their sweet tea was really good brewed not powder or syrup. The drink menu and bar doesn't have a wide variety of alcohol choices, my dad wanted Hennessy and they didn't have it, he asked for courvoisier they also didn't have that, Dusse nope 🤷🏾‍♀️ he just had a Corona. My mom wanted bacardi black no dice but they did have another dark rum. Their wine list isn't extensive but I did find a malbec I enjoyed to have with my steak plus points for service it was served in it's own carafe , aerator. Overall great evening great food, great people we...

Our waitress was excellent... The food however is overrated... As far as what they're trying to do... My son had the 12 oz ribeye and although perfectly prepared, it was bland... As was the green beans that was supposed to have been cooked garlic butter...The first thing you reach for was the salt. My wife had the ribs and they were bland... The only thing that had taste it all was the sauce. I had the salmon topped with crab and hollandaise sauce. I have to say that it was actually perfectly prepared although begging for flavor...very bland. Then it came down to the sweet potato souffle then my wife and my son had ordered... I tried a bite and I had a big chunk of sweet potato that was not done all the way... And I tasted what seemed to be cloves... I could be wrong but it just wasn't good. So I decided to order the cheesecake topped with heath bar topping. Before I ordered it I asked the waitress if it was tall or was it thin.. she said oh it's tall and the heath bar is crumbled on top of it. When it came out it was nothing of the sort... It was about an inch and 1 3/4 to 2 inch thick, graham cracker crust, and the heath bar was completely melted... It was extremely sweet. Cheesecake is not supposed to be like that at all. The waitress asked me how I liked it because I didnt eat half of it. I was being nice and said it wasn't to my taste. She made excuses and said, oh you're probably used to New York cheesecake this is more of a southern style cheesecake. Now here's the topper, the other guests... we had a friend join us... Our friend is not Caucasian she was getting off work so we invited her to dinner... We were getting dirty looks from the other older cacausion guests because our of friend, they thought was with my son. Have ever been somewhere, and you feel like you're being judged...I thought it was just me but then my wife said something when we got into the vehicle... Maybe, we were just in the wrong part of town, perhaps the wrong restaurant all together. Guess we can scratch that one...

I am not one to skirt the issue, so I will be perfectly honest. Was there to enjoy a nice home cooked Thanksgiving dinner much as I had several times over the past couple of years at Howletts. I walked away totally disappointed.

#1 - Your Google website advertised Thanksgiving dinner at $22.99 per person. Was totally shocked when we got the dinner menu and is was $34.99 per person. Granted that it gave us a choice of either the turkey, prime rib, crab cakes or house chicken, however ..... You could have at least taken the time to update the website so as not to mislead customers, STRIKE 1.

#2 - My date decided on the prime rib. She was told that you were out. STRIKE 2. Our server did not even mention that it came with soup or salad. When I asked about it she gave us the choice. STRIKE 3.

#3 - When the soup arrived, it was barely luke warm. STRIKE 4

#4 - We both ordered the turkey. When the turkey arrived it looked like it was overcooked, not sliced white turkey breast at all, but rather more like a brown half inch slab of turkey breast steak. It had very little taste and in places was, not only tough to cut into, but was also tough to chew. Mine did not come with any gravy. We both ordered the stuffing which looked like soggy packing peanuts and was tasteless. STRIKE 5.

#5 - Dessert, my date wanted the Peach Cobbler, but again was told that you were out. STRIKE 6. We both had the Pumpkin Pie which looked like it was purchased at Walmart STRIKE 7.

Bottom line is, the meal was well below standard and totally overpriced. Needless to say that I/we will not be returning for Thanksgiving dinner next year, and if what we experienced tonight is any indication of how this place under New Ownership is going to operate, I, at least, will not be back at all for any reason.

This is what I had for Thanksgiving dinner several years ago. I did it for a lark. As it turned out, it was better than what I had on Thursday for a fraction of the...