The Pub — Restaurant in Virginia

I travel A LOT for work, so I try to avoid the chains as much as possible. I would rather support local, small business and usually the end result is better. Last night I had a very odd experience at The Pub. After finding the place online using Google, I decided this looked like my kind of place. I arrive around 7:30-8:00. The bar was pretty full, folks having a good time, and I spot a couple empty stools at the end of the bar closest to the front door. I can immediately tell this is a local’s bar…great. I LOVE locals’ bars! Usually a good time, meet some locals, swap some stories, etc. but not tonight. Shortly after sitting down, a bartender approaches, I order a drink and a menu and so far, so good. After a minute or two, I feel a gush of cold air from the front door (unusually cold night for April) and the smell of cigarette smoke. Again, no big deal. A guy comes in and sits down next to me. Soon after a bartender walks up and starts commenting on a little homemade looking, tee-pee sign, which says something like “Be back in a minute” and then she flips it around and it says something like “out for a smoke”. First time I even noticed the little sign. She then makes a couple comments about how she loves the little sign and what a great idea it is. The guy next to me chimes in and agrees it’s a cool idea or something to that effect. I reply with a smile, “yes that is a great idea, never seen that before.” The sign was small and sitting back toward the bar rail, so it wasn’t noticeable to me until she started talking about it and where it was placed it did not seem to be in use by anyone. After a minute or so I look at the guy next to me and say” hope I didn’t take anyone’s seat”. Crickets. The guy has no response to me so I’m starting to feel unwelcome in a local bar. An outsider. After thinking about this for a few minutes while having another drink and some food, I’m starting to realize I must have indeed taken this guy’s seat. So instead of telling me (I would have gladly moved had I been told) I’m getting sarcasm from not only the customer but the staff as well about their “cute little sign.” I could have this all wrong, but I doubt it. During my entire evening in this “friendly locals bar” no one spoke to me other than what I’ve mentioned and the bartender asking if I need another drink. Just a bad, uncomfortable experience that I hope to never happen again. The entire experience could have been avoided if the bartender had just explained the sign and what I had done and the “guy” next to me had “manned up” and said “hey, you’re in my seat. That’s what the little sign is for”. Again, I could have mis-read the entire experience. Let me know if I did. Otherwise, even if you do operate a local’s bar, please encourage kindness to outsiders. Explain the little nuances that make your bar special. I guarantee it will be good...

Dubbed as having the best burgers in town, I went there hoping I'd find a local spot I could go to on a regular for a decent burger. Well, on the day I chose to visit this bar/restaurant., I had the misfortune of being served by a waitress who was in training. At the time I went, there were two other customers sitting at the bar, so I decided to do the same. Barring the fact the waitress in training mistook me for a man and addressed me as such until i told her otherwise. She explained away the mistake as her not having her glasses and proceeded to take my order. While I waited for my burger, a party of four women came in followed by a gentleman. By this time, roughly fifteen minutes had lapse. Growing concerned after twenty minutes that my order had not arrived, I turned to see the waitress in training coming from the kitchen with what appeared to be my burger. As she got within several feet of me, she banked to her left, my right and gave the gentleman my order. Without so much as a mistep, she turned away and walked back toward the kitchen area as if I didn't exist. After about five minutes of utter confusion, I saw another waitress, possibly the owner and flagged her down to inquire about the mix-up. I was then told that my order was indeed given to the gentleman and that she would go back into the kitchen to place another order for me. While I sat and waited for the second order to arrive, the waitress in training never came over to me to apologize until I flagged her down and confronted her about the mix-up. I get the fact that mistakes are made, but to mix-up an order, find out about it and ignore the person on the receiving end of the mix-up is unacceptable. Being in training or not does not negate the fact, at a minimal, an apology is in order. To add insult to injury, at the time I was the only person at the bar as the other two customers that were there prior to my arrival left. The only other customers were the four ladies and the gentleman who came in about fifteen minutes after I arrived and sat at two separate booths. Prior to my departure, another customer came in and sat at the bar. He was a regular, but complained about the service he was not getting from the waitress in training. Needless to say, I chimed in about the visit being my first and a major disappointment. He did caution me not to let the mishap persuade me from visiting again because the service is good and that he'd never seen the waitress in training before and vouched she was new. As for the burger and fries..., let's just say, I don't know what I was expecting from a pub that pride themselves with having the best burgers in town, but I found it to be on par with other burgers served at non-fast food restaurants. And by non-fast food restaurants I mean., (TGIF, Outback,...

We've been on the hunt for a good burger and if you're looking for a pub style burger, this might be your place. I ordered my burger medium rare and it came out perfectly cooked. My friend ordered a junior burger medium rare, and hers was also perfectly cooked. Both were absolutely delicious. My only complaint was that we waited a very long time for our food. I suspect that there was a problem in the kitchen because all of the other people in the restaurant also waited a very long time for their food and all of the food came out within about 15 minutes of each other.

The burgers came with fries and our fries were also perfectly cooked and delicious. They are shoestring fries so they weren't white hot (that's hard to achieve when you're bringing them from the kitchen to the table) but they were hot and crispy.

If you like sports bars, you would probably rate the atmosphere a 5. Honestly, for a sports bar, it wasn't too loud. There was a Redskins game on that had the sound up and only a few people watching it so there was some cheering and a little bit of booing but for the most part the sports watchers seemed to be getting what they wanted. 😊

Regardless, we will...