Chowning's Garden Bar — Restaurant in Williamsburg

I will only give you the objective details. We stopped here on the way home from Florida to pa. We drove 11 hours to spend the day in Williamsburg because we had a great experience at this restaurant five years ago we had to get back there especially to get the Welsh rarebit. We looked on OpenTable and they do not take reservations. We called and they said they only take walk-ins only. We got there at 2 o’clock for lunch and we were told that they are not even taking names until after four for lunch. We spoke with a manager who we asked could you please give us advice on what to do as we only had until the next morning I really want to eat here. She took our name and told us it would be at least a two hour wait. We received a text that we were on a waitlist. We went back at 3:30 to find out if they were ready for us and observed a family of four walk in with no wait. We asked the family if they had a reservation or wait time and they said no. They just arrived. We asked if our table was ready and they did take us back to our table pretty quickly. Table for 2 adults snd one child. The server was efficient but not friendly. Once we received our Welsh rarebit we were extremely disappointed. It was cold cheese with ham flakes over a stale piece of bread. We pulled up pictures from when we were there before and it looked totally different. We told the server but she’s really did not comment other than this is how the meal looked for the past few years that she has worked there.

As we were leaving we wanted to buy a colonial Williamsburg mug that was in the waiting area. We asked A server at the bar for the mug and she told us to ask our server. The server walked by us several times and was very busy so we asked the manager if we could buy the mug. The manager asked our server if she could ring it up but the server said she is too busy. The manager said it was the last one there and she did not want to sell it to us. She did not apologize or give a reason why and told us to just try to find it in another store.

Such a disappointment in the food and the service after driving 11 hours to get there.

We Got the trench beef, the corn on the cob, hot buttered rum toddies, a glass of cab and the Welsh rarebit. We spent over $100. The best part of the meal was the hot toddy. A glass of wine was very lacking. And again the welsh rarebit ...

Greatly enjoyed my time where! the food was amazing and our wait with a child was only 15 min. However our server was extremely rude!! I can not began to say how disappointing it was. At first we ordered alcohol and one of our party members had turned 21 a week prior and did not have a horizontal drivers license (one had been ordered but didn't make it in time for the trip, we had no problem at any other restaurant/tavern except for this one ) the waitress herself refused to serve alcohol to the whole table. ( we wanted to try the alcohol at every tavern and this was our last one to try) after asking the manager and wondering why we were refused alcohol, the manager didn't have an answer. After that it was okay, they did decide to serve us the drinks (begrudgingly though) and for the rest of our dinner we revived nothing but grief. When it came time to leave we needed the check split into two separate checks, we were not asked prior to receiving one check, we all had wanted a dessert but with that and the eye rolling we got from asking for our check to be separated we decided not to continue with a dessert solely from this tavern. Now normally this would be the end however this rude-as-all-get-out waitress, waits for us to sign our checks and hand them to her so she can CHECK ON HER TIP!!! now my husband and I as a rule of thumb will not tip on card, only because when this is done the tip can be split between the whole restaurant, but not only that they have to run our card twice and we just simply don't like that! so we tip in cash and normally we tip more in cash than when we have to on card. But this "lovely" waitress decided to ask where her tip was, and then when we explained that we tipped in cash acted like this was the worlds biggest inconvenience for her ever! that for us was the nail in the coffin! and I know this means nothing but I would not recommend this tavern as a last meal before leaving Williamsburg , VA. And my family will never be returning to this tavern. I wish she had introduced herself so I could mention here by name, but alas...

Absolutely unacceptable.

I would give zero stars if I could.

My disabled brother and his caregiver were going to meet me at Chownings (we ate dinner there the previous night before). This all happened this afternoon (Tuesday, January 7, 2020)

Because only two out of three people were present, they made my brother and his caregiver wait out in the rain on the front porch and he was not feeling well. This is winter and it is not busy. I was running late because I got lost, this was the first time that we had been here in daylight (we ate dinner here the night before).

I arrived, and they had made my brother and his caregiver sit on a bench for nearly two hours, the first hour being outside. They said it was their policy not to seat without the full party. We were only three people, two were already there, and it is winter, barely anyone is at Colonial Williamsburg, there were many empty tables in the dining room, they did not have much business at all. I could see if we were a table of 10, or even five, but two thirds of our party of three had showed.

When I had confronted the hostess about this, she kept turning her back to me, and for the most part would not speak to me, only saying that it was their policy.

Why would you treat someone like this? Would you like your family member treated this way? It is unacceptable and there is no excuse for it. It is discriminatory, and it is cruel. Shame.

Is this how Colonial Williamsburg treats disabled people? Again, it is winter, very few people are even here.

I know that the employees here dress and act like it is the late 1700s, but the employees cannot act like you are in the late 1700s when it comes to dealing with guests, especially disabled people. We have...