Sweet Tea & Barley — Restaurant in Williamsburg

I came here because I arrived later in the evening and wanted something that wasn’t fast food. I saw they had pulled pork on the menu before I even opted to go to the restaurant and was looking forward to it. It took a while for someone to attend to me once I was seated, but I ended up ordering the pulled pork with some mac n’ cheese to go with it and some fries.

The server brings my sandwich out and it it dripping with vinegar. I was beyond disappointed. I’m from Indiana and we don’t do pulled pork like that. It was awful. The mac n’ cheese was among the worst I’ve ever had. And the fries weren’t hot.

At any rate, I ordered the burger and it was hot and fresh. It tasted ok. The bun wasn’t very appetizing. There was an awful cigarette smoke odor in the restaurant and that didn’t help, either. I didn’t see anyone smoking in there. There couldn’t have been more than 10 other people there besides me. IDK.

I was pleased that my server was cool about removing my food and getting me something else. However.. when I ordered the pulled pork, he recommended the house sauce and just kept it moving, saying, “so we’ll go with that,” without me agreeing to ‘go with that’. I had to ask him what the difference was between his recommendation and the other option and then decided on his recommendation. Then, when he brought a menu by for me to order from after he removed the pulled pork sandwich from my table, he recommended a dish (Airline Chicken) (which I neither agreed or disagree with getting) though I did acknowledge his statement of recommendation and perused the menu. He actually put an order in for that dish after he walked away from my table like we were just going along with whatever he suggests. Absolutely insane!

When I got him to come back by since I was ready to order a replacement meal for the pulled pork meal I didn’t like, he said , “I thought you said you’d have the Airline Chicken”. Dumbfounded, I said, “I never put in my order”. I was utterly confused. He excused himself and rushed to the kitchen to get them to cancel the dish he requested but n my behalf. WTH? Who does that. I just felt rushed and like he wasn’t paying attention to me at all. It was an awful feeling that he just assumed that I’d have what he recommended because he recommended it. Not a pleasant experience. I won’t ever come back.

The parking is across the street, and that’s ok. The restaurant had an awful, stale cigarette smoke odor to it. It was a small restaurant and felt like a cafeteria at a nursing home. The 2 stars is because the burger was decent and the server didn’t act funny when I said I didn’t...

Overall an enjoyable experience. We did not have reservations but were promptly offered a table or to be seated at the bar. We opted for the bar as a party of 2. The bar tender, Shannon, was incredible! He is an expert at his craft and also very friendly and personable. The drinks were outstanding. We tried the strawberry basil mule, mango mojito, and the blueberry lemongrass margarita. All wonderful! Mango was a tad on the sweet side for my taste but still very good. The atmosphere is lovely with high end furnishings & decor and dim lighting. Very comfortable seating. My only complaint would be that even the bar area is very "family friendly" and very loud as everyone and their children were talking over one another making it hard to even hear the person sitting next to me. When we got down from our seats at the bar, we literally almost stepped on a baby that was being allowed to crawl on the floor behind us. The food was overall good. He had the catfish and the array of flavors was very good. Was a tad over cooked and the breading didn't stick to the fish. I had the shrimp and grits which had great flavor, and the shrimp were prepared very well. However, the grits were so runny I had to use a spoon and eat it like soup. It was worth it for the great flavor though, just made it messy and difficult not to make a mess of my outfit. We would definitely be back, especially for a good cocktail and plan to add this to our list of must-stops as we visit the Williamsburg...

This place had some problems that were just for the night (dead kitchen printer so the chef wasn't getting the orders automatically) and some problems that are systemic. The systemic problems are that the bar (which you have to walk through to get to the dining room) noise just flows right into the dinning room, the staff is way over-burdened (2 people to serve the entire room!), and because it's a small restaurant in a largish hotel, not a place you can just walk up to without a reservation (without a res it was a 50 minute wait, with a res I made 7 minutes earlier, it was seating right away). The food ranges from excellent to just OK. The appetizer of pretzels was fantastic. They cut them in half lengthwise and lightly fry in butter - yum! The entree was passable but pretty uninspired - both my wife and I had the pork, which was basically just a pork chop with some nice sauce on it, some pretty good mac and cheese, and collard greens for my wife while I went with a mixed veggie blend that came near heat once but was basically raw. We skipped desert so have no opinion on that. All that said and despite the overworking of the wait staff, our waitress was excellent - slow because of the work she was expected to do, but much better than I would have thought anyone could be under the circumstance. Overall, this not precisely a bad restaurant, but better can be had for around the same price within a 5 minute walk (think: anything at the Inn or even a tavern in the...