CRUSH Wine Bar Ltd. — Restaurant in Winchester

Buckle up your boots, folks, because you’re in for a wild ride here!

Imagine this: you walk into a delightful atmosphere with great music, low lighting, comfy chairs – only to be met with an elitist, condescending waitress who was nothing short of insulting to our party of six on a Wednesday night. All of us corporate executives visiting Winchester for an off-site management meeting, we heard that the food at Crush was great.

Well, that is true. The food was exceptional, and our hats off to the chef.

If only the front-of-house could get their superiority complex out of the way, it would have been an otherwise enjoyable experience. We all searched our collective memories and the scene around us to try to identify why, oh, why we perhaps were singled out to be looked down upon. We looked around the room. Perhaps we weren’t dressed well enough? Nope, the clientele was largely casually dressed – we were in business casual clothing. Perhaps we weren’t in some elusive “in crowd” in this strip mall on the outskirts of this charming little town set in the Shenandoah Valley? Not sure, but we wanted to investigate further. Perhaps the waitress was in an altered state? We might be getting somewhere because we racked our brains for some acceptable excuse for being ridiculed as “people in Winchester” who “don’t know how to eat.” Literally. She said that to us.

Now, at the table were several folks with MBAs; all well-traveled; one of whom hails from Portugal – where they may know a little bit more about tapas than, say, folks in rural-ish Virginia; two from New England – not that these characteristics or origins qualify us to be treated with anything other than, say, civility. Because our money spends just as well as any other person who comes expecting to be treated with a modicum of respect.

We were also schooled in, I’m not sure exactly what…but clearly we did not understand how tapas work. There was no clear explanation on how, in fact, they do – but clearly at Crush, it is not deigned acceptable practice to consistently deliver said tapas in a reasonable timeframe of under 30 minutes. Drinks orders were lost and had to be requested several times. We were told that “scallops take a long time to cook” (from experience, no more than two minutes typically does the trick), and that “they needed to defrost them first.”

Don’t really know what to do with that one.

It really just became entertaining at a point in the evening when we threw up our hands and just accepted that having no expectations of civility or even decent service was what we were going to get – and eagerly anticipated what was going to come next! Because it was such a roller coaster! And because as we were sitting there, we were perusing other reviews from diners who said exactly the same thing about the service - scattered among the many raving reviews listed in Google.

Pay attention to them – I implore you.

It was, indeed, an experience we shall never forget.

Unfortunately, the food was exceptional. We, sadly, shall never experience it again.

There was a clean-up attempt where, I believe it was the owner, showed up and asked if everything was ok. Graciousness seemed in order, and we replied that the food was exceptional, but that the check was now our priority. The roller coaster had us all reeling at that point, and we really just wanted to get off the ride and on with our evening.

It was useful, however, to stand around outside for a few more moments to align ourselves back into the real universe as opposed to the alternate one we had just experienced. Great food, degrading “entertainment,” and an overall...

We decided on trying Crush for the first time as a little date night. We called ahead to make sure they had room, since reservations are suggested. Upon arrival, it's a little confusing without a host stand or someone to greet you at the door. You literally walk into groups of people dining and sitting around couches right by the front door. We made our way to the back of room towards the bar and got the attention of a server. She showed us our table. A few minutes later a man who described himself as the "mixed drinks guy" brought us water. He was very friendly, but also very busy trying to help the other server. We then waited for over 15 minutes for anyone to come back to the table. (We thought about just leaving). There were two tablets (iPads) on our table, neither would turn on, so we couldn't look at the menu. I love the idea of an electronic menu, but a QR code would be a much better idea. When the server finally came back to our table she said very bluntly "Are you ready to order?" There was no No welcome and no apology for the wait, even after telling her we had never dined at Crush before. I said that we hadn't been able to look at a menu, and her response was "They're right in front of you". We should have left then, but we had been looking forward to a kid free night and my husband and I have both worked in the hospitality industry for over 25 years so I wanted to give the staff the benefit of the doubt because they did seem overwhelmed and under staffed. She finally got one of the tablets to work so we could decide on a bottle of wine and some food. We ordered the Tannat from Briede Vineyards, which was served slightly chilled- I've never had Tannat served chilled so that was odd to me. Also surprising was that with the very large wine selection listed the only Virginia Winery on the menu was Briede. Being a wine bar and within minutes of multiple EXCELLENT Virginia wineries, you would think there would be more options from local wineries. Our food was very good and you can tell the chef takes pride in creating a menu with lots of flavorful options. We ordered the Petit Tender and Bleu Cheese Crostini- fabulous and the Seared Scallops with Peach reduction- scallops were smaller than expected, but again very good. For dessert we had chocolate truffles- nothing fabulous or amazing, 4 small truffles like out of a candy box. Overall the atmosphere was stuffy, the female server was not friendly, but the food was very good. I would try it again, but I'm not running back. It was not a good...

Drinks and Wine are fantastic but advisable to think twice before walking in without a reservation. Even if they are NOT busy (2-3 tables occupied), the waiter will turn you away regardless if they do not have other reservations. We walked in and were initially turned away then offer bar seats, advised Wine Flights are not offered to walk-ins then the waiter accommodated after seeing the disappointment on our face - got the impression we were more of a bother to the waiter. In the end we had 2 wine flights, 1 manhattan, one old fashioned and 3 food items (appetizer size). The food servings were rather small for the cost but the overall flavor was great - you can expect lots of bread with each plate. Overall would say this a great place to chill for small delicious bites with small well paired sipping wine but as indicated make a reservation a few days in advance since it does not matter if they are busy or dead, Crush insists and enforces reservations requirements - somewhat strange given a waiter works on tips and no other people came in after my best friend and I. We will go again if successful securing a reservation as we enjoyed everything except being treated as if we were a bother (Good Food, Drinks and Ambiance). Its hard for me to be negative about this place and I want to give it 5 out of starts but it was a struggled to offer 4 - this is very much an honest review. Give it a try, very happy to see this type of place here in...