Tobacco Company! For any function honestly.

Capital Ale House downtown

Exposed vents and intentional lack of sound absorbing materials to make the dining experience similar to a Jr High cafeteria at noon. Lol.

“But it’s trendy”

Faculty dinners were great preparation for mandatory “fun” work dinners.

Worked there for years! Between MCV, General Assembly, and hotels, that place is OVERLY content being bleh forever

We probably know each other then.

The Daily for me

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I’ve been there exactly once and my steak was terrible

Seconded 100%. Aggressively mediocre.

I don’t think they had a chili night. Unless you are confusing the late night menu specials with a chili night.

The OOP sounds like McDonald’s before they got all health conscious: really fuckin salty

This is my worst Reddit fear

Damn, just went there the other night and had a pretty good Buddha bowl. That said, my wife's salad was meh at best.

I worked at a different Cap Ale and yeah they're all pretty much the same.

Eeeek!

That’s not the one by the VCU hospital is it? I’ve only been once but they had the best gravy I’ve ever had, period. Rest of the meal was good too.

Amazingly, that has been the case for the 30 years I’ve lived in RVA.

I don’t think Richmond qualifies as a “college town” unless we’ve changed the definition to include a capital city that happens to have a college in it.

Charlottesville fits the bill because UVA and the town are almost synonymous; I don’t think that applies here, even while acknowledging that VCU has bought up a decent portion of part of the city.

I have a feeling this thread isn’t really going to include the types of places that the original tweet was defining and will be mostly places that people find fit the first four adjectives.

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Abundantly average tbh

Richmond itself isn’t a college town but the Monroe park area is kinda like a college town within a larger city just because VCU owns so much of that area

The level of insight into Reddit within this comment is dissertation level.

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Also, The Fancy Biscuit.

I also have had stellar experiences there. Their burgers send it.

I feel like VCU, VUU, UofR and JSarge all being so close in qualify it.

Richmond is a big city, so of course not all of it is college towny.

But if you live in the fan, yes, this is a college town.

💯

The last two restaurants I went to here in Richmond were so bad food wise, and service that I had to walk out without paying per the manager. They weren't even nice about my complaints, they just told me to get out. 🥶

You think? I’ve been out of the city a few years so the quality could have dropped but I really enjoyed everything I tried there

That's about half of the restaurants here. Mostly lukewarm food and below average service.

Used to be good

Holy shit I came here to say this and it’s at the top 😂😂

Its very expensive for average food and shit service. 1/5

Damn I love tobacco company. One a my favorites

Hangar steak is great imo

Service there has always sucked.

The fan definitely qualifies for a college town

Dude no way fancy biscuit is the shit

Has always been the most restaurant of Carytown

Nah Tobacco Company is expensive, but definitely not mediocre. I see a lot of functions happening at Casa del Barco which fits the description of mediocre and path of least resistance waaaay more I think.

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Starlight (or Starlite? I forget how it was spelled) vibes. Loudest place I ever had a meal.

My wife called me old when I started complaining about how loud places were. Turns out it’s intentional! They want you to eat fast and leave so another paying customer can take your place, or you drink more alcohol to compensate.

So no, wifey, it’s not cool…it’s a mildly tortuous room that we spent money in. Lol.

Yeah. We were sampling random 'staurants for dates and Starlight was just... obscene. And it's not like we went at 11 in the evening or anything!

The Boathouse.

Made me think about the Iron Horse in Ashland. Has anyone been in awhile. Is it better these days?

15+ years ago they were the only place to get a variety of beers and have tried to ride that same thing despite craft beers being readily available everywhere

The one in Short Pump is way better.

If that is happening to you twice in a row, maybe you're the problem.

Horrible restaurant with seedy food handling policies and upper management that thinks running skeleton crews in the kitchen is the way to make $$. You suck Bernadette

Did you just shorten the word "restaurant"?

Outlandishly plain, IMO.

This doesn't really meet any of the qualifiers but The Village. The food is mediocre but it thrives due to its location by VCU.

RiChMonD iS A sTate CapITal noT a CollEge toWN

Yes, I did.

You telling me thawing chicken wings in the same sink the mop bucket gets dumped into isn’t chill?

I can relate to this comment. Do you have a sense of when it changed (and maybe why)?

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Jesus, how badly did you complain that they'd rather you just get out than pay?

How I wish they gave the music hall the love it deserves. Probably the current best room in town bar the camel.

100%

I waited 45 minutes for a manager to come and talk to me about my meal, and she refused to come. That's when I had to make a scene to get her to my table. I tried to tell her what was wrong and she didn't want to hear it and told us to just leave. my eggs were mixed with egg shells. Let's start there. 😆

Yeah idk if I'd call it expensive or pretentious though - just kinda crappy.

I’m also going to chime in with support. Ive had 3 or 4 different dishes there that I really enjoyed. Drinks are pretty mediocre, but they do carry falcon smash

Ruined any weight the endorsement of "Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives" had going for it. That place is a greasy spoon in the most C+ way possible.

Yep. That was the first place I ever tried/heard of cask conditioned ale. They're alright in my book.

For corporate office drones: Boat fucking House.

I’ve lived in RVA since I was a kid, went to VCU, met my boyfriend in 2019, he took me to what he referred to as a “cute hole in the wall I’m sure you’ve never heard of”. When we rolled up to Joes Inn my eyes rolled to the back of my head lol. We still go every year on our anniversary though, and I still tease him for thinking it’s a hole in the wall.

I used to go the short pump one a decent amount since I lived out there and was definitely disappointed by the carytown one. Same with mellow mushroom.

Chiocca's. Worst part is that it has got you all convinced it's actually decent food. Anyone who likes Chiocca's definitely boils their chicken and adds only salt. Worst sandwiches I've ever had.

Richmonders love their mediocre food

1000% true

The Hot Italian is one of the best sandwiches in the city.

Did village go down hill recently? I graduated 2015 and village was always a relatively cheap place to get a descent meal.

Hear me out..even if you’re not gluten free, try 521 biscuits and waffles. 100% gluten free for those that need it and for those that don’t it’s still incredible and so delicious

Been recently. I'm not sure if I'd call it fussy or pretentious, but the prices did seem incongruent.

Make a mean milkshake though. And you get the extra bit in the metal cup too.

They have gone downhill every year. They actually used to have decent food.

Lol at Bernie still kicking it around Cap Ale. She was one of the inaugural crew w me way back in 2002 or so when they first opened downtown. I should’ve known when I showed up for training and it was actually “help us paint the whole restaurant for minimum wage and hot dogs” to just keep walking. Matt was such a tool.

They own like half the city

Never had a bad experience there. Expensive and pretentious? A little bit, but the food is great.

Lemaire.

This is what I came looking for..and specifically, the allure around the one at Rockett's Landing *eyeroll*.

Already upvoted The Boathouse, but I must say, I get irritated every time someone recommends Brenner Pass. I mean, it's fine...it's just not all that compared to what you're gonna shell out, imho.

Honestly I used to live on 6th and main - we loved walking to CAH. The fries were good and they had a rotating cider menu. I didnt think it was too bad, lived there for 5 years.

I dream of panini

Their fresh squeezed orange juice is the bomb as well.

I don't think we really have a place like that. There are places in Carytown that are probably mediocre and overpriced, but those are mainly for tourists.

I think we also have several places downtown that cater to professionals where they were once what passed for nice here but have been eclipsed long ago or at least are kind of outdated in terms of style.

But I don't think we don't have a stereotypical "fancy" restaurant for professors (or students when their parents visit at graduation). I'm thinking like Strawberry Street here and The Trellis in Williamsburg but they are both closed now.

i do love me a milkshake. can’t really fuck that up too lol

This was a $20 chicken entree there. This is THE ENTIRE CHICKEN. Never stepping foot back there. https://i.imgur.com/Q21auWc.jpg

Where?

the proper abbrev is Resties

I’ve never been, but in high school it was the go to Homecoming and Prom spot.

I miss the $1 burger night on mondays.

Had their fried pickles and they were the best. Sliced razor thin. We were also pretty drunk and starving after being let down by the crappy food options at a Browns Island concert.

I agree many places here kinda suck but you sound like you suck more

Well, this is definitely apt for Charlottesville. Everything there is fussy.

Why stop there? Let’s call our individual people! What a toxic post.

Who hurt your feelings there?

I've been here so many times thinking it would be different. Nope. Each of the past 3 times I've been, I was seated and then there was zero follow up. No water, no service, nothing. Hosts were too busy chatting to notice my family walking out either.

I was hired as management at the end of 2021. Worked there for 4 months. During that time they refused to hire any hourlies and regularly ran shifts with 2 line cooks, no dishwasher, and a km on a 6 station line on busy nights. They had ads up and people regularly applying. I'm convinced it was their way of making up for having to pay competitive salaries to managers. And guess what? They're still posting for the same management position every month on indeed. Its full of miserable people with the "crabs in a barrel mentality". I hated that place, worst restaurant I've worked in in my 20 yr career

Edit: the worst part was during my tenure they discovered a convicted sex offender worked for them and had been being inappropriate with the underage hostesses but since they were so understaffed they decided to let him finish out the week while they figured how to fill his 40 hr. These hostesses were so creeped out one of them googled him and found him on the sex offender registry which said he hadn't registered in years and there was a warrant out for his arrest. His charges include carnal knowledge of a child under 16. This was a 55+ year old man. They let this dude finish out the week even after these girls brought this to their attention. I was in the process of interviewing at a new place and was hired right around this time and was so relieved to be out of that shithole. I have many other stories of why that's a garbage company run by garbage people

I threw out 10 pounds rotten scrap meat, was reprimanded for it then they had an hourly fish it out of the dumpster and turn it into beef skewers they used on the salads. There's another one of my comments in this chain describing how they kept a child rapist on payroll because they'd be too short staffed to fire him right away

You can't do that

Yep. Not good, just snooty. With that being said, sitting at the bar and ordering apps is pretty legit.

Not specific to Richmond (which has a dope restaurant scene), but I do not think this is true. Seems like OP just needed to get something off their chest…

That's why I said it doesn't really meet any of the qualifiers. Just came to mind when I saw mediocre and survives due to convenient location for faculty gathering

Oh shit. I wonder how long they worked there. I got out around 2017.

Postbellum before they closed down

#Brewers of Bingo and Main Line doxxed me on here a couple months ago, it’s definitely spooky when someone calls you by your full legal deadname on here

Edit: Someone reported this for a suicide check. Good to see that the brewers and their buddies are still bullies that get their kicks by trying to intimidate people online. Also I’m definitely making this comment bigger now!

It was at the midlothian location. I worked there at the end of 2021/beginning of 2022 and he had been there about a year when I was hired.

VCU-er detected

You know the city of Richmond has more than one college/university in it don’t you?

Was waiting for this one. I work in higher Ed & it’s always the first choice. Literally have a retirement dinner there this week lol

Went there once in the late 90s or early 00s and whatever I ordered was inedible. Never wanted to go back. Tastes have likely changed since then, but it's out of my way to even attempt to go there anyway.

Loved The Village back in the early 00s. Then again I haven't been since the early 00s.

NEEDS MORES CAPS!!!

My only qualm with this thread and I agree to the above statement. As a person from Radford now living in Richmond this is accurate, Radford & VT &UVA solely keep those towns they are in alive. VCU/VUU/Richmond dropped out of the city they would still be a city with large employment opportunities. Soooo hard agree Richmond isn’t a college town - it’s a city with colleges within.

Was this Innsbrook?

I tried to find a clip of the scene in Independence Day in response to this -- the last line being the relevant bit -- but failed. Text will have to do.

> President: Mr Nimziki, you're fired. *walks away*
> Mr Nimziki: He can't do that.
> Jeff Goldblum's ex-wife: Well, he just, um, did.

Oh Tarrant's has got them beat, IMO

Food is still meh, even in Short Pump

Yeah, that's another overpriced, very mediocre place

Yeah I really don't know how I was the first one to post this. It's beyond mediocre for the money.

Chiocca’s did.

LOL

this legitimately made me laugh out loud.

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Absolutely ridiculous.

When? Seriously asking, because I've been in Richmond a long time and never heard good things about the food.

I went 2013-2017

I knew it. Just an intuition but I was right. Fuck them.

Holy shit. Had a feeling.

I remember way back when…when this was the place to get to try different beers than the status quo. There were no microbreweries, or breweries with restaurants really, other than Legend and Richbrau (the original). CAH was the place to go. It’s gone super downhill. They’ve tried to continue to follow their same path as before, but times have changed and they’re not keeping up with the changes.

If they don’t pivot soon and fix the food and the service/management and promote the F out of what could be a great music scene: they will go out of business. Which is a shame.