Shieldstavern

My wife and I were on a well bedded vacation and celebration of our second anniversary. We went to Williamsburg because I’ve fallen in love with the culture there. We went to the Shields Tavern last night and it was a wonderful experience. We had a Southern dish and it was quite delightful, and they gave us the history of of the Tavern and I’m a old history buff. Great experience for all.

Spectacular! Seated in the parlor room main level. Had a fantastic meal of squash soup, shrimp, ham biscuit, and a terrific glaze on chicken. Actually took home my bourbon pecan pie as I was so stuffed but knew I wanted it too! Excellent attentive friendly service offered up with the history of this tavern. Saw the original gigantic fireplace in the lower level as I passed by on the way to the nice ladies restroom. The mandolin player who came in to our room to entertain was good and had an excellent singing voice as well as telling us some history of how the original tavern rented violins etc to tavern goers and then they played and possibly got free drinks from others. A great experience here tonight. Be sure you make reservations. I did mine on open table.

I ate here with my family for dinner. We had a reservation for five. However, even though there were many larger tables open we were seated at a table for four and the staff just added a chair to the end. This made the table much too crowded and really was unnecessary when there were other options. The food was fine but nothing amazing. Even though on their menu online they had a less expensive chicken dish option that choice wasn’t on the menu the night we were there. In its place was a $35 fried chicken dinner that came with soup and a dish of ice cream for dessert. Everyone else in my family ordered that and the felt everything was just “ok”. I order a seafood pasta dish that came out lukewarm which made the sauce goopy and unappetizing. There were no dinner options less than $35. For a family of five, with only one person ordering any alcohol, the bill came to $250. Even accounting for the fact that we understood we would be paying extra for the atmosphere prices were way too much to justify. The wait staff was fine. However, with prices being so high expectations rise. When I’m leaving a $50 tip on a normal length meal I would expect there to be attention to detail. There was a rushed feeling from our waitress and questions were brushed off. A highlight was the musician strolling around. He sang and played his instrument well.

Nice atmosphere in an old Williamsburg tavern. A very pleasant server named Kayla demonstrated that she truly cared about our dining experience. Someone was playing a dulcimer in the background while we dined. My wife and I both had a BBQ pulled pork sandwich and it was good. Not too saucy, I would recommend this menu item. The accompanying cole slaw was delicious. The tavern fries were limp and just ok. We had to wait outside in the sidewalk for. over 20 minutes to be seated. This didn’t make sense as we were finally seated in an empty dining room with plenty of open tables.