Neither Brugger nor I feel any great affinity for Valentine's Day, but we do enjoy it as an annual opportunity for a night out that we probably wouldn't have bothered with otherwise. I know, really romantic, right? This isn't to say we haven't had some superb Valentine's outings in years past; we certainly have, such as at GIA and Imperial Koi in Greensboro, The Celtic Fringe in Reidsville, The Third Bay in Martinsville, and many others. (We've had our share of miserable ones as well, such as in 2020, when a seriously impaired young man—who has since died, evidently of a drug overdose—smashed into my car.) We opted to stay local last night, so we made reservations at TAD Tavern here, which has been around for a couple of years, and we've visited it on a few prior occasions.
I cannot tell you how much we want to love TAD Tavern. It's one of the few reasonably upscale restaurants in town, the atmosphere in the place is lovely, and we've had good food there. Unfortunately, on every one of our visits, we've had issues ranging from serious staffing shortages, unavailable menu and drink items, and an only sporadically manned bar. We pretty much expected not to have a zippy dinner last night because it was quite crowded, but sadly, all three of the above issues raised their ugly heads, which really took some of the zip out of our experience.
It took 30 minutes after being seated to get a couple of glasses of water, 45 minutes after ordering to receive our bar drinks (they did not even have the fixings—gin & vermouth—to make a martini), and 90 minutes to get food (we'd kept our order simple, realizing it might be a very long night—chicken tenders for both of us). I know the servers were trying hard, but they were hopelessly inadequate to handle the crowd. Since TAD Tavern promoted the hell out of their Valentine's night dinner, we'd really hoped that the place would finally come through with flying colors. Alas.
All that said, the food was very good, and this experience beat the hell out of having your car smashed for Valentine's Day. Still, given the fact that after a couple of years, the issues we've dealt with in the past have not improved (quite the contrary), I can't help but fear that TAD Tavern will be unable to fulfill their promise of becoming a top-notch restaurant. Trust me, I want to be proven wrong, and we may yet give them one more chance. I know they're trying, but as a certain Jedi knight once said, "Do or do not. There is no try."
Cmon, guys—let's DO.
