Stoney Badger Tavern

Lynchburg is my husband’s hometown and we would visit family every so often, driving 3 hours from NOVA. He convinced me to go to Stoney Badger and I was pleased that they had a smoking section over on the bar side. It’s certainly a menu full of typical bar food, which is fine with me since I knew it wasn’t your typical sit down with the family and enjoy a classy meal place.
The wait staff was pretty decent. I can’t remember the guy’s name, but when we eventually moved down here the previous year, he became our favorite waiter. Sadly he and his wife moved away and they have new waitresses there that are… ok.
The food wasn’t mind blowing, but it never let me down… until today. Husband and I went to have lunch there and I ordered the 6 piece chicken wings. As I was picking it apart, I saw really dark, red meat and blood in one of the drums. I put it aside and thought well maybe one was just undercooked. Ate a wing that looked good and tasted ok, hubby picked up a wing and again… dark, red and blood. Ugh. The waitress took that off our check and offered us fresh wings, but we declined. The nachos I had ordered and the burger my husband had were perfect (them nachos!).
As far as the look of the place, I am a bit confused. There’s hardly any one that is on the right side and on the left is the main bar/​music side. I hardly even hear about the option of the patio. We’ve been to a couple of music nights, Saturday gets INSANE. We were at the front booth on the floor area and it was PACKED. We had total strangers sitting down after shaking their butts, had one chick lean over on our table while some dude grinded up on her from behind.
It’s not a bad place if you want to go out for a beer and have some bar food or have a place to go on the weekend, but they really could go for a major face lift.

They were open late which is a plus, but had some kitchen problems and we both had to select a new item off the menu. The food was good, the service was Ok, and the drinks seemed a little overpriced. No way would I have paid $ 10 for my bourbon based drink in my hometown (located in bourbon country). It was good, but not great.

I have been living in Lynchburg for the past 3 years and in my opinion Stoney Badger has the best wings in town. The other food on the menu is pretty good as well. I also enjoy that this place is open pretty late and they serve food until 1am on pretty much every day. Their beer selection is great and their staff is very friendly.
However, I do not like that they have a smoking section inside of the place even though this probably attracts smokers. I also think their food is over priced, but I don’t mind spending an extra dollar for some good wings.

The food was good, but I’m not sure I would go back. I sat on the ‘non-​smoking’ side and it seemed pretty dead. It took a while to get my food to come out, even though I’d ordered an appetizer as well as a main course.
Their beer selection was OK. Price was more expensive than I’d have liked, but everything tasted good and the staff was friendly.

This place has gone through so many owners and change the name so many times. It has a lot of potential. The place is large. There are separate bars in separate rooms. There is a large patio in the back. Unfortunately they don’t seem to take full advantage of what they have. They allow smoking in the main bar which is a big turnoff. And for some reason they can’t keep a good crowd. The drinks are not the price in my opinion but I never associate this place with a great time. Perhaps that is the problem like most restaurants and bars in Lynchburg they are comfortable with being good and not eager to be great. They do have some good bands from time to time

It seems like most of the reviews of Stoney Badger are from years ago, so here’s a new one. We went for happy hour, in hopes of getting the 75c wings, but only to find out they aren’t that price until 7pm. So we got appetizers instead. The Mac and Cheese balls were awesome. There were only two of them, but they were the perfect pre-​meal to split… covered in chili and more cheese… yum! We also got the Barbecue Quesadillas and the Ragin’ Cajun burger and both were great. The Ranch is good too, which is a necessity for a Lynchburg restaurant of course. Great selection of draft beer. Great prices on liquor drinks, even top shelf liquor. Overall, this place was great. Didn’t get 5 stars b/​c there was barely anyone there, which made for a weird atmosphere.

This place is good and bad, I will give you the good first.
They have good wings! That’s what I get when I have been because I heard the rest of their food was hit or miss from multiple people. Also it’s a great bar to frequent if you are a smoker and hate going outside to smoke because you can smoke inside. Also it’s usually a relaxed atmosphere and crowd within, USUALLY.
Now to the bad, DO NOT order Guinness from this place if you love it and expect it to be poured properly! On two different occasions two different bartenders (one who said she has been a bar tender for 20 plus years) gave me a bs run down when I asked if they knew how to pour it! They said if you want a real Guinness like in Ireland you will have to wait for 10 minutes and I will serve you a hot Guinness like they do. Excuse my language but that’s BULLSHIT! A Guinness has a two part pour which equals to 119.5 seconds, waaaay less than 10 minutes! And it’s served at 42 degrees, that is not no where close to hot!
Also, my wife ordered a baileys and Hennessy and the bartender gave her only baileys not informing us that they didn’t sell Hennessy. It wasn’t until later we found that out.
Another good thing is that they have a few good craft beers on tap so if you are big on craft beer then you can get a good one here!

Place may have been good at one point, but their new bartender is a complete jackass. The biggest problem is, the owner watched the bartender and backed him up. Out of business in three months!

Great service for late nights awesome people. Good beers and fantastic shooters cheap! I come almost everynight.:)

Alright, I admit it; I was intrigued by the name of the place, thinking it might be a cool sports bar to hang out at, watch a game, have a drink, and eat some good pub food.
Well…I guess you can do that, but I rather go to a few other places first.
We went for dinner on a Friday night. It wasn’t incredibly busy in the restaurant, but it did take forever to get some service. The food was cheap bar food; nothing more, nothing less.
Overall, I’m not planning on going back, except maybe to try the back patio in the summer… we’ll see.
If you’re thinking of going there for dinner, just go somewhere else.

(This is the bar) Place is nice, live band was pretty awesome, wings I heard were pretty good, they say this place is has horrible service and that’s it’s slow. FALSE. this is the only legitimate bar in Lynchburg, alot of people come here for a reason, so expect to have a wait but if you you can tolerate a 5min wait, and live music and a smoking area, you’ll enjoy this place

Tasty food, horrid service! Plan to wait at LEAST an hour to have your lunch on the table.

The service at this place is absolutely horrible. I’ve gone a couple of different times in the evening and for lunch. The food takes way to long (waited 45 mins for a sandwich at lunch) and the staff is rude and unprofessional. Seems like they just want to be a bar/​party joint and don’t care about the quality of their food or service. It’s a real shame because with so little choice in the Lynchburg area there is a need for a quality hang out spot. Perhaps it’s the lack of competition that allows low end places like this to even stay in business. Go someplace else or save your money and stay at home, because this place is not worth it.

Excellent crab cakes! Chef specials are always good. Live bands are much better than anywhere else in Lynchburg. Smoking and non-​smoking room available, and that’s a plus for all kinds of customers. Sun room and patio seating is great for a warm weather meal.

A pretty good band was playing but it was way too loud! In a place that small it is overwhelming, forget trying to speak to anyone until it’s over. Still a decent place to hang out and have some drinks. Being able to smoke inside is a bonus.

I’m writing this as I finish my Guinness from their left side bar… Excellent service and one of the best Caesar salads I’ve ever had (spicy and sweet). The interior is very spacious, clean and elegant, and the same applies to the restrooms. The hardwood choices are beautiful.
I had no intention or forethought to write a review but I was impressed enough that I wanted to let everyone know what a great place this is. I do however agree with the «identity crisis» that other reviewers have mentioned… It’s an odd choice to put a dart board and Foosball table in a restaurant seating area. Don’t let that deter you. If their entrees are anything like their Caesar in quality then your in for a real treat at a bargain price.

This review is for the «restaurant» side.
I really wanted this place to be great… but unfortunately it didn’t turn out that way. This was my third attempt, and it definitely wasn’t the charm.
We sent our crab cake sandwich back because it tasted more like a random spice sandwich with a few pieces of crab thrown in. The beef stew was bearable, but not by much. One of our friends ordered some sort of turkey sandwich that came with a side of food poisoning. He was terribly sick the next day.
The wings used to be great here when it was Muddpuppies/​Jazz Street, but now they just taste soggy and flavorless. The pulled pork sandwich was passable, but their burger was decent.
The service is a bit slow as well and the staff really didn’t seem to know what was going on. They always had to check to see if they had something in stock.
I hate to give this place a bad review, because they are really trying to create a good music scene in Lynchburg. The bar side can be a fun place to meet friends and listen to decent bands, but I would stay away from the food to be on the safe side.
If an incredible band is playing here like Jeff Coffin did a week ago, I might have an appetizer while I’m waiting for the show, but definitely would not order dinner here again.

This place totally confused me.
I couldn’t tell whether it wanted to be a nice restaurant or a bar and it looks like it’s separated into both those things. When you walk into the entrance, you can either go one of two ways. On the right there’s a long bar with bar tables and short booths. On the left it looks much more quiet and even elegant.
My wife and I wanted to try this restaurant and wanted a nice meal out last Thursday so we chose the quiet side.
Now, it pains me to be this critical because I understand what it takes for everyone to do their job and do it well, but our waitress was the hostess and I think we might have been her first table ever. She was totally confused about everything, checked back with us a hundred times, and in between a regular waitress was checking up on us. It was all a bit much.
I am rarely critical of actual food, but I also thought that the plates were poorly designed. For our appetizer we ordered an artichoke dip with fresh vegetables and grilled pita. The pita was soft and difficult to dip, the vegetables were sliced thinly and there was way more dip than there were «dippables».
After some confusion about my order, I was brought a caesar salad which was totally overdone with rye and… maybe carraway? The bite of the flavors was pretty difficult to deal with. I’m not sure if they were trying to do something special, but it wasn’t a balanced plate at all.
Again it is really difficult for me to criticize actual food because I appreciate the work that was done in design and preparation, but these things are what defined this restaurant for me.
After our salad we were brought our entrees. I ordered a bratwurst/​knockwurst entrée and my wife ordered a grouper entrée. Starting with my wife’s plate, the grouper fillet was pathetic. There is no other word for it. It was small, thin, and while it wasn’t my plate so I wasn’t able to spend any time with it, it was mushy and flavorless.
My bratwurst/​knockwurst… I guess I should have asked if there was anything special about it, weather it was a special meat, if they prepared them themselves or what because this tasted like wholesale boiled bratwrust. 1 of each were placed on a bed of thinly sliced grilled bell peppers and next to that was a penne salad that I didn’t understand why I ordered when the entrée said it came with some type of slaw.
By the way, neither of our entrees came as they were described on the menu.
Anyway, my wife had the penne salad too.
This was another poorly designed/​prepared item. Penne, tomato, dijon and I can’t remember what else. This was all tossed together. The tomato broke up so you got these weird squishy pieces that were actually kind of disgusting with the dijon on it. I couldn’t handle the texture/​taste combo.
All my wife got was that miserable mushy piece of grouper and the penne salad that neither of us could eat, so I let her have some of my wurst.
Overall, it was a very disappointing experience. I really wanted this to be a nice place because it’s so close to home for me and I loved Jazz Street Grill. I will give it another shot, but here are some things to consider:
It’s not a restaurant where you can order a bottle of wine. They only offer 6 actual bottles to purchase out of maybe 16 different wines. Otherwise you have to buy glasses and those prices are not reasonable. 2 of those bottles are sparkling.
Beer prices are reasonable, about $ 3 for a draft of non-​import and it was not happy hour.
There are more sandwiches and bar-​fare than entrees on the menu (this should have tipped me off).
Our dissatisfaction might have been from our inexperienced waitress misunderstanding our orders, I don’t know. I felt so bad for her because I could tell she was embarrassed, but a bad waitress isn’t going to ruin a place for us. It was the food.
I’ll try it again when i’m in the mood to throw down with wings or a burger and beer, but honestly I think $ 8 for 12 wings is a bit much too.

Bleh, not a cool scene if u didn’t grow up in lynchburg… Maybe even if you did.

Excellent food, everything else is questionable.
The menu is typical of a bar & grille, but much better than expected. I didn’t see or taste anything that was frozen or out of a box.
This place has an identity crisis. I think it is trying to be half bar and half restaurant, but is successful at neither. Half of the building is a bar and smoking area, and the other half has a small bar and dining room. I felt neglected sitting in the non-​smoking dining area. Getting drinks took around 10 minutes and it reeked of cigarette smoke from the other half of the building. I only saw 1 waitress for the half full dining area. I’m guessing they were short on help that night.
They had only been open around a month when I went, so hopefully they have straightened out all of the execution problems by now.