Tanglewood Ordinary Country Restaurant

Literally the best fried chicken I have ever tasted and being a southern girl I’ve tasted a lot. This is truly «grandma’s Sunday dinner» served just like I was sitting at Grandma’s house. If you want the best southern comfort food in Virginia, you must come here!

Service was great! Food was all you can eat. I thought average taste. My husband enjoyed the chicken. We were stuffed! Also don’t try to use the check in coupon! It doesn’t work! The girl did give me a free drink. It will be awhile before we venture out to this place again

Holy moly! This is southern cooking at its best! I am stuffed to the gills with some of the finest fried chicken and pulled pork I have ever tasted (:

Food is really good. Service on the other hand can be horrible. I’ve been a few times and usually there is a large party there that gets most of the attention from the wait staff. If you’re a party of 4 or less, then you’ll likely get ignored for much of the night in favor of the larger party.

We had made reservation for 4 people and was looking forward to the meal with family. Chicken is served as 1 of your meats and they brought 1 breast, 1 thigh, 2 legs. We ask for more chicken (especially breast) and were told they didn’t have any fixed they could prepare more. While we waited 30 min. our other vegetables were cold they brought 2 breast to the table. The barbecue was horrible everyone at the table agreed and it was sent back from the start of the meal. We had to ask for one vegetables that never arrived at the table. I will never return here to eat again. I had been coming here for a long time and to spend the money that was charged I could have ate KFC for less and had better food and service.

I went to Tanglewood for a work dinner. The restaurant is very easy to miss. I’ve driven by Tanglewood numerous times without knowing it was a restaurant (looks like a small house). Make sure you use your GPS, if you’re not familiar with the area. Tanglewood is a buffet family style. Everything is passed around the table (all you can eat). The meats (fried chicken, BBQ pork, beef, & Virginia ham) and sides (mashed potatoes, corn, green beans, carrots, & cole slaw) were tasty. I ate a small piece of Virginia ham. It was good but too salty for my taste buds. Staff explains to customers that it’s a true Virginia ham (which usually means salty ham). Tanglewood biscuits are delicious. I almost filled up on biscuits alone. The BBQ pork was my personal favorite. I was stuffed after dinner. Bring your appetite to Tanglewood. I saved a little bit of room for dessert. I had a slice of bourbon pecan pie. The pie was fluffy and delicious. Pie is served with ice cream or whipped cream. Our server was very attentive. There’s parking outside of the restaurant. Overall, I enjoyed my meal. Tanglewood is a good choice for southern comfort food (buffet family style). I give Tanglewood Ordinary Restaurant a 4.5 rating.

A real gem worth driving a little extra. Remember dinners at Grandmas house? This is very close. Family style dinning with excellent fried chicken. The waitresses make sure the bowls stay full and you won’t leave hungry. If you have a little self control you will be rewarded with excellent home made desserts. I plan to return.

My fiancé and I love to try new places. We were headed on a weekend road trip & stopped to get gas. I checked Unilocal and found this delight. At 8:15pm on a Friday in the country, I called ahead to make sure they were still seating customers because they close at 9. The gentleman that answered the phone said he wasn’t at the restaurant at the moment but he’d text them to let them know we were coming and make sure they weren’t complacent and to look for us. The restaurant is welcoming from the moment you drive up. We were greeted by a friendly waitress that explained that you get the fried chicken and all the sides with your choice of roast beef au jus, meatloaf or country ham. We went with the meatloaf which was so moist and delicious. The chicken was great and the mashed potatoes were excellence. They were creamy with a hint of sour cream and some skins with a tasty brown gravy. Collard greens and hopping john is not my thing but I tried them anyway. We were stuffed but made room for their delicious apple cobbler.
My fiancé and I were impressed by the business

All u can eat family style. If u like Cracker Barrel food this might work. They need an outdoor area and bar. Food was ok, need appetizers and bar only options!

I wanted to make my husband’s and my daughter’s birthday celebration special, so I did a lot of searching online before I finally settled on this place. I had never heard of it before, so I am convinced it is one of the area’s best kept secrets! After reading the Unilocal reviews, I knew this was the place I had been hoping to find. I was not disappointed. My husband had requested a restaurant specializing in Southern Home Cooking.
We had reservations for 5:30 pm for Saturday evening. With a party of 8 I wondered if we would be squeezed into a tiny corner table with no room to stretch and be comfortable. No problem! When we arrived we were cordially welcomed and led to a large, comfortable table with a long bench and 5 chairs that could have easily seated 10. Upon being seated we were greeted by our server, Jackie, who took drink orders and gathered the specifics of our meal. We opted for country ham and pork barbecue (in addition to the always served fried chicken) only to discover that the barbecue was running low and because we had a large party we would be served the special of the day — pot roast. I can’t say I was extremely pleased about that, but oh well. In a short time glasses of iced tea and lemonade were brought to us. Then a large bowl of biscuits and cornbread was delivered to our table. Next, out came that glorious bowl of cole slaw! I am a cole slaw lover! I have enjoyed all styles of cole slaw from many areas of the country, but this cole slaw was some of the best I have ever eaten. If you like it tangy and sweet, you will love this wonderful blend of cabbage, carrots, pickles and celery seed. Very soon, fried chicken, country ham, pot roast, mashed potatoes & gravy, macaroni & cheese, greens and green beans were delivered to our table. Every single item was delectable.
The fried chicken was very hot and fresh. We actually had to wait for that to be cooked. We didn’t mind. The chicken is fantastically seasoned. The crispy, crunchy crust is the perfect wrap for the moist, melt-​in-​your mouth, meaty chicken underneath it. I can see why everyone raves about it! The country ham is the genuine deal. If you don’t like authentic country ham, you probably will not care for this item. It is very, very salty, just as it is supposed to be. It was a bit stringy and tough, but you do not eat country ham for the texture. You eat it for the FLAVOR, and it definitely delivers! The country ham and the cole slaw paired perfectly together.
As our bowls emptied, Jackie was back to refill them for us. After we were finished eating, Jackie brought us a couple of to-​go boxes so we could box up whatever leftovers we cared to take home with us. Our meal for 8 (7 adults and one 4 –year old child) including beverages and tax was $ 140.09 (not including tip). Worth every penny! I honestly think $ 18.00 per person is an unbelievably good deal. We drove about 1 ½ hours to get there and it was definitely worth the trip!

Down home cookin’ at its best. My wife and I went here for a Sunday afternoon dinner recently after having not been in many, many years (since late 80’s early 90;s). It was like coming home again. :)
We were greeted warmly and given our choice of seating. Our waitress was the nicest person you could ever meet. She was so sweet and gracious, it was a treat. We told her it had been a long while and she went over everything with us. Family style serving, lots of food, eat all you want, fixed price for everything (except beverages and desert) and so on. She brought us bread, cole slaw, and corn bread to munch on while we waited. The corn bread was delicious and the cole slaw was excellent — very fresh, crunchy and good.
Then came our main course, chicken, roast beef au jus, black eyed peas and stewed tomatoes, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans — all very good. The fried chicken is not greasy at all and very moist and full of flavor. The roast beef was the best I’ve had in a long time. Mashed potatoes — excellent, Stewed tomatoes very tasty, everything was very good. My wife and I were very pleased and enjoyed the meal immensely.
We had apple cobbler and coffee for desert. Also delicious, if not particularly outstanding, and a pleasant end to our meal. Something new is that you can take home some left-​overs if you like. So I had a delicious lunch the next day! (Very happy with this change!)
I highly recommend this place to anyone looking for some good comfort food in a pleasant atmosphere. The people here were all very nice. They are in their 29^th year and I am very happy to see them continue with such success. There have been lots of upgrades and improvements and you can tell they care about what they are doing and try to get it right.
Although we stuffed ourselves joyfully, the food sat comfortably on our drive home and we both agreed we were looking forward to another visit sometime soon!

A perfect country dinner that even my grandmother would be challenged to surpass… treat yourselves!

This place is the best in Richmond for good old fashioned Grandma food.
They serve it on platters and keep it coming until you tap out.
The «new guy» cook has been there fifteen years.
Skip a meal and d make room don’t expect crisp veggies.
They bring biscuit’s corn bread gravy and slow cooked made from scratch side dishes.

I took my friend to dinner tonight for his birthday. We go out to eat together regularly and none of us are particularly picky eaters. There were 3 of us and we were excited about the country drive and the new experience. I heard the food was good.
As soon as we sat down, wthout asking us what we wanted, we got coleslaw and small biscuits and cornbread of some kind. They, then put mashed potatoes, gravy, plain canned green beans, black eyed peas, and fried chicken on the table and asked us to pick another meat. The choices were country ham, pot roast, well done roast beef, and pulled pork (I think).
We forgot that the ham was salty country ham. We ordered that– and it did not go with anything else on the table– so I’m not sure why they were even offering country ham instead of regular ham. The coleslaw, black eyed peas, canned green beans, gravy, and mashed poatoes were bland. I love gravy and was excited about eating alot of it– but it was tastless! The stewed tomatoes were a little better, though I did not see any onion or green pepper in with the tomatoes. That is a missed opportunity to put in some fresh veggies– and flavor
At a time of year when fresh veggies are abundant and the ‘farm to table’ movement is in full swing in Richmond, I was surprised that there is any restaurant out there that would serve canned veggies. They gave us 3 pieces of fried chicken to start– one wing, one drumstick, and a thigh. I was stuck with the thigh and the skin on it was not crispy but it was too fatty for me.
You can get as much as you want of all that is served. You can take the leftovers home, if you like.
For dessert we had the lemon squares. They were so sweet that it tasted like lemony sugar crystals.
I did not appreciate having so little say in what I was served. This was $ 15.99 per person. Tea and dessert were extra. The total bill was about $ 87.20 (with a 20% tip).

Really can’t say anything bad about this place. If you like traditional Southern fare, this is the place for you! The fried chicken was some of the best I’ve ever had, my wife normally doesn’t eat he skin, but it was super crispy without being oily and the chicken itself was moist and perfect. The coleslaw as well was some of the best that I’ve ever had and that is saying a lot from this coleslaw snob! It was a perfect combination of sweet and tangy. The mashed potatoes and Mac and cheese were also home runs.
There is A LOT of food, at the set price, with the meal served family style, if you ask for more, it comes out! I wanted more of everything, but I couldn’t have stuffed anything more in my mouth.
If I had one gripe, it would be desert, the pecan buttermilk pie my wife and I shared was tasty, but the price seemed quite high compared to the rest of the meal.
The whole staff was SUPER friendly, too! All in all a near perfect experience, can’t wait to go back!

Good, old-​fashioned, southern cooking at low prices. The snobby and health conscious should dine elsewhere.
The pork BBQ was my favorite dish, but beware, their sauce has a good kick to it.
You can tell that everything is made from scratch. The mashed potatoes were just like grandma used to make.

The fried chicken… I just can’t even begin to tell you how amazing it is. The old ball and chain and I live in the West End and we don’t think twice about venturing out to BFE for this chicken.
Everyone is super nice who works there — we get takeout so I’m sure that’s a pain to get together — they don’t even bat an eye. I just don’t want people watching me inhale meat and potatoes at the rate of a vortex.
If you like good, old-​fashioned food, you will like T.O. But remember: they’re only open Thursday — Sunday. We had a jones on a Tuesday and I almost drove all the way out there.

Eating a meal here is like eating at your grandmothers for a holiday. The food could have used a little more seasoning but still a very good meal especially for the money.

We went by Friday night for the first time in a year and 4 months and MAAANNNNNNNN was it still amazing. I can’t get over how friendly the staff is from start to finish. Food was amazing as always too.
Price went up $ 1 I believe, but still more than worth it. Be careful with the hours, 5 – 9 is risky if you don’t plan ahead.

Update: We had Tanglewood cater a graduation party for us this past weekend and they were GREAT! I worked with Jim, who was very helpful and thorough, and he was very willing to correspond via email– which I appreciated because it allowed me flexibility in the party planning.
Our menu was very reasonably priced ($ 10 per person), and was a mess of food– they let me customize the menu– fried chicken, mashed potato casserole, stewed tomatoes, collard greens, corn bread, mac and cheese, and black eyed peas… and everything was delicious… it was even delivered! I couldn’t be more pleased with the service or the food. Tanglewood made the party!
Original review:
This place is amazing… everything is home made and delicious! I’ve never had a bad meal here.
It’s all you can eat, served family style… everyone gets fried chicken and then the table picks one more meat dish (meatloaf, roast beef, country ham, etc.)… plus you get tons of sides that come with the meat… mashed potatoes and gravy, cornbread and biscuits, stewed tomatoes, black-​eyed peas, green beans…
Oh and they have the most sumptuous chocolate chess pie for dessert… don’t like chocolate chess? How about a brownie sundae (fudgy, not cakey?) or pecan pie (served ala mode of course).
The building itself has been around forever– it used to be a dance hall… it definitely feels like a country restaurant, with lots of friendly people and good old-​fashioned food.