Best Cafe at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

First is it a café. You go through the chow or cafeteria line and pick what you want.
Several salads, soups, pizza, all beef hot dogs and premade sandwiches, yogurt, and fresh fruit. They have a coffee bar and some cookies as well.
The people working her are extremely nice.
The atmosphere is nice. Try jazz night on Thursday but get there early as its pack.
In the end, if you don’t want the more expensive sit down meal at Amuse, Best Café is a good choice for lunch or a snack while visiting the museum.

HAPPY HOUR.
I have been a member of the VMFA for years, but somehow had never been to Happy Hour at Best Café until Friday night.
A+ ambiance seated in the sculpture garden.
A+ wine prices ($ 4/​glass, $ 17 for our bottle of Rose)
A+ sandwich quality, taste, and price ($ 5.50)
Slight deduction for the size of the sandwich. Ideal for a snack, but certainly not a meal.
As long as the weather is nice, I will certainly be back. Get here early to get a table outdoors.

This has an amazing setting, extremely clean atmosphere, and pleasant, cute staff. The mediterranean plate (in the cold grab-​and-​go section) is the best value and delicious, though I don’t like how chunky the baba ganoush is. Good coffee, sitting on the patio offers wonderful views of the red reeds and sculpture garden.
I’ll address that the prices are higher than at an average café, but come on, you are in a museum!

The upscale cafeteria food is overpriced, but this is a terrific setting for working and meetings during the day, as well as events some nights. Plus you can get booze with lunch, and the cuppa coffee is bottomless. Overall, the VMFA is a tremendous resource. Best may not be the best, but it serves its purpose, as well as a good cause.

The BEST Café at the VMFA is a lovely place with the floor to ceiling glass windows, the patio and the Chihuly glass «reeds» in the reflecting pool but unfortunately the WINE, especially the reds are totally «Rot Gut.» Often I will hear folks comment on the great prices of wine at the museum. Sure, if you want to suffer from a headache for 3 days go there and experience the $ 4 per glass goodness of it and see for yourself. Now, don’t get me wrong, the food is delightful and the atmosphere certainly appealing but let’s do SOMETHING about the REDS… PLEASE! Gag!

Great Happy Hour on Fridays. Good food, very friendly staff, and patrons. This is one of my favorite places. I can enjoy a quiet cup of coffee or a few drinks with friends. Lovely.

I’ve only been to the Best Café for their wine and beer happy hour (half priced) on Friday, but it was a great choice for what we were feeling. A very amusing variety of people, from college students to older patrons, though the happy hour reception definitely has a younger vibe. People were decked out in suits, though I didn’t feel out of place in a casual sweater. The deals are pretty good and though it gets crowded the line moves quickly. It got pretty loud so don’t expect an intimate conversation to take place but it’s a fun place to grab a drink with some friends. Go early and check out the museum as well which is a surprising delight.

The Café at the VMFA is convenient.
The offer the standard sandwich and drink options however have choice pastries and coffee options as well.
A bit higher priced than I feel they should be but it’s a tourist site so that is to be expected.
The café is clean and the staff keeps the tables and floor tidy.
The view of the small pond and red Chichuly glass spears is beautiful!

Located off the atrium on the main level, Best Café is VMFA’s more casual dining option (there’s also Amuse located upstairs that is considered «fine dining»). Best Café provides food options like sandwiches, soups, salads and specialty pizzas that change daily. There are also «grab and go» entrée options that rotate regularly — this weekend they had mediterranean plates.
I think the biggest downfall for this café is the expense. However, this is to be expected since it’s a heavily trafficked tourist spot. In VMFA’s defense, it does help to support the museum, so look at it as a built-​in donation along with your food.
The place is pretty impressive in terms of cleanliness considering how much foot traffic rolls through. The staff walk around picking up trays, wiping down tables and straightening the drink station. The bathroom is kept clean and organized as well.
Large glass windows provide a great view of the lawns from your seats within BC. The sculpture garden, reflecting pool and red Chihuly «reeds» protruding from it are some of the main highlights.

I recently came here during a trip to the museum on my mom’s birthday. We had lunch in the Best Café. Let me tell you, I was very underwhelmed. My mom had the tuna salad sandwich and I had the buffalo «chicken» panini. The panini was probably one of the worst sandwiches that I’ve eaten at an establishment. The chicken did not taste like chicken. It did not taste like any recognizable meat. I’m really not one to write bad reviews or complain, but I did not get what I ordered and this meat was of extremely poor quality.
On the up side, I do love the coffee drinks and the location of this café. The natural light is sure to brighten your day! Pun intended.

Whether lunching with a laptop or enjoying half price lunch on Friday evenings, Best Café is a great option for a beautiful setting. It’s relaxed, yet still sophisticated — probably an inevitable result of the gorgeous museum location.
I’ve been here a few times, and although the lunch and happy hour experiences are very different, the overall feel is the same. The food isn’t the best, since it’s really a cafeteria style dining option, but the patio and museum ground views more than make up for it. And the space is so bright with natural light that you can’t help but be happy while you’re there. As for happy hour, I can’t turn down discounted wine, and their selections cover all the major bases. I went with sauvignon blanc on my last visit and it was chilled to perfection. Definitely satisfying on a warm Friday evening. The happy hour seems to be really popular, and it was totally packed last week. I’d suggest getting there on the early side to snag a table. My guess would be the patio is in high demand when the weather is nice.
If you’re looking for a fun and classy hh spot for pre-​dinner drinks, or just to start the night off right, definitely check out Best Café!

The friday night wine happy hour is hard to beat! It is such a great place to meet up to start the weekend. Half price wine, beautiful atmosphere, what more could you ask for?!? I have not really tried many of the food options but I have heard they are very good too.

I’ve only been to Best Café when enjoying the free Thursday night jazz so this review is for the combined experience broken down as follows:
Five stars for the jazz!
If you haven’t heard, VMFA and the Richmond Jazz Society host this free concert every Thursday from 6−9pm and it has become quite popular. The artists are a mix of styles too, so one week might be instrumental jazz and R&B and the next might be bop or Latin or vocal standards or … It’s a great way to spend an hour or two hearing some of our local talent and then walking around the museum. Ahhh culture!
Three stars for the food.
I’ve eaten a variety of the food served here and it’s always been good, not great but good. It’s a café so i don’t expect to be blown away. They usually have a variety of sandwiches, salads, pizza and a mix of specials. My last visit I had a half sandwich and bowl of mixed fruit for $ 8. Besides the standard fountain drinks, they also serve beer, wine and coffee drinks. VMFA members get a discount too (I think it’s 10%).

This cafeteria in the VMFA is really good. It has floor-​to-​ceiling windows that right now overlook a site-​specific Chihuly installation as well as part of the grounds. Nice, casual atmosphere that’s filled with light. Today I had the potato leek soup, salmon salad sandwich on pumpernickel and a bottled water for around $ 11 (VMFA members get a discount). SO good. Unfortunately, the portion size is too small, and I was still hungry when I was finished.
Food and atmosphere are great (5 stars). Value, not so much (3 stars), but I guess that’s to be expected of a museum restaurant.