White Star Tavern

Came looking for an Indian place that was supposed to be across the street, and ended up here. They’re open til 10 during the week, which is pretty convenient.
When we walked in I couldn’t tell what they were trying to do with the place. Seemed like a cross between a family restaurant like Sizzlers and Spaghetti Factory. The décor is a bit of a mishmosh.
However, all was made OK with solid food and great service. Our waitress dropped off a skillet of tri-​colored bread and a ramekin of butter and said, «want to play the butter guessing game?» I glanced at the butter speckled with red bits and said, «sundried tomato?» She laughed and walked away. It turned out to be cherry, and was very tasty with their housemade bread. Apparently they serve a different kind of butter every several days.
The hubs had pork chops with a side of fried green tomatoes, and I had the pasta primavera with garlic and oil instead of marinara. Although tasty, both were a bit too greasy for my taste, even considering that they were fried things and/​or tossed in oil. However, for a random place in the middle of Virginia, this food was pretty impressive. Even impressive compared to some supposedly good restaurants closer to Manhattan. Our waitress kept up her friendly attitude throughout, and provided complementary monkey dishes of peppermint ice cream with the check.
In the end, between the decent food and extra touches, can’t help but give them four stars.

Good local place, trending a bit upscale. In the cellar of the old White Star Flour Mill so exposed brick, granite/​steam pipe etc… Dark and cozy but a little loud on a Fri/​Sat nite. Bar service was a little indifferent and comming from Yankee land I was surprised to see ash trays and… Gasp! smoking!!! OMG, call the CDC! It didn’t bother me, in fact I thought it was nostalgic but some in my party were actively nose wrinkling.
Good Caesar salad w/​chicken, cool tunes on the sound system.