The Raven

My boyfriend & I had dinner at the Raven in October. It has been years since I’ve been to Va Beach or the Raven. My salad was very fresh, I could have eaten another one, and the blue cheese dressing was thick and had chunks of blue cheese. Great start. I had the blackened Mahi with the crab & baked potato. The seasoning on the mahi was perfect & the fish itself was excellent, but the crab cake wasn’t good, it was pretty much all filler. I don’t know where they got their baked potatoes and you would think a potato is a potato but apparently not b/​c it was the best baked potato I’ve had in some time. I also had a strawberry margarita which was pretty good.

One of the top 5 places to eat in VB. They have there own style and they keep it. I red about big peace of broccoli– yep, also giant french fries, big tuna steaks and burgers. Last time when i was there my cocktail souse was home made for sure.

My family and I visited this place for the first time today. Being locals and bringing our sister from out of state. We were not impressed and will never be back. The staff is lost at best. The menu prices compared to the food is in no way comparable. Long John silver quality seafood and 1970 décor this pace is a joke, sun bleached mustard on the tables and dish soaping the water glasses.
. No stars.

My family of 9 went here while on vacation in VA Beach. It was our first night in town and chose this place because it was a quick stroll from our timeshare and my brother-​in-​law fondly remembered going there as a kid. We had two kids under 5 with us and were seated at a big table on the covered patio.
We had high hopes and ordered a variety of seafood dishes including crab cakes and calamari appetizers. All entrees came with a large stalk of broccoli –not smaller bite-​sized pieces but a single large stalk that you would buy at the grocery store. Bizarre. All sauces were pre-​packaged and as a family who loves to cook, we couldn’t help but laugh at how much cheaper and easier it would be for them to make simply homemade cocktail and tarter sauces. Pretty much everything we ordered was a disappointment. My mom was so disgusted by her crab cake that was so chock full of fillers that she had to ask the waitress if it was even made out of REAL crab. Everything else was forgettable and likely came out of a freezer. The highlight of our meal? I took those giant stalks of broccoli home with us and made broccoli cheddar soup for lunch the next day.
We’re getting ready to go back to VA Beach and the whole family joked about how we will absolutely NOT go back there again. I will say that we don’t really drink, so maybe the happy hour is decent? I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt on that, but the food is total crap so if you are looking for a meal — don’t bother.

My friend Lauren and I came in for lunch on a whim because of the name and its presumed associated with Edgar Allen Poe. We ate on the closed-​in patio so we didn’t experience anything overtly Poe but the juxtaposition of the rustic build and being a block from the beach was satisfying enough.
We both got burgers with mushrooms. The mushrooms were delicious but the quality of the meat and cooking for the burgers left a little to desire. The entire sandwich was saturated in grease which is a kind of thing that many people like but it just isn’t for me.
The grease did get on my clothing and the very attentive waitstaff brought me carbonated water and a new cloth to dab myself. It wasn’t busy at all but even so the waitress was exceptionally apt at refilling drinks and making sure we were satisfied. I would come back again to try another dish but more importantly I would come back again just because the employees were so pleasant.

I have been coming to the Raven since I was a kid, and on my trip to Virginia Beach with my boyfriend, decided to take him there since the food has always been good.
First, I must say their drinks were a pretty good deal. my boyfriend got a Devil’s Backbone for $ 3.50; and I got a mudslide for $ 6.95. I’ve never had a mudslide before so I’m not sure what usually goes into it but this one was like a White Russian plus Oreos and blended with whipped cream on top. SOOOOO GOOD!
For an appetizer, we got mozzarella sticks — they were the standard, probably frozen, and deep fried but what we expected.
for my entrée I got the shrimp imperial with fries. it was a huge amount of crab with 4 shrimp (with tails still on) covered in white cheese. the flavor was good and the dish was really indulgent and rich so I was only able to eat about half. the fries were good too.
my boyfriend got the mahi-​mahi with crab imperial and fries. holy cow the mahi was good — the perfect amount of spice and flavor! and again, the imperial was really good.
the service was good, but it was weird because every time the waitress came back to our table she apologized for the wait. she didn’t leave us hanging an unreasonable amount of time so it was kind of weird that she kept apologizing. I’m guessing maybe she was new? she was really nice and we never were without anything we needed.
one thing that surprised me — the majority of the restaurant was smoking! I’m not used to having the option of smoking or non in restaurants anymore and honestly it was a little bit of a turn off.
all in all, The Raven is as good as I remember and we will definitely be back again! :)