Time's Up For The Clocktower
Every now and then I come across a
place in my travels that so impresses or delights me that I vow to
put it on my “let's go there again” list and recommend it to
family, friends, and readers. Such a place was The Clocktower
Restaurant & Bar at 27 W. Beverley Street in historic downtown
Staunton, Virginia.
Please note: “was” is the operative
word here.
When my wife and I visited The
Clocktower about a year ago, we were absolutely captivated by the
place. Located in the trendy downtown area of a small Virginia
college town otherwise known as the birthplace of both President
Woodrow Wilson and the Statler Brothers, the Google listing said:
“Circa-1890 clock tower with a retro interior is the locale for
Italian eats, sandwiches & drinks.” Sounded like our kind of
place. And it was. The atmosphere was delightful, the service was
friendly and efficient, and the food was superb. We immediately added
The Clocktower to the aforementioned return and recommend list.
Alas, The Clocktower's time on that
list has run out.
My son and his family were traveling
through that part of Virginia the other day. They were overnighting
in nearby Verona and my wife and I arranged to drive over to meet
them. We had only a limited time to visit. Basically we were making a
nearly four hundred mile round trip in order to have dinner with my
son, his wife and her parents, and our four grandchildren. We raved
about The Clocktower, just fifteen minutes or so down the road from
where they were staying, so we all caravanned over to Staunton for a
memorable dining experience. Well.....it was memorable alright.
The Google listing still touts The
Clocktower as “the locale for Italian eats, sandwiches &
drinks.” Don't believe a word of it. The place is about as Italian
as Rome.....Georgia! No more
four-cheese ravioli al forno. Ciao ciao
homemade baked lasagne. No chicken parm, no chicken marsala, no
“pastabilities” where you could create you own pasta dish from
their selection of housemade pastas and sauces. All the delectable
Italian dishes my wife and I had so enjoyed a year previous were
gone, replaced by a pedestrian assortment of “pub grub”
offerings. (Sigh) But we had come all that way, so we decided to see
it through.
The
waitress was perky and friendly and quite clueless. My son's
father-in-law ordered a “Seven & Seven” from the bar for his wife and drew
a totally blank look from the server. He explained it and then ordered a particular whiskey and Coke for himself. The server returned to inform him that the bar did not stock his brand and offered a substitute whiskey instead. When his drink
arrived, it was a whiskey on the rocks with no Coke. The girl must have had a
thing about ice because my wife's sweet tea, which she had ordered
with no ice, came in a glass full of ice.
We had
lots of time to contemplate the new menu; it was about fifteen
minutes before anybody showed up to take our orders. That was another
thing: in addition to being perky, friendly, and clueless, our server
was also largely invisible. And it wasn't because the joint was
jumping. There were only six other patrons seated at two tables when
we arrived and they had already been served.
The
kids got macaroni and cheese and French fries from the kid's menu.
The rest of us ordered a variety of burgers, sandwiches, and fairly
simple stuff. My wife opted for a “deconstructed shepherd's pie”
while the in-laws chose to split a nominally Italian-American chicken
and broccoli fettuccine Alfredo. And since no decent Italian would
deliberately adulterate good pasta with chicken or broccoli, I chose
to get just plain fettuccine Alfredo (which in and of itself is not
truly Italian, but that's another story.)
The
kid's stuff was out in about ten minutes. And it arrived with an
extra ingredient. Fortunately, someone spotted the long strand
of.....something......hanging from my granddaughter's fork before it
made it to her mouth. It was too thick to be a hair. We didn't really
know what it was. And there was nobody around to ask. I finally put
the offending substance on a napkin and took it over to the
bartender, the only staff person in evidence. A few minutes later,
the manager/co-owner came out of the kitchen and apologetically
informed us that they had identified the object as a thread from an
apron. And they, of course, replaced the dish.
Good
thing, too, because over the course of the next forty-five or fifty
minutes, we adults were staving off starvation by snitching fries off the
kid's plates. Yeah. You read that right. Nearly an hour for a burger,
a sandwich, a “deconstructed shepherd's pie,” and a couple of
pasta dishes. As the numerous clocks festooning the walls ticked
inexorably through the minutes toward that one hour mark and as we
hungrily contemplated the kid's leftovers, the food finally
arrived. When I semi-seriously
noted that my wife and I were cooks and that we were about to head
back to the kitchen to lend a hand, I was told that there was only
one cook on duty, the other having been dismissed earlier in
anticipation of a slow night.
I
guess this would be a good point to bring up a fact I discovered
too late to save the evening. It seems that immediately after the
wonderful visit my wife and I enjoyed last year, the building and the
business were sold. The restaurant operation has been taken over by a
triumvirate of people who have no restaurant background and who have admitted
to experiencing a “learning curve.” It seems they want to "spruce up the place, add a couple of new dishes, and start a new legacy." Pssssst! Lousy start.
On the
plus side, the food was good. Other than the extra fiber in the
macaroni and cheese, nobody had any complaints and everybody cleaned
their plates. We even ordered some desserts: a couple of decent
cannoli and a gargantuan hunk of chocolate cake that probably would
have fed the whole party.
So
here's the bottom line: if you want Italian food in Staunton,
Virginia, you ain't gonna get it at The Clocktower. If you want fast
food in Staunton, Virginia, you ain't gonna get it at The Clocktower.
If you want perky, friendly, clueless, and largely invisible
waitstaff, that
they've got at The Clocktower, along with good food that isn't
anything to write songs about.
For
what it's worth, The Clocktower is located at 27 W. Beverley Street
in downtown Staunton. Dress is casual, reservations are not required
and parking is onstreet. They're open from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday
through Thursday, from 8 a.m. until 2 a.m. Friday and Saturday, and
from 10:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Sunday. Call them at 540-213-0665 or
visit their website at https://clocktowerstaunton.com
Buon appetito......e buona fortuna.
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