You can’t touch this Italian/Mediterranean Hammer Time!
Food: dependable
Service: turtleish at times
Beer: uninspired
Happy Hour: exuberant
She said: Let’s be clear on one thing: Garlic Bread. Something a developmentally-challenged pterodactyl could make in 10 minutes. Bread, butter, and garlic. Really not much to it. So, I find it astounding (50 years ago I’d say flabbergasted) that The Cellar can’t handle making decent garlic bread.
Other than the garlic bread, The Cellar is a pretty solid eatery in Blacksburg. There’s an upstairs and downstairs. Upstairs is more restauranty, downstairs is more barry (bar-ee, not Manilow) and has a limited menu. It’s your standard fare of burgers, sandwiches, soups, some entrees, and of course – pizza. Very good pizza.
The evening in question I ordered the Chicken Souvlaki Kabobs. Two skewers of marinated chicken, steamed broccoli, roasted potatoes and tzatziki sauce. Chicken had a good flavor and was moist, potatoes were simple but very tasty, and the broccoli was one giant chunk of green rubbery-ness. Okay, fine – they can’t cook broccoli but the dish was still pretty good.
If you’re not in the mood for flaccid broccoli, their pizza is always safe & good.
Grade: B
He said: No, it’s not a deceptively large restaurant with eerily similar folks sitting back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back…
The Cellar is one of the few establishments in town that I’ve been to more times than I can count on one hand. Obviously, I kind of like it. For one, there’s Hammer Time, a one-hour period beginning at 6:00 pm, during which all of their drafts are $7 for a pitcher. That’s a pretty decent deal, even if their selections leave something to be desired. Sure, they’ve got a couple regional selections in there, but they waste a lot of tap room on standards like Newcastle, Stella, Blue Moon, Harp, Smithwicks, Woodchuck and Fat Tire.
To me, those are the beer equivalents of valium.
The food is pretty solid, though. On the cheap side you’ve got well-portioned burgers, sandwiches, and pizzas that I’d peg as slightly better than average. But if you’re willing to shell out a couple of extra dollars, their Italian and Mediterranean menu will treat your taste buds right. And no matter what you order – even on those rare occasions you feel like munching on some leaves – you won’t leave hungry.
The one blemish I’ve got on their record is that the service can be slower than a herd of turtles stampeding through the Valley of the Peanut Butter Queen. I recall one lunch where we waited at least 20 minutes between finishing our meal and signing the receipt. Perhaps that’s a lunch thing, though, because on my most recent visit the waitress was pretty good, getting our meal paid for before we’d even finished eating so we could run over to The Lyric in time for our show.
And if you haven’t gone to The Lyric, you should have been by now.
Grade: B
Eating the 'Burg 
It should be noted that The Cellar has “The Cellar 6-Pack,” the massive & glorious imported & local beer store. They’re connected on the inside, and you can walk into 6-Pack, buy a beer, and bring it back to The Cellar.
Also, their service is so damn slow because waiters/waitresses aren’t assigned to specific tables…it’s more of a “everyone serve everyone” kind of deal.
Brian is correct, they pool their tips and service there. On a busy night, it can be a little slow but since they added the kitchen upstairs (when they put in the 6 pack store) it has gotten much better. If you can find out what is on draft downstairs, your pitcher options get better. This is our favorite spot in town. We love the Kapas Gyro Pizza.
Good info, thanks! Are you insinuating that you can order the beers on tap downstairs upstairs as well? Because that would be super duper.
Yes, they will go get it if the beer is on tap downstairs. They just don’t have a list of what’s on tap downstairs posted upstairs.