I saw this and wanted to give a proviso about eating at Gadsby’s on T-Giving.
We went there a couple of years ago on T-Giving Day and booked in the the big group dining area with the entertainment. They feed you "family" style, meaning at long tables where you wait for a big platter of food (turkey and beef) to come out and everyone serves off that. The food looked wonderful but unforunately, by the time the food finally made it to our table, it was stone cold and inedible. It was very disappointing and not cheap! Luckily the entertainment, an actor who played a jolly Englishman from the period, went a long way to make up for it. However, if you book a table in the main restaurant area, I think you will get personal service and I am sure the food would be not only hot but great.
Good luck!
quote:
138 North Royal Street
Alexandria, Virginia 22314
703 / 548-1288My Lord, it’s Thanksgiving and this is the very part of the "New World" explored by Captain John Smith in 1608 never mind being home to not only this country’s first President but the very fellow officially proclaiming a "national day of thanksgiving" in 1789.
Hailed by Frommer’s as a place featuring "period furnishings, wood plank floors, fireplace, and gaslight-style lamps (which) recreate a Colonial atmosphere, while costumed waitstaff and balladeers make for a fun time along the lines of Colonial Williamsburg’s taverns (the chow is much better here)," the more than 200-year-old tavern is a place where "you’ll dine from the same kind of pewter and china our ancestors used, and Sally Lunn bread is baked daily."
More importantly, Gadsby’s Tavern knows a thing or two about Thanksgiving having celebrated every single Thanksgiving since neighbor George Washington officially commenced such national holiday.
Specifically, the RESERVATIONS-ARE-A-MUST fare at Gadsby’s on Thanksgiving are your choices (both the same price at $ 47 / per person with children under 12 being half that) of either a private table setting menu consisting of Eastern Shore Maryland crab soup, said Sally Lunn bread, turkey, smoked Virginia ham, cornbread stuffing, giblet gravy, etc. with noon, 2:30 pm, 5:00 pm and 7:30 pm seatings that day; or the "public tables" seating with just a few less alternative offerings at either 12:30 pm or 3:00 pm seatings.
You’re in Virginia, for God’s sake. The mother of (eight) U.S. Presidents and in a city which served as one of colonial America’s most important seaports. Now, you have an opportunity to celebrate this uniquely of American of holidays in a place which has first-hand served the likes of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison and James Monroe.
To quote a certain current American lender, honestly, this is the "biggest no brainer in the history of mankind."
Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving.
