Meet Me at the Bar

The neighborhood bars and pubs we keep coming back to for beers, bites and the people and vibes
we know and love

Don’t miss our expanded Neighborhood Bars & Pubs Dining Guide.

Our favorite Coastal Virginia neighborhood joints are typically on the smaller side and often open into the wee hours. Patrons may go for the food, the drinks or simply the comfort of knowing they’ll be well taken care of. 

From laidback Chic’s Beach to indie Ghent, we’ve rounded up some of our favorite spots to frequent.
The throughline? Even after a decade or three, these places never get old.

The best neighborhood bar and restaurant is a place where you can grow up, where every version of
you is not only accepted, but heartily welcomed.

For me, it’s always been Yorktown Pub, or simply “the pub,” as my family and good friends (still based in Gloucester) have always referred to it. 

Racing in from the beach for hot tenders and fries as a kid. Settling into a booth with a cold pint in my 20s. Laughing and reminiscing and staying up too late (with too many pints) the night before my sister’s wedding. 

Fast forward to feeding my daughter bites of potato salad and butter beans as she happily slaps the table. Watching my son come racing in off the beach for his own plate of tenders and fries.

There are many lovable neighborhood hangouts in Coastal Virginia, of course, and everyone has their go-to’s. 

HK On The Bay

The well-loved building at 4600 Lookout Road has been a Chic’s Beach landmark for more than a century and has been HK on the Bay for nearly 20 years. 

“We have great support from the neighborhood,” says Rich Coleman, who took over the restaurant from longtime owner Brian Radford in 2019.

The cozy bar and restaurant boasts an intimate yet “energetic” vibe, says Coleman. There’s more dining room seating than bar seating, and the focus on quality food makes HK more of a dining destination than a dive bar, to be certain. 

That is due in large part to the talents of chef and general manager Forrest Branyan, who has been at the restaurant for 18 years. Branyan, who came to the hospitality industry by way of the commercial real estate world, started his tenure at HK as a line cook. 

Today, he’s known to regulars as the “omelet man” as he makes omelets to order while interacting with the Sunday brunch crowd. Coleman, a Baltimore native, assures us that Branyan’s crab cake is legit. 

“People love us for our food,” says Coleman—with many patrons stopping in for a nice steak and fancy bourbon on steak night Thursdays. “This November we started doing the allocated bourbon from ABC so now we have 15 top-shelf bourbons.”

If brown water isn’t your thing, hopheads will be happy with the focus on Virginia craft beer and cocktail aficionados may be steered toward the bar’s custom infused liquors. “Our current top seller is a jalapeño pineapple infused Milagro tequila margarita,” says Coleman. 

There may be top-shelf options, infused liquors and well-crafted entrees, but you won’t find any pomp and circumstance at this beach enclave. With a dog-friendly patio, bike rack and golf carts out front, and family homes lining the street, HK is neighborhood bar in every sense of the word.

Yorktown Pub

Yorktown Pub’s longtime owner and prolific restaurateur Dean Tsamouras says the pub was already an institution when he and business partner Rick Tanner took over in 2000. The building at 540 Water St. opened in the 1950s as Gus’s and became Yorktown Pub in 1987. 

The property sits—as the street name implies—one street away from the York River. You can see the beachgoers and breakwaters from the high-tops in the front windows; the dining room features framed photos documenting the history of the Coleman Bridge and other nautical tidbits. 

Before Tsamouras and Tanner took over, the pub was popular for live music, cheap drinks and indoor smoking. “Coming from the College Delly in Williamsburg, my whole game plan was to bring more of a family dynamic to the restaurant,” says Tsamouras.

They kept the most popular menu items—burger, crab cake, prime rib sandwich—and added a slew of entrees. 

But the biggest change, other than the elimination of Marlboro Reds on tabletops, was focusing on fresh, local seafood. Tsamouras says they were doing the whole bay-to-table thing back in 2002, 2003. 

“We were focused on branding and quality of service,” says Tsamouras, a Central Virgina native who now owns a fleet of restaurants on the Peninsula. “Our main goal was quality of food. We started getting (and still get) our oysters from the Rappahannock and sometimes the York River. All our fried oysters come from Walton Seafood in Urbanna.”

The “off-menu” specials board is the first place many regulars look. A recent feature included a fried soft-shell sandwich; my father always gets the fish of the day—flounder, mahi-mahi, cobia—blackened.

While some things have changed since the late ’80s—they added outdoor seating during the pandemic and have more plans to expand their outdoor dining footprint in the near future and, as recently as this past May, the restaurant released new, sturdy menus with bold, colorful fonts—the good stuff is the same. 

The service is always friendly and fast, and you’ll most likely see the same smiling face many times over—bartender Eddie Shephard and general manager Lindsey Mason have been at the pub for 30 years and 20 years, respectively. 

Happy times are trapped in amber with the heavy wooden tables and chairs, cozy booths (the largest, circular booth in the far back left is highly coveted) and seafood dinners so good you’ll wonder why anyone gets anything else. Except for the homemade potato skins. Order those. 

Norfolk Taphouse

“When I hear ‘neighborhood bar,’ I think ‘regulars,’” says Tom Robotham, a devotee of Norfolk Taphouse, a Ghent mainstay known for its lineup of alternative music acts, sizable beer list and eclectic crowd. “You can show up by yourself and almost be sure you run into someone you know.”

A New York native who has lived in Norfolk since 1991, Robotham started frequenting the Taphouse in the mid-2000s post-divorce. “A neighborhood bar is nothing fancy, it’s very relaxed, very informal,” says Robotham.

While the bar’s Instagram is replete with images of band posters, tatted frontmen and hot dogs, the spot is, Robotham notes, open to all.  

The ODU adjunct professor says he’s bumped into colleagues in their 80s at Taphouse just as easily as young families out for dinner and 20- and 30-somethings out for a live show. 

“Bars often cater to a much narrower demographic, but one of the interesting things about Taphouse is it attracts a wide range of age groups,” says Robotham. 

You’ll find standard bar fare like wings, burgers and wraps, but you’ll also find a separate kids’ menu and more than one vegan option. Current Taphouse owner Parker Harrington took over in 2018 and has since updated the restaurant to include 18+ shows that start earlier.

“It’s nice for younger people to have somewhere to go when they can enjoy friendship and music,” says Robotham. 

Those walking their dogs in Ghent are always welcome to sup on the spacious patio—the size can be a rarity in cities like this—and the attached parking lot is a boon for anyone who has ever tried to parallel park on Colley Ave. 

“It’s a welcoming place for all kinds of people,” says Robotham. 

As the regular well knows—the best neighborhood bar isn’t a destination. It’s a haven. 

Pictured at top: Local band Anthony Rosano & The Conqueroos playing live at South Beach Grill in Virginia Beach (Photo by David Uhrin)