Restaurants near James River State Wildlife Management Area

Great fresh fish and seafood. It does not disappoint! Great service as well.

The Ivy Inn is our "go to" C'ville restaurant for special events. The reason? The food is always creative & outstanding, the prices on the wine list are very reasonable, and the service is consistently excellent. (Plus, the portions are typically large enough to take home leftovers). Last night's dinner was no exception. We're already looking forward to our next visit.

John our waiter took such lovely care of us. He was right. This steak (I got the boneless ribeye) was one of the top 10 steaks I've ever had in my life. You can tell the meat here is very high quality. The steak came out with a lovely sear. The flavor was rich and meaty; my steak was very well marbled and fatty. I loved that the steaks were served with flaked finishing salt that you could sprinkle on, yourself. I believe the biggest factor was that David cooked our steaks to PERFECTION. My husband got the NY Strip and he was over the moon. I tried a bite and it was just fantastic. I'm not even a NY trip eater! You can easily mess up a Strip. And yet it was juicy and tender. I personally don't think the steak needed a sauce. As for the appetizers and sides, the bread was excellent and fresh. The cesar salad was very very tasty. The shrimp cocktail was great! But the real show were those steaks. John, our waiter, encouraged us as first time guests to get steak (over the pork chop I was considering), and I'm so thrilled he did. A warm and genuinely friendly waiter, John made the night. I trusted his suggestions, and very happy I did. You can tell John loves his job, and he's good at it. The prices were fair given the quality of the ingredients. The ambiance of the restaurant was somewhat loud but that never hindered our conversations or evening. The final suprise of the night was the desserts. The key lime pie was literally the best key lime pie I've ever had. Was such a perfect touch to a wonderful evening. Kudos to this team. A giant thank you to John for taking such great care of us, and the highest compliments to David and the chefs who prepared the meals. 5/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Our reservation was for 6:30pm but we arrived from out of town an hour early. We decided to see if we could be accommodated and the restaurant staff immediately said it wasn't a problem and seated us in their beautiful dining room upstairs. That set the tone for a wonderful dining experience. We had the bison empanada and goat cheese salad as starters and they were both delicious. The gnocchi bolognese and steak frites were perfect confort food for a cold evening. We rounded off the meal with the flourless chocolate cake--if you love dark chocolate like we do this is a standout dessert--and the mixed berry cobbler which was light and perfectly sized. Even though the restaurant filled up quite a bit while we were there, the wait staff were attentive and friendly. We came here on a friend's recommendation and will be recommending The Local to others!

The food and service was wonderful. The atmosphere was more family-style, with a lot of family and friends enjoying themselves, which was more warm and welcoming than we expected. The servers and som continually checked in with us throughout the evening and were very friendly, personable, and accommodating.