The Cellar

Despite its name, The Cellar is not dank nor is it below ground to any degree. Located just down the street from Squires The Cellar is conveniently located for Virginia Tech students.

The Cellar predominantly serves Italian food, and speaking as someone who loves Italian food and eats is quite often back home, they make it very well. They also serve subs, which I have yet to try, but I’m willing to bet I will before the end of the school year. I had the chicken parmesan as my meal, and it was very good. The chicken is coated with a layer of parmesan, and placed in the center of a pile of pasta. The pasta was covered with a very tasty marinara sauce and combined with the chicken and parmesan was heavenly. I was given quite a bit of food for the price, I’m a big guy and I wasn’t able to finish everything on my plate. The leftovers were able to make an entire separate meal on their own. In my previous visits to The Cellar I had ordered their pizza, which I will also highly recommend.

The service was very good, I went to the restaurant with two friends and we all had our drinks refilled constantly. The waitress did not seem fazed by the request for separate checks, which I have often found gets you a dirty look from staff at restaurants. My friends and I all agreed the service was excellent.

The inside of The Cellar is dimly lit with ceiling fan lights, creating an nice shadow effect on the walls that I enjoyed and thought was very nice for creating an atmosphere. However, my two friends said that it slightly bothered them, so it may be personal preference. The walls are covered with various items, such as newspaper articles about the restaurant and things like old wooden beams. There was one article next to the table I sat at that explained the history of the restaurant, which I found very interesting. The Cellar is over 80 years old, being founded by an Italian couple that had just immigrated to the US in the 1920’s. There was also a band playing in one corner, and when I say band I mean it loosely, as it mainly looked liked some guys having a good time. They played pretty decently, and I and my friends loved it, as it greatly added to the experience. I forgot to ask if this was an every night occurrence, but I did find out that anyone can sign up and play with the band on Tuesdays.

All in all, I thought The Cellar looked like a fun place to eat, especially if you have a group of friends. I don’t know how much fun it would be there to eat alone, but I have rarely found a place that I believe caters so well to groups of friends. I give The Cellar a nine out of ten.