When I visited, it was the end of the school year, so there were lots of photo shoots happening in…read morethe Hahn Horticulture Garden. Of course there were: This is one of the most beautiful spots on the Virginia Tech campus. The garden is six acres of beauty, and it's a wonderful place to wander around and look at all of the plants and flowers and trees. Perhaps you can also relax at one of the benches that are placed hither and thither. The garden serves as a resource for the students to learn about horticulture, landscaping concepts and environmental stewardship. But it's also just a nice place to sit and relax. I like a good bridge over a pond, and they have that here. The pond has lots of koi fish in it, which I was told an egret will sometimes make a nice meal out of. (Poor koi!) Such is life, though, I guess, right? There are also trellises to walk under, brick paths to walk down, statues to gaze upon, and Adirondack seats to sit in. I saw a couple of students working on their laptops in the garden, which you can do because the campus wifi is also accessible in the garden.

The university has a constructed garden kind of on the edge near where the academic buildings end…read moreand the sports start. It has a variety of interesting plant life and the pond was filled with some lively fish. It's not a major destination like the botanical gardens and arboretums I've seen at some other universities, which was a bit of a surprise, but it's a nice place to stop through.

It's been at least 10 years since I've visited Bull & Bones. This establishment opened in 2008 in a…read morenew shopping center that highlighted Blacksburg's growth. I remember my visit was a special one as it was busy, yet the service and food were impeccable. Bull & Bones put their best foot forward that night and I left Blacksburg thinking that B&B was one reliable dining spot. Neal & I returned on 11/15/25 to check out Tech's football game at Florida State (our hotel wasn't televising the game). We were in town to check out VT v. Charlotte - a basketball game that featured some promising young talent for the Hokies. Of course, I arrived at B&B with high hopes since my previous experience was a memorable one. Unfortunately, my latest visit wasn't quite as good. The evening began well enough - there were plenty of available seats at the bar and we were greeted almost immediately. Our server was nice and pleasant, and returned with our drink orders promptly. We took a few minutes to look over the menu and we were able to order without issue. We weren't in a rush, and the vibe was fairly chill. I didn't expect top tier service, but there were stretches in which an employee couldn't be located in order to get continued service. For example, our server was cut (yet no one informed us) - we didn't see her after she took our dinner orders. I looked around constantly to ask for another round of drinks, but she wasn't around. While waiting for our entrees, what appeared to be the manager on duty stopped by to tell us that our entrees may take a while because our ticket was sent to the kitchen right behind a 40-top's order. He was apologetic, but we were cool with it because of the game. Surprisingly, our food arrived less than 10 minutes after the manager's table visit - we probably wouldn't have noticed anything was wrong if he hadn't said anything. I appreciated the transparency, though. I saw it as one of the evening's highlights. After the food arrived, it was a constant struggle to find any available server (as a reminder, no one told us she was cut). Refills and/or more rounds of drinks were held to a minimum. That irked me - it got to the point where I went to bar whenever I needed something (I wouldn't have minded doing that during the visit, but they set the expectation by providing table service - meaning I want table service for the duration). Neal ordered wings, while I decided to go big with a ribeye. Neal devoured his entree but I wasn't happy with mine. I ordered the ribeye rare - it came out nearly well-done. My entree came with two sides - I ordered sweet potato fries and rice. The sweet potato fries were overcooked and burnt. I tried one fry and one fry only because it was charred and inedible. The rice wasn't much better as it was cold and mushy. Since a garlic parm fries appetizer was already at our table, I loaded up on that since they were pretty good. The steak was passable since it wasn't completely dry, so I ate about half of that before I became full. So, B&B was a miss, imo, this time around. It would be easy to dismiss this as things going haywire during a busy Saturday night dinner service but, outside of the 40-top, they were empty. So, this visit felt like B&B's quality has gone downhill. I hope this isn't the norm for B&B because they honestly are a good place. But after time, some businesses lose their focus, and it felt like B&B reached that stage. Hopefully they can re-evaluate, reinvent, refocus and improve, but if their food quality continues to suffer, they won't last. Thank you, Bull & Bones. JV

Place looks great. Very disinterested staff. One guy greeted me and took my order. The really…read morepretty bartender did not acknowledge me. I got my main dish before my salad. No silverware for the salad or napkins. I had to ask for both. The pork in the pulled pork sandwich was lukewarm, at best. Overall, the staff was not very engaging or welcoming. The wings were OK. I'd only come back due to how close it is to hotel. C- experience B- food A smile and engaging staff would help. Pork temp cost a star.

First off, the Farmhouse has my favorite outdoor seating ambience in the NRV. The outdoor bar just…read moreadds to the atmosphere! The food is excellent when compared to other local restaurants, and the menu offers a reasonable American fare variety without an overabundance of selections. I did get a very much overcooked medium rare prime rib on my last visit, but the waitress took care of that right away. (Still, someone should have caught that before it got to the table.) Word of warning: the Sunday Brunch menu is actually a breakfast menu with limited choices. Last time I checked, lunch items were not available on Sundays. TIP: on sunny days you may prefer to wait for a table that is shaded by an umbrella or part of the building, it can get pretty hot out there.

After hearing about The Farmhouse Restaurant located in Christiansburg, Virginia, and seeing a…read morephoto of it, I was intrigued by its appearance and intererested in finding out more information about it. So I did my research and found out that it opened its doors in 1963 in a 19th-century autentic farmhouse which once belonged to the Ridinger family. It has had several owners and managers throughout its history. Roger Neel and Neal Keesee, owners of Billy's and Cornbeef and Co. in Roanoke, purchased the restaurant and reopened it in 2016. Kevin Murphy was the general manager in 1996. Devin Whittaker is currently listed as the General Manager. The restaurant has been a long-standing establishment in the New River Valley, known for its beef dishes. Currently its menu has been expanded to include a nice selection of seafood items as well. Additions to the original house include several banquet rooms, a bar, an outdoor dining area that can be used year round, and a caboose annex. After being awarded the Triad Yelper of the Year 2024 Award at the Yelpies Award Ceremony last year, an event that honored the highest-performing Yelp Elites, I decided that this year, as an All-Star Yelp Elite, I not only wanted to be the first to discover new restaurants and bring them to the attention of the public, but also to uncover those found in hidden paths that for one reason or another have not reached the public in its totality. And The Farm House in Christiansburg, Virginia, is the perfect example. So one day I made a reservation through Open Table and set out enthusiastically in my new car to go explore what it was all about. After driving in the highway through a nasty rain and thunder storm, the rain finally stopped as I arrived there and was parking in their nice size parking lot. The decor inside was rustic yet very cozy, with many booths inside small spaces, and a couple of very elegant dining rooms nicely set-up and decorated with one of a kind framed Virginia Tech Football memorabilia. It also contained a beautiful award winning wine cellar and exclusive bourbon room. The restaurant was divided into two sides with alleyways where the individual enclosed booths were located and each alleyway had a street name so one could find their way back if they had to leave to use the restroom. The left side was decorated with antique farm items and old photographs and the right side with beautiful colorful paintings by Rochthilde. The caboose annex is located on that side. When I arrived a friendly young lady hostess greeted and welcomed me and after confirming my reservation took me to my booth which was located in Hokie Hwy. You can see the location in my photo of their map. Soon after, my server greeted me and took my order. I started off with a Mojito Mocktail to drink. Their Crispy Fried Calamari as appetizer. Followed by a Caesar Salad. And as the main entrée I had their famous Prime Rib medium rare with the Grilled Shrimp enhancement and the two sides being a Loaded Baked Potato and a Special Corn which was the side of the day. The meal also included these special rolls with butter, which clearly pointed out the exquisite nature of the cuisine of this magnificent restaurant. At this time, I took a brief escape to go visit the bar area and there I happened to have met the Restaurant Manager who gave me a warm welcome and thanked me for having traveled all this way for the pleasure of dining at his restaurant. I found my way back and all the food was amazingly delicious. I invite you to take a look at my photographs accompanying this review. The Prime Rib one of the best I've ever had. Comparable only to Billy's in Downtown Roanoke. My server came by at the appropriate times to check on me and did an excellent job. The Restaurant Manager also came by a couple of times to see if I was enjoying my dinner and if all was to my satisfaction. It was nice to learn that he lived down in Cave Spring, my neck of the woods, and where one of my best and favorite restaurants is located, The OTH Chophouse. For the Grand Finale of what had been an amazing cuisine and an extraordinary dining experience, I had a slice of their Peanut Butter Pie for dessert. It too was amazing. To conclude I highly recommend this restaurant for those special occasions when you want to enjoy a fine dining experience in a very unique and historic restaurant, in a comfortable ambiance, with an amazing culinary masterpieces, and excellent service.

I'm amazed sometimes by the amount of knowledge one person can accumulate in a lifetime about one…read moreparticular subject. That's what I was thinking during my guided tour of Historic Smithfield, a plantation house turned museum and farm. Our tour guide knew so much about the American Revolution, George Washington, the Civil War and Virginia in general. Plus so much more! He knew everything about the families and enslaved individuals who lived in that house. It was a very informative visit. I'm not even sure you can visit the inside of Smithfield without a guided tour. I should say, though, that although the guided tour was informative, I would suggest it only for adults who might have an interest in history, or people who don't have a short attention span. They cover a lot of information here, and even I was feeling like I was melting down at the end of the tour, because it was just so many facts and we went at a slow pace. So, would I recommend a guided tour for kids? Absolutely not. At least, not my kids or any kids I know. But I would suggest you let kids explore the grounds outside, and say hello to the livestock roaming the fields, and run around the garden. There's a small gift shop with a few snacks and water. The gift shop is also where you purchase admission. There's lots of parking in the gravel parking lot.

What a gem tucked away right next to the VA Tech campus! This is a must visit for history buffs…read morewhen in the area! No longer owned by the APVA, it's a private foundation now I believe, the house has been painstakingly restored and features many pieces owned by the original family. Take the tour! The on-site historian who gives them is clearly passionate and knowledgeable about the history of not only the plantation and Home, but the area as well. I could have listened to her for hours! This is reasonably priced ($8 for adults, but we found a groupon!) and the gift shop has some nice and locally made choices.

The manager is objectively just awful. Yelled "why are you whispering" when I ordered despite me…read morescreaming over the band, and then left out a portion of my order after we had back and forth talked about what exactly I wanted (it was literally just a koozie that she decided the price on on the spot). After the interaction, two other customers that saw it mentioned their bad experiences with her that night. Then she proceeds to give a koozie for free to a guy. Also will straight up ignore you and not serve you if she decides she doesn't like you. Get a real job if you don't want to bartend as a manager at YOUR understaffed bar.

This place is terrible. Oversold tickets to a band and had horrible service. This place blows I…read moredeserve a refund

My son and I moved here a little over a year ago and we stopped in for coffee. Coffee was…read moreexcellent. Customer service was great and it's such a cool spot. It's also super close by! The cranberry orange scone was also delicious. We will definitely be back!

I love the energy of a college campus, so to stay at a hotel on the campus of Virginia Tech was a…read morereal treat. The hotel is charming, in that it feels a little vintage, but all of the important things are modern. The beds are comfy, the bathroom area has two sinks, and the fitness center is decent and there's a Virginia Tech campus store on site. But what really blew me away was the breakfast buffet. Now, I'm a notorious buffet pooh-pooher. I don't like buffets and try to avoid them if I can. But I could not avoid the breakfast buffet if I tried. This is probably the best breakfast spread that I have ever experienced in a hotel. There are things like smoothie shots, steel-cut oatmeal with several different toppings, fresh fruit, dairy-free yogurt parfaits, baked goods, real scrambled eggs and lots more. The whole setup was extremely clean and tidy, which was appreciated by me. Also, the coffee was great! In the afternoon and evenings, the bar is open, which I visited one evening to meet up with a friend. They don't have a huge wine list, but they got them some wine, if that's what you're after. They have a full bar, ranging from cocktails to hard seltzer. The people at the front desk are young, and I wonder if they are students at VT. They were super helpful and friendly. This is the place to stay if you want to explore Virginia Tech or downtown Blacksburg. Everything is within walking distance from the hotel. I walked from the hotel to the Virginia Tech monument in about seven minutes or so. The campus is beautiful, and if you decide to explore off campus, there are lots of shops and restaurants across the street, so there is lots to see and experience around the hotel.

My top-tier chum and I came down to Blacksburg because she wanted to visit her old campus for the…read morefirst time since she graduated about 25 years ago (yes, we are ancient and whatnot). One of the first decisions we made on this trip (and she made it) was where we would stay in Blacksburg, and my chum insisted on coming here so that we were actually on campus and she could test out The Inn, which wasn't here during her time. Apparently the local highway setup is also different, so it was a pleasant surprise to find this hotel very easily; lots of nearby signage and oodles of parking. It was also pretty accessible to the downtown area, a walk of approximately 10 minutes. This was my first time at VA Tech - I've driven down 81 past the exit, but never actually laid eyes on the campus. Like pretty much all of the buildings nearby associated with the university, The Inn seems to be made of this Hokie Stone material that can be, I assume, mined or something nearby. It makes for a pretty pleasant optic, but literally every building has it so there's not much that really distinguishes the Inn or its neighboring structures from each other, other than a few really prominent buildings nearby. We had a room on the second floor a short walk from the lobby/check-in area (which was nice enough - it had a small fireplace with seating nearby, a Hokie statue and a little storefront to buy toiletries, snacks, etc.). It was clean and perfectly fine; this isn't a 5-star hotel, but that's not an insult, as it's not claiming to be. If you saw the room without any context, it just looks like an Embassy Suites or something to that effect. This part of our trip was more about exploring and reacquainting my chum with her ye olde college life so we really didn't spend a ton of time in the room beyond sleeping/napping; that activity went very well in my estimation, so the beds were comfortable enough. We also made use of the gym on the first floor for about 15 minutes' worth of cardio; no complaints there. Depending on your perspective, it was very quiet during our stay. Graduation was a week earlier so the vast majority of the student population was already gone, and we didn't see a ton of people in the hotel or on campus beyond employees and construction workers taking advantage of the offseason. I think it would had a more exciting vibe with an uptick in visitors (especially in the above average bar/restaurant off to the left of the lobby, The Loyal), but I'm definitely not complaining about the peace and quiet. We had a very pleasant interaction with one of the staffers at reception when we got there, who was from NJ as well and was helpful/accommodating with our questions. None of our other exchanges were notable or particularly lengthy, but we were greeted with a smile by literally everyone we encountered. If that's not the definition of hospitality, I don't know what it is (I'm sure my top-tier chum who literally went to the school of hospitality down the street could speak to that at length). A nice experience all the way around, and The Inn served its purpose.

We simply love Hyatt Place properties. They are always neat and clean. And it was so nice to be…read moregreeted so nicely after 6 hours in the car. (The pups got love from the front desk staff as soon as they came in the door!)

Had a graduation dress stolen by hotel housekeeping staff member.. the housekeeper was still in the…read morehotel at the time the stolen property was addressed. The general manager, Sarah Riggs, was more concerned about protecting her employee than taking appropriate steps to check the belongings of the housekeeper before she left her shift for the day.. I continued to press for answers and was continually told "the housekeeper did not take the dress.".. I would never recommend anyone stay at the Hyatt Blacksburg as there are other honest hotels where you dont have to worry about an item in your room getting stolen and then Sarah Riggs defending her staff and taking no formal action to eliminate any possibility that the housekeeper had not stolen the item.. Stay here and you risk having a personal, valuable belongings stolen by a staff member. Shame on Hyatt and Sarah Riggs in dismissing a Hyatt member incident of a stolen item.. a formal complaint was filed with Hyatt corporate and the Blacksburg police in hopes bext time a guests item is stolen, the hotel and Sarah Riggs will take it more serious and treat it that way...

I stayed in this Hilton from December 2025 to June 2026 after my apartment burned down. The staff…read moretreated me with such kindness and welcomed me after my harrowing experience. My entire stay, I felt valued, safe, and overall completely taken care of. I don't think I could have landed anywhere better. I was able to successfully graduate and move away, and I have no doubts the Home2 staff contributed heavily to my success. I can reassure that Home2 is the preferred hotel for this Hokie. I'll never forget my extended stay here.

Gotta give a shout out to this hotel for their school spirit. We came for graduation week. The…read morerates at these chain hotels skyrocket to 4x the regular rates. Picture paying Four Season prices for a standard room at a residential type hotel. The big plus was the full kitchen: full size fridge, dishwasher, real kitchen utensils and a full sink. The bad: sofa bed sheets had not been changed for decades. This brand hotel doesn't clean rooms every day, it's every other day.... Or in the case of the sofa bed... well decades. We had a guest stay with us on our last of the 4 days. The sheets on the bed felt weird almost like a thin sheet of nylon. Again, this is not the Four Seasons but.... Staff were super friendly. We requested new towels and sheets(for the sofa bed) when we saw the staff in the hallway. This brand serves a complimentary breakfast. Most people seemed to enjoy it. I like that they have hot coffee and tea available in the lobby and it's free. Four stars is generous but it's because of school spirit and lots of available amenities.