Keagan's Irish Pub

Style: Irish Pub

My Rating: 3.5/5 Stars

Website: http://www.keagans.com/index.php

My husband and I have been house-sitting an estate on the James River since we met about seven years ago. It has been a lovely place to live with extreme natural luxuries that I have come to take for granted. One of these amenities was living with furniture that was not ours. For years we have lived with only one bed and a bookcase in our room that was actually ours. We also own a desk and a kitchen table. That’s it.

Now our homeowners are placing the estate on the market. We are not being forced to move just yet, but we’ve decided that the time is now right. Therefore, all day we went furniture shopping for nine hours. In and out of stores, dodging creepy salesmen, sitting on couches, opening drawers, imagining a space that we will be renting but do not yet live in takes a lot of energy. We went to five furniture stores and eventually purchased a couch and a TV stand from Ashely.

In the middle of the chaos and decision making, we were hungry. I personally needed fuel to continue because I was emotionally, intellectually, and physically exhausted. We had a Groupon to Keagan’s that was going to expire soon, so we decided to go. We had been there once before when it first opened a little over a year ago and enjoyed it. I was looking forward to it.

Walking through the doors at 5 o’clock on a Friday afternoon, I noticed that it was very much an Irish pub: there were quite a few loud drunk people. There was no fighting yet, but perhaps the time was little too early. The décor was the same with many outdoor tables along the sidewalk, dark green colored walls in the inside with dark wood furniture.

We ordered an appetizer of Irish potato skins first. These turned out just to be loaded potato skins with cheese, bacon, chives, and sour cream. They were rather good, with enough toppings to have an explosion of savory meat with a bite from the onion. They were gooey with cheese, which blended with potato and held the toppings. I would order them again, but am always keeping in mind that they are not as good as the Irish Nachos at Sine down in the bottom.

Both Brad and I ordered the Corned Beef Boxty. A boxty is a potato pancake that has been folded over a filling. In this instance, it was corned beef and sauerkraut with Guinness mustard. I like this dish because the pancake is soft and absorbs the juices of the beef, kraut, and mustard. There is a lot of corned beef in the middle and I have yet been able to finish one boxty in one sitting. I have to take half of it home. There are vegetables and mashed potatoes as sides. Being an Irish restaurant, it is excellent that they have tasty mashed potatoes. These have broken red skins for texture, with a buttery salted taste on the tongue.

Now, although I like the food at Keagan’s, I will most likely not return often. The atmosphere is a little too “trendy” for my taste. The waitresses walk around with an air of superiority, and the majority of the patrons seem to be bar crowd: present to get drunk, to get laid, or both.