Brandon Brown 
Smoke rolls off the top of a Tavern Keeper cocktail at the Old 97 Tavern. The Tavern Keeper is their take on an Old Fashioned, with Vanilla Crown Royal. Getting it “smoked” is the way to go. By Brandon Brown
Smoke rolled off the top of a cocktail glass like the stack of a steam engine. Phillip Decker has made sure his brand-new restaurant is filled with those little touches. If you take a look around, you notice even more of them. The exposed brick, the wooden tables, the whole feel of the Old ’97 Tavern in Danville is filled with purpose.
Before Sept. 23, 2023, Decker had never owned a restaurant. He’d never run a restaurant. He’d never even worked in a restaurant. But the Danville native knew how he wanted his new place to feel. A mix of old and new, an establishment that harkened back to a time – well, actually – a moment in time.
If you’re from Danville or if you’ve lived there long enough, you know the story of the wreck of the Old ’97. A locomotive on its way from Monroe, Va. to Spencer, NC derailed in Danville. If you’re unfamiliar, just simply Google “Johnny Cash Old 97” and let The Man in Black sing you the story. Decker opened the restaurant 120 years to the day of the wreck of the Old ’97 and is using this piece of Danville folklore to write the Old ’97 Tavern’s ballad.
Located on Lynn St. between Loyal and Wilson, the Old ’97 Tavern is right in the center of a downtown Danville rejuvenation. As you walk inside, an amber glow welcomes you to a long, open dining area with a bar toward the back-right corner of the main room. Photos and framed newspaper clippings of the Wreck of the Old ’97 adorn the walls.
“One of the things I wanted to create was a connection to the history of Danville and where the name ‘Old ’97’ came from,” Decker said. “You’ll see pictures of the Old ’97, we have the lyrics to the song up on the wall, and we’re trying to create that historical resonance.”
Depending on the night, you might be greeted by a live band on a Thursday or the restaurant’s own patrons doing their best rendition of Toby Keith’s “Should’ve Been A Cowboy” on a Wednesday karaoke night. It’s quite the contrast from Funky’s Arcade Bar, which previously occupied the space before Decker took over. “People come in and say ‘This looks bigger!’ and I tell them, ‘It’s not, I just took the stuff off the walls,’” Decker said.
He needed a little persuasion to take a leap into restaurant ownership. The owner of Funky’s could no longer continue, and was looking to leave that space in good hands. A conversation occurred, and by the end of it, Decker was convinced. “Up until that moment, if you’d have asked me if I had wanted to own a restaurant, I’d have said ‘no,’” Decker said. “I had no inclination to get into the restaurant business. He kinda planted a seed and I mulled it over. With the growth of Danville and the growth of the river district and this area, it was an opportunity that I couldn’t pass up.”
Decker spent recent years working in Key West, Fla., doing disaster relief, then a brief stint in Louisiana before returning home to Virginia. The transition has been a work in progress, as the new restaurant owner has learned a thing or two in a short period of time – about how to run a restaurant and about what he wants out of it.
“When I sat down with my staff for our first meeting, I told them, ‘I have the least amount of experience of anyone here right now.’ I’ve managed people, but the food aspect of it, I had to figure out what direction I wanted the restaurant to go, and what kind of food I wanted on the menu,” Decker said. “That was the difficult part. A lot of that has bounced around a little bit.”
A huge piece of how it’s all coming together happened by chance. Chef Phillip Gardner lives in Danville, but had been commuting to and from South Boston every day. And while that might not seem like a long trip each way, Gardner needed to be closer to his father.
Decker was in need of an executive chef with experience, and while Gardner had experience in many forms of food service work, it was never as an executive chef. He had been a sous-chef and also a general manager. “I happened to be in here one night eating a shrimp burger. And Phillip said, ‘Hey, do you know a chef?’ and I said ‘Yeah, I think I do know one,’” Gardner said. “And we just kind of hit it off from there.”
Decker had gone through a few chefs before landing on Gardner. And within the first few weeks on the job, Gardner had transformed the Old ’97 Tavern menu. Gardner immediately put his stamp on the menu with a blackened salmon dish, a limoncello mascarpone cake, and by raising the bar on the existing sandwich menu.
But maybe the biggest addition to the menu was the steak. Years ago, there existed an Old ’97 Steak House in Danville, and when this new rendition of the Old ’97 opened recently, patrons came in expecting it to be the steakhouse reimagined, but there was no steak. That changed with Gardner. Their new steak entrée is made with locally-sourced, grass-fed beef from right up the road in Chatham. It’s dry aged for 30 days, then Gardner works his magic and makes it perfect. “We want to pay homage to the original Old ’97,” Gardner said. “They were known for steaks. We’re doing it and we’re making it cool.”
But make no mistake, the Old ’97 Tavern isn’t high-end dining. There are no white tablecloths there, and that is on purpose. “I wanted somewhere that was a fun place to hang out that would also have really, really good food,” Decker said. “I don’t want that white tablecloth experience. I want everyone who comes in to feel like they’re getting that kind of quality in whatever they order, though.”
The menu is filled with entrées and drinks worthy of said white tablecloths. “I like the tavern feel, but I want to take it up a notch,” Gardner said of his menu. “I want to transform and elevate what we already have here for the downtown feel.”
The Trainwreck Burger headlines a list of unique options on the aforementioned Old ’97 sandwich menu. It is a cheesy bastion of indulgence. A six-ounce cooked-to-order hamburger patty topped with American cheese, barbecue sauce, and bacon between two grilled cheeses (!) filled with spiced jam, American, Provolone and Swiss cheeses. The existence of something like this begs the question: “Why?” “Because some people are hungry,” Gardner said with a smile.
Whether you’re hungry or thirsty or both, you’ll be right at home at the Old ’97 Tavern – Decker will make sure of it. “I want this,” Decker said emphatically, “to be the best damn restaurant in Danville.” Pair a Trainwreck with a Tavern Keeper and you’ll turn a good meal into a great one. What’s a Tavern Keeper? It’s one of 11 locomotive-themed cocktails on the menu and the Old ’97’s twist on an Old Fashioned with Vanilla Crown Royal, complete with a cherry and, yes, a twist of orange. It’s absolutely delicious, by the way. Just make sure you get it smoked.
315 Lynn St., Suite B
Danville, Va. 24541
(434) 549-5912
old97tavern.com
