1919 Monticello Ave
Norfolk, VA 23517
Last Saturday I was in Norfolk for work and the location of the event was a half mile from Doumar’s Cones and Shakes, a place that I have seen on the Food Network and the Travel Channel a couple of times. Over 100 years ago Mr. Doumar invited the ice cream cone and the ice cream cone machine and at one time he had restaurants up and down the whole east coast.
Doumar’s is an old school dinner with carports outside for people who want to eat in their cars a huge sit down bar and about a dozen tables. Everything in Doumar’s is old school and original. The menu is just as ordinal and old school as the rest of the place; barbecue, burgers, hot dogs, fries, shakes and ice cream. I ordered a barbecue sandwich with slaw fries and a diet coke. Within five minutes I had my sandwich, fries and drink in front of me. The sandwich was a small little thing wrapped in plastic with a toothpick stuck in it. The fries were the thick cut kind and came in a little cardboard tub. This stuff was barebones. The barbecue was finely chopped topped with a little bit of finely chopped cole slaw. I put their NC style vinegar barbecue sauce on it. The barbecue was not very smoky and I could barely taste the cole slaw and the sauce had a spicy vinegar flavor. I was not very impressed by the barbecue at all. The fries were also nothing to talk about; I’ve had better fries from the frozen food section in the grocery store.
After eating at Doumar’s I’ve learned two things; not every restaurant that is featured on TV is great and just because a place has been around for 100 years does not mean that it deserves to be around for 100 more. I can only assume that Doumar’s has the world’s greatest ice cream cones because if not I don’t know why anyone would go there other than to just say that they’ve been there. I have once again been tricked by Guy Fieri and Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives.
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