With scenic mountain wineries, a fast-growing craft brewery scene, and restaurants sourcing delicious food from local farms all around, rural Virginia is a foodie’s dream destination. This year, Discover Front Royal is joining with the Virginia Tourism Corporation to highlight all the fantastic epicurean experiences you can enjoy in the Front Royal area.

​A wide range of wineries, breweries, and unique eateries await you in this scenic town of the Shenandoah Valley. Read on to find out how you can eat and drink what you love in Front Royal, Virginia. You’ll find a quick rundown of some recommended eats and drinks, as well as a section on the best ways to merge your edible experience with the Front Royal area’s fabulous outdoor attractions.

Eat – Front Royal’s Foodie Scene
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Front Royal is full of fabulous restaurants, and foodies will find plenty to explore. For today’s post, we’re featuring several local eateries that we’ve specially selected for their diversity. No matter your taste or budget, you should be able to find a fit on this list. 
 
For a classic fine dining experience in Front Royal, don’t look any further than Element, where you’ll find gourmet cuisine and an atmosphere to match.

​Italian food lovers should head to Osteria 510. It’s a farm to table Italian dream come true! Or if you’re in search of something a little more exotic, Try Thai, on Front Royal’s historic main street might just fit the bill. Here you’ll find gourmet Thai food and sushi. 
 

You’ll see the smokers working away in the parking lot when you pull up at Pavemint Taphouse. Delicious smoked food in a trendy renovated gas station, along with brewed-on-site craft beers. It’s a fun, one-stop shop for lovers of gourmet food and craft beer.

 
Wine lovers in search of a bite to eat, make your way to ViNoVa. A wine bar serving gourmet tapas, it’s a great place to relax and enjoy perfectly paired wine and eats.

Drink – Front Royal’s Wine, Beer, Mead, and Coffee
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Of course a foodie’s adventure doesn’t stop with eating. If you’re looking for an gourmet weekend, you’ll want to plan out some delicious drinks too. In Front Royal, you’ll find a wide range of great sipping! Start the day with a perfect coffee from Happy Creek, Daily Grind, or DL Campus Coffee. Move on to wine, craft beer, or even a glass of mead.
 

​Front Royal’s wineries are the perfect combination of delicious Virginia wine, stunning countryside, and that unbeatable winery feel. For fields and rolling hills, visit Rappahannock Cellars, or for a mountainside experience try Fox Meadow Winery. See a full list of Front Royal’s wineries here.

Beer lovers will find plenty to love among the craft breweries of the Front Royal area. If you’re looking to get out in the countryside, head to Backroom Brewery. For an in town brewery experience, check out the Front Royal Brewing Company. 
 

Finally, if you’re looking to try something new and unusual, don’t overlook Front Royal’s meaderies. Mead is an ancient alcoholic beverage that’s making a comeback. If you’re curious to try out honey wine in Front Royal, visit Saga Meadery or Honey and Hops Brew Works for a tasting you won’t forget. 
 

Love – Where Food Meets the Front Royal Outdoors
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While you’re in Front Royal, don’t forget to plan an outing where you can satisfy your love for food while immersing yourself in the great outdoors of the Front Royal area.
 

 A great way to enjoying eating and the outdoors is to visit a local pick-your-own fruit farm. Valley View Farm is a great destination where you can eat, drink, and love all at once! Start at the pick your-own-orchard and enjoy in-season fruit. Then head on over to the farmers market, where you can buy organic vegetables and local farm produce. End your visit with some wine or hard cider tasting in the farm tasting room. Other pick-your-own options in the Front Royal area include Stribling Orchard, Hollin Farms, and Hartland Orchard. 

Another way to enjoy Front Royal’s food and outdoor attractions is to bring some Front Royal food with you on an outdoor adventure. Blue Wing Frog will pack a gourmet picnic lunch for you. Or try Manor Line Market for locally sourced take-out or eat-in food.

If you’re planning a visit to Front Royal, plan on some fabulous food while you’re here! With a wide range of restaurants, Virginia wine and beer, and food for every outdoor adventure, Front Royal is the destination your taste buds are rooting for! It’s time to Eat. Drink. Love. in Front Royal, Virginia.

The Front Royal area has long been a sought-after destination for lovers of the outdoors. The area boasts great outdoor adventure options for groups and loners, ranging from rugged backwoods experiences to family friendly fun. But what if your favorite hiking buddy happens to be your dog? Come right along! There’s lots to love about the Front Royal scene for dog-owners too.
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If you’re looking for a daytrip that your dog can enjoy with you, put Front Royal at the top of your list. Pets can be part of the adventure in many of the fantastic outdoor spaces that surround our town. When you’ve finished hiking, you and your four-legged buddy can relax at one of several local breweries. 
 
So use our guide to plan a day for yourself and your dog in this welcoming mountain town. You and your favorite hiking buddy will have a great time experiencing Front Royal together. We’d even go so far as to call it a “pawfect” adventure. 

Plan the “Pawfect” Outdoor Adventure 
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For your dog-and-human hiking needs, look no further than Front Royal’s most popular tourist attraction: Shenandoah National Park. With its pet-friendly protocols that allow leashed dogs on most trails, Shenandoah National Park has been rated one of the most dog-friendly national parks in the entire United States! This incredible national park boasts mountain vistas, forests, streams, waterfalls . . . and around 500 miles of trails that your dog can hike with you! It’ll keep the two of you going for a long time!
 

If you want a change of scene from the National Park, see here for Discover Front Royal’s full list of hiking locations in the Front Royal area. Most welcome pets, so you can enjoy mountains, forests, or the Shenandoah River along with your pup. Double check the pet policy of each individual location to make sure you fully understand any rules or guidelines that might apply to you and your pet. 
 

Breweries that Welcome You and Your Dog
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There’s nothing quite like relaxing with a beer and a burger after an outdoor adventure. Several of Front Royal’s breweries have outdoor dining where your dog is welcome to enjoy this part of the day with you too. The Front Royal Brewing Company is located right in Front Royal’s historic downtown, so you and your pet can enjoy a stroll on Main Street before or after your meal. For a more rural setting head out to the Backroom Brewery in Middletown, where you can enjoy your beer against the scenic backdrop of a working herb farm.
 

 
But beer isn’t the only brew you can find in the Front Royal area. To mix things up, check out one of Front Royal’s meaderies. Mead is an ancient beverage that’s been making a comeback, and Front Royal is a great place to try it out. Saga Meadery and Honey and Hops Brew Works both have seating to welcome you and your dog. The Vikings drank mead after their adventures. Maybe you should try it too!
 

Owning a dog is a big responsibility. Most dog-owners know the stress of trying to plan an excursion and making arrangements for a pet that you’re leaving behind. The good news is that if you’re heading to Front Royal, your four-legged friend can come right along with you. This is one destination where your favorite four-legged hiking buddy will fit right in. Start planning your pawfect adventure today!
 

Mead. In our world, beer and wine are more popular by far. However, if you consider the preferences of every human being who ever enjoyed a drink, mead might come out at the top. Mead is probably the world’s oldest alcoholic beverage. It was a staple in ancient cultures all over the world, and continued to be popular through medieval times. Today, mead is making a comeback after centuries of neglect. Want to know where you can try some? Check out a one of Front Royal’s recently opened meaderies!

​What is Mead?
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If you’ve read any ancient or medieval literature, you’ve probably come across at least a passing reference to mead. The word might conjure up images of fearsome warriors, or ancient banquet halls lit by candles and giant roaring fires. But what exactly were our ancestors drinking? A simple way to explain mead is to say that it’s “honey wine.” To make any kind of alcoholic beverage, you need some type of sugar to feed the yeast and produce alcohol. In wine, this sugar comes from grapes. In mead, it comes from honey.

The simplest form of mead is honey dissolved in water and fermented. In fact, mead is so simple, that it is believed to have originated by accident. According to Chinese tradition, mead was first discovered when rainwater fell into a pot of honey, allowing the fermentation process to begin. A lot has changed since these simple beginnings. Today, mead is available in a variety of styles and flavors. Like wine, it comes in dry, sweet, and even carbonated forms. Many meaderies also offer mead that has been flavored with herbs, spices, or fruit.

Mead’s two primary ingredients, honey and water, were widely available in the ancient and medieval world. This ease of access contributed to mead’s wild popularity. Wherever there was honey, there was mead. Ancient Chinese, Indians, Greeks, and Romans all drank mead. Celts and Saxons enjoyed it. The consumption of mead was deeply embedded in Viking culture, fortifying these fierce tribesmen for their warlike existence. And in medieval times, kings and commoners alike enjoyed the drink. It’s even mentioned in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.
 
Mead’s popularity decreased in the 17th century. As sugar from the West Indies arrived on the scene, the pursuit of beekeeping saw a decline. Meanwhile, as agriculture improved, the ingredients for beer and wine became more readily available. Mead gradually dropped out of common use. Before its recent surge in popularity, the drink was most commonly found at Renaissance festivals. Now, this favorite drink of the ancients is returning to modern menus.
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Mead as a Health Drink

The jury of modern science is still out on the health benefits of mead. But our ancient ancestors certainly believed that mead had healing properties. The ancient Greeks even referred to mead as the “drink of the gods,” because they associated it so strongly with immortality. The origin of the term “honeymoon” comes from mead, too. In many cultures, a newly-married couple received a month’s (one “moon’s”) supply of mead to begin their married life. It was believed that drinking the mead would increase fertility.

The idea the mead might be healthy isn’t just a superstitious tradition. Raw honey has antibacterial properties and other health benefits. The process of fermenting mead can add probiotic properties as well. When the ancients made medicinal mead, they also added healing herbs, which increased the benefits of the drink even further. Of course, depending on the methods used, modern, commercially brewed mead may not retain all these health benefits. But it’s still delicious.

Meaderies in Front Royal
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If you’re coming to the Front Royal area, and you’re curious to find out if you like mead as much as your ancestors did, there’s good news. Mead’s return has already reached Front Royal. Since 2018, three meaderies have opened up in the Front Royal area. And as of July 2020, two of those meaderies have brand new tasting rooms right in the town of Front Royal.

​Honey and Hops Brew Works opened for tasting in 2020. It’s a small business, co-owned by three brothers who hail from Alaska.

​SAGA Meadery began brewing meads in 2015, but also opened its first tasting room in Front Royal in July 2020. The business was inspired by the owner’s love of reading. As Kevin Poplaski read, he became curious to discover the drink that his favorite characters enjoyed. The result: SAGA Meadery.

​It’s Time to Give Mead Another Chance
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In recent years, mead drinking in the United States has seen incredible growth. More and more people are discovering a new love for an ancient drink. Want to see what’s behind all the buzz about this honey-based beverage? Now’s a great time at least to give mead a chance! Plan a tasting at one of Front Royal’s meaderies. You might discover a new taste that you share in common with your ancient ancestors!