Before we can begin this review, I need you to imagine a little drummer boy beating in the distance – we’re in Gettysburg, July, 1863. Fear mounts at the loudening of each beat – a wave of chaos incoming. Except now it’s 2026, late April, and my wife and I are coming home from a beach trip. We need food, and the less horrifying, loudening beat is my bladder, beating away to an impending explosion. We pass through the battlegrounds on the south end of town. “Could I pee there?” I wonder. “Nah that’s disrespectful…” “But the soldiers must’ve been peeing all over the place.” My wife added. 

We turn right onto Rt. 15 as hope wanes that I’ll make it. To our left is a historic stone home with a single story wing to the right with three cute dormers. “I think I’ve eaten there” I said to my wife. “Google Maps says they have good French onion soup.” She responded. Apparently my wife had found the place already, and It’s got to be my only hope, so I pulled in behind a big tour bus. “Is that bus gonna fit?” She joked. “Yeah, look at the bus parking sign.” We were both impressed. 

I clenched all the pertinent muscles as we approached the front door, behind a patient couple moseying inside to the hostess. There was a gift shop to the right and ahead, a – RESTROOM! I bolted in, assuming my wife would fetch us a table. Upon exiting, I was a new man, and it appeared the tour bus has unloaded, as the foyer had now quadrupled with geriatric folks. “Come follow me,” a young hostess immediately motioned us from a small doorway. My wife followed and gave me a shrugged look as I was swept into the current of people, through the small corridor and down into the basement. “I surely was never here” I thought. 

The servers wore stockings and colonial garb, weaving around wooden tables lit with real candles that reflected off stone walls and real timbers. No music echoed, just dining and chatter. We sat down to find the little wooden table had a significant wobble. “How authentic!” My wife exclaimed. A wedge on the floor was separated from his occupation so I reemployed him under the wooden leg. Shaun, our server in stockings, introduced himself by now, served our waters, and told me my root beer would be bottled — Dobbins branded. Fanciful. 

Dobbins Tavern, by this point has fully transported us to an earlier America, and we can’t escape a timeswept giddiness. “The fresh catch of the day is Mahi Mahi…” Shaun explains the specials, before I order a beef sandwich and my wife the renowned French onion soup. 

“Does that come with fries?” I ask. “No sir, we do not have fryers.” 

This place really was authentic. Bottled root beer, candlelit tables, no fryers, knee high stockings. Yes there were a few recessed lights, some potentially even LED, and the “fresh catch” I kept hearing from the servers surely didn’t come from the Susquehanna, but I suppose they have to draw a line somewhere. But you could convince me the place didn’t look much different when it was built by Alexander Dobbins in 1776. 

The food was delightful. My beef sandwich — a dream. And the french onion soup wasn’t as “chokey” as other French onion soups. “it had that cheesy gooeyness — without being chokeble.” “And the beef was a pleasant surprise”, she added. The baked potato, we shared  — also very good. We ended the meal with a hot fudge Sundae. Freezers probably came over on the mayflower. And the sundae as well, was very very good. We watched our candle near the end of its wax. The same sight, some drunken lad 160 years ago, would have ended his night with, except him with the thoughts of potential war. The Dobbins Tavern has great food and drinks, like many places do, but I think the specialness of Dobbins is feeling like that food and drink is being served in the foundations of America.