Babe's Chicken Dinner House - Roanoke

Really nice, thoughtful and polite staff. BEST fried chicken EVER!!!

I have been ta two Babes locations but was encouraged to visit this, the original, location. It is nestled in the heart of Roanoke and is surrounded by several other restaurants on the ‘main’ street leading directly to City Hall. It is a quaint yet growing area. The decor is pretty cool and reminiscent of an open country barn with exposed rafters and all. In fact the space above houses quite a bit of history as it is used to commemorate employees with long tenures. At the five year mark, you get a placard with your name and years of service. They are placed on rafters facing the door. The rafter spaces with names facing away from the door are for employees with more than ten years of service. It’s pretty cool and our server Michelle had her own mentioning five years, and she is even a year past that now. It’s really nice to see a place that people want to work and stay, and where owners recognize the loyalty. The walls have playful sketches and the support posts are covered with old time intersection direction signs. The menu here is simple: fried chicken or chicken fried steak. Other locations have expanded their menu somewhat but here it is straight up simple. It is worth mentioning they do not even do the green beans here. No worries! We ordered both. The chicken fried steak was pretty good. The fried chicken batch I got seemed a little dry, especially the white meat. I hope this was just a slight over cook and won’t stop me from returning. The intro salad was ultra simple and appropriate so as to not overstuff you. The mashed potatoes were excellent and corn was just fine (plain coated with butter). We even went in for one refill of the mash! The service was great, Michelle was wonderful and informative, and everyone we encountered was extremely friendly. I do make it a point to notice bathrooms if I end up using it, and this place is on the high end of clean, giving you a positive feeling about the kitchen. Overall I’m glad I came to this location to see it, and enjoyed the dinner. I will continue to frequent their locations when given the chance. Parking: Parking is in a lot behind. It is sizeable but can get full fast. To Go parking is just to the side of the building and not crowded.

The food taste great and the service is also very good.

We have been to several of these. I was sad to learn this was the original. Not as many options as the others on both the protein and vegetables. We will always go to Babes when traveling with the grandchildren but probably not this particular one.

I’ve been coming here since I was a teen! By far the best chicken tenders and biscuits ever! I love that they say “y’all have a blessed day” and sweet things when we leave!