Tavern At Old Sturbridge Village

This review is for the Holiday Feast that they serve during the Christmas by Candlelight events at Old Sturbridge Village. There are 3 seatings during the event: 4:15, 6:30 and 8 PM. When I made reservations the 6:30 seating was booked so we went with 4:15. Some impressions of the dining room: it is smaller than I expected and very dark. But I thought the candlelight and the fire roaring in the fireplace just added to the experience. There were also singers that came in during dinner for to add some entertainment.
When we arrived at our table there was a mixed greens salad and rolls. In addition to the rolls there were corn muffins and another item that I didn’t try but it looked like a pastry with nuts on it. When we were finished with the salad we went into another room to fill our plates with the buffet items. The offerings were what you’d expect for a traditional holiday meal: green beans, mashed potatoes (white and sweet), roasted squash. There was also a pasta dish with diced squash or sweet potatoes (it was orange) and poached salmon. In the main dining room there were carving stations with ham, prime rib, and roasted lamb. There was gravy, horseradish cream and mint jelly. Everyone agreed that the food was really good.
Desserts were at a separate station and among the offerings were chocolate cake, an apple crumble type thing, carrot and/​or spice cake, lemon poppy cake and a coffee cake with caramel. Among the 5 of us we tried nearly everything and it was all good. Not spectacular but good.
So the food wasn’t fantastic but it was very good for a buffet. I don’t usually like buffets because I feel they are overpriced for the quality of the food and we’re not big eaters so we don’t really make up for it in quantity. In this case the food was tasty but I thought the atmosphere and the overall experience made up for any small shortcomings in the food.

Nice place if you can ever figure out when they’re open. Hours change from season and seem almost random. Recommend calling first, but they frequently don’t answer the phone.

Located in the Old Sturbridge Village, the Tavern is a cafeteria serving soups, salads and sandwiches. While not spectacular, its good and very reasonable, so don’t bother leaving the village to find food.