It's pronounced Nor-fik but the sailors call it Sh*t City

[letsgiveacheer]

I hope some of you are making the trip to my hometown, Norfolk ,for the game with ODU.  In 1971, when I left Norfolk for Denton, NTSU was playing big boy football while ODU was in D-2, no football team, and their big basketball nemesis was the  Philadelphia Textile Institute Weavers.  Anyway, here we are.

If you have not made any hotel reservations, I recommend you stay in the downtown area which is a very short drive to ODU.  All the big chain hotels are there but my favorite is the Hilton, noteworthy for their rooftop bar and .50 local oysters at happy hour. There are plenty of restaurants, clubs, and bars nearby.  When hailing a cab, do not expect to find a hooker already inside, offering a little something extra during your ride. For better or worse, the old Norfolk is nothing like the new.

 

There is much to see and do besides going to the game; Waterside, Nautilus featuring the battleship Wisconsin, you can take a harbor tour, or walk around historic Ghent. For a city that is so old, you will not find many colonial buildings as the city has been burnt down twice, once by the British and the second time was an accident.

 

A day before or after the game, you may want to visit Williamsburg, Jamestown, and Yorktown, all about an hour away but allow for heavy traffic crossing the bridge. 

 

This is a bit strange for me.  In my day, Norfolk had four high schools and two of them played their home games at Foreman Field. Many memories there!

Edited November 1, 2018 by letsgiveacheer

[untcampbell]

Got a recommendation for a good breakfast for lunch diner near the stadium? Thanks,

GMG

[NorthTexan95]

Unfortunately, CUSA decided to wait until AFTER I moved back to Texas before scheduling us to go to ODU.  

[EagleMBA]

🙂

Thanks for the good info in this thread. Please, no offense, but the title brought back to mind the punchline of an old joke. Seems that this guy was getting cozy with his girlfriend in one of the sleeping cars of a passenger train headed up the East Coast. A a critical moment, the Conductor walked through the compartment announcing "Norfolk Virginia...Norfolk Virginia!".

Sorry.

[letsgiveacheer]

3 hours ago, untcampbell said:

Got a recommendation for a good breakfast for lunch diner near the stadium? Thanks,

GMG

I'm afraid I am not much help here. I have some rental properties in Norfolk but no longer have any close family there, at least those that are still vertical.  I get there about four time a year but always go to my favorite places, none of which are near ODU.  I can say that that neighborhood does not have much to offer other than the typical joints that cater to students. About two miles away, there is Colley Ave which has a good number of restaurants clustered nearby each other. You may want to look at Yelp for some ideas.

But, I will say you and everyone else has to visit  Doumars, a Norfolk drive-in dating from 1904 that also invented the ice cream cone. It is not so far from ODU, maybe three or four miles.  https://www.doumars.com/

UPDATE: I put this questions to some old Norfolk friends and one, a state judge,  responded in great detail: 

I have several recommendations from Colley to downtown. There are a number of places on Colley north of the Ghent area that have popped up in the last five years. Look at Chow (southern food--reasonable price), LeGrand Kitchen (French, very small, expensive), Cogan's Pizza (the obvious, nice open air upstairs deck, better than University Pizza, also in this area), Hank's Filling Station (southern served at a counter, more focused on beer and whiskey, also counter ordered, and if the weather is nice, maybe the place to go as the back outdoor area is best described as a backyard party area with it's own counter for ordering drinks but not food), Nouvelle (I haven't been there but lots of good things said by friends), and Dirty Buffalo (local wings and sports bar). Mack's Barge, in the old O'Sullivan's location will look tempting because it's on an inlet of the Lafayette River looking over Colonial Place. If you stick to drinks and the deck overlooking the inlet, fine, but the food is pretty poor. In Ghent, Luna Maya (Peruvian, moderate price), Green Onion (mixed menu, a little expensive), Kelly's (long time burger choice, small but an outdoor area), Public House (gastropub, if there's a favorite bar for Eastern Virginia Medical School, this is it). Downtown, Saltine in the Hilton is pretty good, especially for drinks and oysters, but expensive. The outdoor decks at Grain at the Hilton are great for drinks if the weather is nice. Close to MacArthur Mall, Chartreuse Bistro, matching LeGrand for best food on this list and similarly small and expensive. Gershwin's, up Granby, near TCC, with a mashup menu and moderate prices plus the occasional singer/pianist doing classic American standards. On Granby closer to Scope, both 456 Fish and Leone's, owned by the same people. Seafood at the first, Italian at the second with an upstairs open air deck.

 

Edited November 1, 2018 by letsgiveacheer

[Christopher Walker]

 

[97and03]

Peacock and I will be there +4. 

[SSAACOIC]

I spent the last 6 years of my Navy career in Norfolk and hated just about every nanosecond of it. That said, I am more of a PacFleet kind of guy. It’s been almost 20 years, so I’m useless for current recommendations, but if you go to the neighborhood called Ghent (I think Colley Ave is the main drag) you should find tons of good food and drink. And it’s close to ODU. Just don’t let the locals irritate you with their superior attitude.

[jacksondf]

There is a very nice Hilton Garden Inn downtown.   The best part of it is that Keagan’s Irish Pub is right next door.   It’s a lot of fun.  

[All About UNT]

21 hours ago, jacksondf said:

There is a very nice Hilton Garden Inn downtown.   The best part of it is that Keagan’s Irish Pub is right next door.   It’s a lot of fun.  

That is not downtown. That is downtown Virginia Beach which isn't really a thing at all and it's the least sexy part of Hampton Roads outside of Portsmouth. But there is a true Irish pub downtown Norfolk. there used to be a place called Mo and O'Malley's and it looks like it closed down not too long ago.  Looks like there is an O'Malley's downtown so it might be similar to the old place. They seemingly always had Irish musicians playing on the weekends and I fondly remember large crowds singing along to these songs and at any moment the musician would stop and whoever you heard continue singing had to drink their entire drink before he would play again.

 

Also note that at least when I was there ODU had zero scene whatsoever (early 2000s). That might have changed but something tells me it hasn't