Rafferty’s Restaurant & Bar

Oh my goodness, easily one of my absolute favorite places. The food never disappoints. The servers are always SO nice and eager to serve. Since they added the buffalo mac n cheese, I crave it ALL the time! Before that, I loved the buffalo tenders meal. Their buffalo sauce is the best I’ve ever had. And the honey croissants… oh my goodness. Can’t say enough about this place. Wish I could eat there all the time!

They served me the wrong beer – not the one I ordered. I did drink ¹⁄₃ or so, waitress admitted it was not what I ordered; nevertheless wanted me to pay for it as I drank more than a sip. Food was OK at best. Will not return.

Looking for a sports bar and grill that’s family friendly, moderately priced and has sports on everywhere you turn then this is the place. There is an excellent menu of choices with their fish and steaks, as well as plenty of appetizers to boot. Very clean and we’ll taken care of by the staff. Want something to polish off the meal? Starbucks Coffee is just out the door. A perfect compliment any time. Don’t forget desert before you leave as they have a fine helping of the most sinful pies and ice creams. Although, the waitresses were a bit mild in humor, they made up with a gorgeous smile. An excellent choice for lunch or dinner. Did I mention they have an open bar and outside seating?

Very slow service, onions in everything even tho we specifically said no onions– little chopped onions in the salad. We’re hear waiting for a refill for 20 min an so ready to go. Will not be coming back. 2 star cause the salad came with a croissant roll, I also was not blown away with the steak.

Normally a big fan but my last trip was just not impressive. I ordered a ribeye mid rare, it had absolutely no flavor to it. I don’t see how this is possible being cooked on a chat grill, it’s as if they added no seasoning what’s so ever. My salad was good, but tough to go wrong with that. I think next time i will steak to my norm and go with the open-​faced prime rib sandwich, or the lasagna, both of which are delicious.

This was a favorite for years but now is poorly maintained (tables wobbly or falling off the walls) and the service is usually terrible! I go sometimes for a change and it is hit or miss.

This place puts other steakhouse’s to shame. Their Prime Rib steak is slap yo mama good. There are no skimpy steaks. The waitress are great and the salad is delicious.

This is a great little joint for watching some sports have a slew of hd tv’s, had a burger that was very good service was ok. Plenty of room all in all good stop.

This is really a nice little spot. As others have said, it’s not fancy but on par with Cheddar’s or O’Charley’s. Decent menu but not too huge.
Had the Chicken salad plate and the salad and fruit with orange dressing were great. My friend had a cheeseburger and liked it.
The croissants are amazing. Glad we also took some to go.
Best of all, excellent service. Our waiter was attentive, polite and timely. Would go back for that even if the food wasn’t as great as it is.
As noted, the music is weirdly loud — would be nice if they lowered it.

New to town and we were looking for a nice place to have dinner. Not like «white tablecloth» nice, but somewhere to sit and have cloth napkins. Rafferty’s is sort of a typical mid-​class steak spot with a couple of chicken and seafood options. I wouldn’t describe any of it as stellar. But the food was definitely acceptable and I believe the portion sizes were reasonable for the prices. We both did the «pick 2» option that comes with a side for $ 12.99. I had a pork chop and ribs with grilled asparagus and my bf had the pork chop and chicken tenders with mashed potatoes (which were excellent). The grilled meats were a little dry, and you could taste the charred flavor a lot, but it wasn’t awful.
Service was great. There was a short wait when we got there around 6p. But they seated us within 10 minutes. Atmosphere was nice with some smaller TVs in case someone wanted to catch a game. A little on the loud side, but conversation could still be held.
Overall, we’ll probably be back to give it another shot.

We’re new to the area and Rafferty’s has quickly become one of our favorite places to eat. Everything we’ve tried here has been great! The service is generally excellent despite the fact that the restaurant tends to be very busy.
We’ve tried a couple of other steakhouses in town, and the steaks and prime rib at Rafferty’s are the best. They know how to grill a steak perfectly.
By the way, the pricing category on Unilocal is shown incorrectly. The entrees aren’t in the $ 31-​$ 60 range. They have several entrees under $ 10, some steaks and prime rib in the $ 10 – 20 range, and just a few things over $ 20. So their winning combination is great food, very nice atmosphere and reasonable prices.
We did have one weird service incident yesterday when we took a family member who was visiting from out of town. About 10 minutes after we ordered, a waitress came to our table and started setting dishes down in front of us, calling out the names as she set them down. By the second dish, we realized that it was not our order and told the waitress so. We hadn’t touched the plates.
She picked the dishes up and took them over to the table next to us, where a white family was sitting. They threw a fit, called the manager over and said we’d eaten some of the food. They made the manager take away and replace the dishes that had been set on our table, and continued to raise a fuss until the manager gave them some extra goodies.
The manager, a tall, heavy-​set old white guy, audibly scowled at us and for the rest of our dinner kept walking by and throwing dirty looks at us. He made us feel most unwelcome. He did not see the original incident and had no way of knowing whether the complainers were right, but seemed the type of racist that just assumes the dark-​skinned people have behaved badly.
But everyone else here has been wonderful to us, and we love the food, so we won’t let one misinformed person ruin Rafferty’s for us.

My favorite place to eat steak away from the house. The classic marinated ribeye is a great choice as is the filet mignon. Kids like the chicken. Good olé boy cheese fries are awesome as well. Service is always top notch. Seems to be managed well. Give it a try.

I thought this was a good restaurant. It has all the food you would expect and is always pretty busy. We had great service for our party of 5! We also all ordered salads which were all good. The honeyed bread that comes with each salad is quite good!

I went here based on a review I read that said this place had good steak. And since I love steak, this place definitely got my interest.
Their steak tastes excellent. I also tried their chicken strips and fries while I was here, and was glad to see those were right up there with the steak.
They have an orange sauce that comes with the chicken strips that’s some kind of mix with honey mustard and some other sauce. It wasn’t bad with the chicken strips.
I ordered a steak cooked medium rare and it tasted perfect. Not overcooked at all and wasn’t so juicy that it messed up my other food items.
After dinner I made sure to try their dessert, to make sure I could write a good review you see? haha I ordered their «Apple Walnut Crunch». It’s made with «warm fresh baked apples with a hint of cinnamon and nutmeg with a crunchy crust. Topped with French vanilla ice cream and mixed nuts.»
The dessert tasted perfect. The apple slices were warm enough that, when I tried them with the ice cream, the temperature difference didn’t mess up my tongue.
On a side note, I sat at the bar since I was alone. Lucky for me, it was surrounded by tv’s with sports and news on. On the bar they had these mini-​speakers where you could crank up the volume from any tv at the bar. Pretty neat add on! It made enjoying my meal a lot more fun since It felt like I had the tv right there next to me when the tv itself was across the room.
Overall, I’d say this place is pretty good and I’ll definitely be a repeat customer from here on.

I eat here often after UGA games. This staff is super friendly and I always have a great experience. The food is delicious and they usually can you get seated pretty quickly. I love the wall of TVs as I usually want to catch up on other football games.

If your ever in Athens, you NEED to visit Rafferty’s! First off, you won’t find a better salad dressing than thieir Hot Bacon/​Honey Mustard. Its actually 2 dressings they have combined to create an explosion of decadent flavor. It can go on a side salad for an appetizer, or on the Chicken Finger Salad for an entrée. They also have 3 great steaks, and its hard to find a good cut in Georgia. I love the marinated ribeye! It’s marinated in a soy/​pineapple, so it has a sweetness that is divine! They also have a chicken salad that is to DIE-​FOR! Its called the Sunshine chicken sald. You can also get a soup/​chicken salad combo with their famous potato soup! OMG the soups is amazing! Why don’t we have potato soup in California? It’s topped with cheese & bacon! Yum. I can’t say enough about this place. The managers always come by to check on you, and the servers are really on their game here. Can’t wait to come back next time I’m in town. 5 Stars all the way!
–Go Dawgs!

Great Food. Upbeat atmosphere. Come early though, very busy for dinner. Some things you must try are the potato soup, salad w honey mustard/​hot bacon, backyard bbq burger.

I think my meal, chicken tender salad and their famous potato soup, actually deserve four stars. They were great. I gave them three however, as I felt like I had a hard time with their menu. The majority of the menu offered large portions of chicken, steak, and salmon. I wouldn’t have minded if they had more options with smaller portions of meat and a wider variety (perhaps a small steak with shrimp instead of their steak & tenders meal combo).

This is a warm and ftienly. Place to have lunch or dinner. You are greeted at the door with an enthusiastic welcome. Staff is accomodating and calls you by name after just a few visits.
The menu is complete and easy to understand and to read with adequate lighting. The selections are varied and presented well. The main course is not brought out prematurely and food temperature is appropriate. Dinner for my partner is never complete without a large serving of banna cream pie to share as it is always too much for one serving.
Pricing is fair and affordable. Service justifies generous gratuity.

Eating in the Athens area is hit-​or-​miss. This place was a pleasant surprise. Plenty of tv’s to watch (unless your with your wife/​girlfriend, of course) and the décor was decent. Wait staff was nice and the food was good. Will certainly go back when in town! (we got the ribs, potato soup which was a little peppery and the buffalo wings; all good!) Worth a visit.