The Cavalier, Lynchburg
The “Cav,” as it is known to Lynchburgers, has been a fixture on Rivermont Avenue since the early 1940s. It first opened as a neighborhood grocery store where customers could also get a hot dog and drink a beer, says Wells Duffy, who bought the business 24 years ago and turned it into a full-service hamburger joint—strictly a cash operation. And serve it does, some of the best burgers and dogs, fries and classic American sandwiches you’ll find in the Lynchburg area. One reviewer on Yelp.com writes that the Cav “puts on no airs,” and adds: “If Cheers were set in Lynchburg it would be here.”
Duffy says he has customers who have been coming in since the day he set up shop. (The free beer he gives the first person to correctly answer the final question on Jeopardy every night doesn’t hurt.) But folks don’t need free beer to entice them to the slightly ramshackle eatery, where wooden tables and booths are covered with graffiti (nothing dirty, says Duffy) and walls are cluttered with rows of celebrity photos yellowing beneath cloudy glass. About five years ago the sign outside was in danger of falling onto the sidewalk, says Duffy, so he took it down. He never replaced it. Why? “There’s no need to,” he says. Everyone in Lynchburg already knows where to find the Cavalier.
2920 Rivermont Avenue, 434-845-3837
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