There are a variety of really great restaurants in Roanoke, and we’ve been to a couple of them. And we are learning steadily about the tasty local places out here at the lake.

Luckily for us, our home is right down the street from one of Smith Mountain Lake’s newest dining establishments: Napoli Cowboy. It resides in a building with a long history, first as a school, then a grocery store/family restaurant, and a sports bar. It now bills itself as the place “where the tastes of Italy and Texas collide.”

We moved here in the height of the summer season, and you couldn’t miss the crowds in the parking lot. Jim and I waited for the summer crowd (and our vegan-leaning daughter) to move along to fall destinations before we made our way in, and we’ve been back a number of times to enjoy beer, pasta, pizza, salads, and seafood. It’s hard to want to check out the other establishments in town when this one is within two miles of our house, but it is certainly easy to support this local treat.