02/22/2026
Preacher’s Pick Here! This past week on our week one, Onion Ring Challenge, we visited Shaker’s, Corner Burger, and Gunny’s Tavern to try their onion rings. These are part of the top nine restaurants that you folks nominated for this challenge. All three of the places we visited this week serve great onion rings, although each is very different from the others. Look what we discovered and be sure to leave your comments! And follow our Preacher’s Pick FB page! Blessings!
Shaker’s - 3401 Candler’s Mountain Road, Lynchburg, VA
Price - $10.50 for an appetizer size. $6.00 if you add them as a side to your meal.
Onion Description - Thinly sliced, fresh-cut onions, that are flash-fried. It still holds most of it’s form, as it is not overcooked.
Coating – Hand breaded. Served with honey-mustard. They are just slightly oily, but not nearly as oily as the onion blossoms many steakhouses serve. The coating is also very similar to the batter on onion blossoms, however this batter seems to adhere somewhat better to the onions than it does on blossoms.
Quantity – The pic is of the $10.50 size appetizer order and it’s a LOT of onion rings. More details below.
Condiments – The onion rings are served with homemade honey mustard, which leans more toward a honey taste than a mustard taste. It’s slightly thin but tastes great with the onion rings.
Overall Taste – As stated earlier, just a tad bit oily but not too bad. They are just a tad salty, but once again, not as salty as the onion blossoms offered at steakhouses.
Observations – The amount of rings is the same, whether you order the $10.50 appetizer size, or the $6.00 side, to go with your meal. As you can see from the pic, this is a lot of onion rings to eat along with your burger, sandwich, or entrée. I would prefer a smaller amount when ordered as a side and then the added charge could be reduced to a price such at $3.00.
I would also like to see the onions sliced somewhat wider, as that would change the percentage of coating to onion, allowing more onion taste.
With all this being said, these are excellent onion rings and I highly recommend them!
Corner Burger - 1208 Perrowville Road, Forest, VA
Price – $3.00 if you order a side of Onion Rings. It’s $8.95 if you just get an appetizer order of onion rings,
Onion Description – The onions were sliced very thin, but not quite like onion straws. Most were not complete rings.
Coating – The hand breaded coating is like Shaker’s in that it resembles the batter on an onion blossom, served at steakhouses. However, this coating does not completely cover the onions fully. It’s also slightly more oily than Shaker’s, as you can see in the pic. It did have a good salt and pepper taste.
Quantity – The $8.95 order is about twice the size of a side order. This pic below is of a $3.00 side.
Condiments – The onion rings are served with Corner Sauce, which looks like honey mustard but is much more savory than honey mustard, or the sauce served at Shaker’s
Overall Taste – These rings had a good well-seasoned taste. They were a little oily, as you can see in the pic, but not too oily, at all.
Observations – If you look closely at the pic, you can see bits of batter that was cooked, not adhered to the onion. This is reminiscent of the fried fish trays that Long John Silver served that had bits of the cooked batter, (I think they called them “crispies”) beneath the fish. I would like to see these onion rings cut wider so you would get more onion taste with the batter.
They were very good and I do recommend them.
Gunny’s Tavern – 12130 E. Lynchburg Salem Turnpike Ste 3, Forest, VA
Price – $5.99 per order. $3.00 add on as a side. I ordered Chicken Tenders, which the menu said were $16.99 with fries, and it doesn’t look like they charged extra for the onion rings. The server told me that the online ordering is not functional since the business has recently changed hands, so I can’t go back and check it online.
Onion Description – The onions were sliced much more thicker than the other two restaurants.
Coating – This is a frozen product that they deep fry. They used to hand bread their beer battered onion rings on Fridays and Saturdays but are not doing that anymore. This coating was very good, but since the rings are a frozen product, the coating does tend to slip off when you bite into the onion.
Quantity – As you can seen in the pic, there is approximately 10 good sized onion rings in an order.
Condiments – The onion rings are served with Gunny sauce, which looks like Thousand Island dressing but is a lot more savory. It tastes like it is made with mayo, mustard, and some type of steak sauce, like Worcestershire sauce or A-1 Steak sauce. It also has lots of celery seeds and black pepper in it. The Gunny sauce is also slightly spicy. This stuff is addictive!! It was the best thing we tried all week! I’m sure it would be great on a burger. I actually tried to mimic the sauce in my kitchen.
Overall Taste – These onion rings have a great taste for a frozen product. There was a good onion to coating ratio, since they are cut wider.
Observations – If you are looking for basic onion rings, these are just fine. Of course, their sauce takes them over the top. It would be nice if they would bring back the homemade onion rings that they previously served. I’m sure they would be a hit, especially with that “kick’n Gunny Sauce!”
Final Thoughts – As I stated earlier, all three restaurants serve good onion rings. We really liked the seasoning of the Corner Burger onion rings. That Gunny’s sauce would even taste great on an old truck recap tire! However, the Preacher’s Pick for week one of our Onion Ring Challenge goes to Shaker’s for their hand breaded onion rings. These were not too oily, and they held their shape, as the coating clung to the onion, even when biting into it!
Watch for our week two recap next Sunday as we visit three more of the top nine restaurants that you folks nominated. Also, don’t forget to follow our Preacher’s Pick page!
