We made a big mistake when we stopped by Beer Run late afternoon on Christmas Eve to chat with co-owner and daily operations guy John Woodriff. We were interested in checking out the place now that it has been open for a few weeks and finding out from Woodriff how things were going at this Carlton Road beer, wine and cheese store/café/bar/sandwich shop/all-things-to-all-people place. Because, personally speaking, Restaurantarama had already stocked up with holiday necessities—wine, the fixings for seven-layer cookies, wine, dinner rolls, wine, cheese for the cheese ball, wine—we assumed Beer Run would be quiet and slow and that we’d have plenty of time to converse with Woodriff. Boy, were we caught by surprise when we discovered the place was hopping at 3:30pm. There were shoppers perusing the store’s beer and organic wine selections, several folks chatting loudly in the café seating area and a half a dozen patrons bellied up to bar. All of them were keeping Woodriff on his toes ringing people up, bringing second and third rounds of drinks and taking sandwich orders. He was way too busy to speak with us, and from the looks of Woodriff’s harried face, the pace had been similarly hectic all day.
One thing at a time: Co-owner John Woodriff readies some beer for selling in his beer, wine and cheese store/café/bar/sandwich shop/all-things-to-all-people place, Beer Run. |
That’s O.K. The hustle and bustle spoke volumes about how this business is faring. And observing the light-filled and airy space—more bright and cheery coffeehouse than seedy saloon despite the impressive 14 beers on tap—we could easily see how folks could be encouraged to guiltlessly throw a few back well before 5pm on a weekday, especially on a day when they should have been home getting annoyed with relatives like the rest of us.
The cupcake condition
In a 2006 Time magazine article, Joel Stein said, "Our society’s twisting of the cupcake’s role has become a sickness." He was referring to the nation’s growing obsession with specialty cupcake boutiques such as Sprinkles, the Beverly Hills-based shop-gone-global-chain, and Magnolia, the Greenwich Village-based cupcake bakery made famous on "Sex and the City." Stein lamented that Americans’ preoccupation with cupcakes was obfuscating the market for more time and skill-intensive baked goods —like canelés, for instance. Well, for one, Mr. Stein, we don’t even know how to pronounce canelés, but two, we don’t really care if cupcakes are the comfort food simpletons of the dessert world. If cupcake love is an illness, then we’ve got a bad case. And apparently, so do you, dear readers. It’s only been a few weeks since a new local cupcake venture called Cupcakes & Co. has been supplying from-scratch goodies to local gourmet food shop Feast!, and already the things have been selling, like, well, hotcakes and getting lots of local blog buzz on cvillain.com.
Restaurantarama is partial to the Dark Chocolate Cake with White Chocolate Cream Filling and Dark Chocolate Frosting, which is like a gourmet riff on the Hostess cupcake, but all of the six current flavors available at Feast!—Almond Cake with Almond Buttercream Frosting and Red Velvet Cake with Vanilla Cream Frosting, for instance—are deliciously moist morsels made from high-quality ingredients. There’s really no comparison to the mass-produced grocery store junk that your mom brought to your third grade birthday party at the roller rink—except, of course, for the childlike glee you feel when you peel away that little paper wrapper.
The two local women behind the cakes currently are supplying Feast! with 12-15 dozen a week, and all of it’s made out of one of the pair’s—UVA grad Kieran Matthews—tiny home kitchen. So may we soon expect a Cupcakes & Co. storefront to fulfill our ultimate this-ain’t-LA-or-NYC-but-we-have-decent-sushi-and-a-cupcake-boutique-so-it-might-as-well-be fantasy? The two aren’t making any promises about that just yet, but Matthews says, "We have 20 other flavors that are available for special orders and that we hope to introduce in the near future." And the two say to look for Cupcakes & Co. fare to make appearances at other local retailers.
Got some restaurant scoop? Send tips to restaurantarama@c-ville.com or call 817-2749, Ext. 48.
