My older brother was bit by Grandma’s dog at the age of 2 and nearly lost his eye, so the story goes. Possibly even more exaggerated in family lore is the fact that the doctor had my mother physically barred from the hospital room while he sewed my brother’s eyelid back together. Dad was allowed in to suppress his son, who was being stitched sans anesthetic—so the story continues. Mom, though, was deemed emotionally unfit to be present. That part, I don’t doubt.
As a kid, this bit of family history (or histrionics) traumatized me—imagining undergoing a medical procedure without my mom’s hand to hold. But as a mother myself, the episode has become almost unbearable to consider.
In addition to my weak bladder, lingering paunch, and inexplicably larger shoe size, I’ve realized yet another chronic condition of childbearing: the emotional fortitude of, well, my mother! I’m like a spigot, gushing at every joy (“wuv you mama”), every sadness (“She doesn’t want to play with me”), and every bittersweet milestone (“No more training wheels!”).
Where once were nerves of typical tenacity, now live the flabby, stretchmarked remnants left by the toll of two kids who stamp on my soft, squishy core in myriad ways every day.
It’s something I’m trying to work on —to steel myself like a magnolia for the emotional mother lodes to come, but it’s a constant battle against the onslaught.
Shots and other doctor-ly business All kids, even infants, have this look that can slay you. It says, “Mommy, why are you letting them hurt me?” It’s like being stabbed in the gut and then forced to watch a baby seal get clubbed over and over. Or having your toddler’s anguish during the diagnostic procedure for a kidney infection tattooed on your frontal lob for eternity. I will never un-see or un-hear that.
The first day of [school]
Whether it’s a preschooler who cries at drop-off, or, as I can imagine, a young coed who walks confidently into her freshman dorm and doesn’t look back —schoolyard scenes tear a mother up. I watched my own blubber the entire car ride home after depositing my brother at college. The entire—seven-hour!—car ride home. I have those genes. I’m doomed.
Friendship/love woes I never knew I had it in me to picture ripping the face off somebody else’s 4-year-old, but that’s exactly what I did the first time my daughter complained that this other child told her, “I don’t want to be your friend.” And I’m still years away from middle school. Doomed!
The “I don’t need yous,” “I don’t like yous,” and “Please go aways” Even the tiniest tykes can gut you with rejection—and I haven’t yet reached the stage of having doors slammed in my face or overhearing one of them call me the B-word to her friends. The worst so far was the “Daddy phase,” but she might as well have yanked out my still-beating heart kung fu-style the first time the younger one picked him over me for night-night reading.
Then there are the daily, happy moments—catching two sisters in an impromptu embrace; finding a crayoned family portrait crumpled at the bottom of the lunchbox; the jump for joy into my arms at pick-up time—that do me in.
One day soon, my lack of composure will be a source of embarrassment to my children—and that will break my heart.
The Rivanna Solid Waste Authority is at a crossroads. The joint agency was set up 22 years ago to oversee trash disposal and recycling in Charlottesville and Albemarle, but because of heavy competition among private haulers and a steady decrease in trash tonnage, the RSWA’s transfer facility in Ivy can no longer pay for itself. Now county staff and elected officials say they’re done propping it up.
“The county is saying right now that it’s time to reinvent the Authority,” said RSWA board member and Albemarle County Director of Neighborhood Development Mark Graham.
A consultant hired by Albemarle recommended the county look at finding a private partner instead of continuing to fund the RSWA’s transfer facility at the Ivy Materials Utilization Center, which charges a fee to allow local haulers to collect and then reload garbage before trucking it out of the area. Draper Aden Associates suggested the RSWA give up on running a transfer station at all, because the aging facility has been operating under capacity and at a loss—and the financial pressure has mounted for Albemarle since the City of Charlottesville opted to back out of what was a three-way agreement. County Supervisor Ken Boyd, who also sits on the RSWA board, said the costs for the county are soon expected to rise to more than $600,000 annually.
Instead, county staff said, the best option would be to make the Ivy facility a “convenience center,” where residents can pay by the load to dump things like yard waste and appliances.
But such a reinvention would mean a major scaling back for the RSWA, which currently spends $1.25 million a year to run the transfer facility. Boyd acknowledged that might mean some of the Authority’s 13 employees would no longer be needed. But private companies are doing the same work more efficiently, he said.
“The county would prefer not to be in the trash business,” he said.
The immediate task at hand for the RSWA is deciding whether to renew its contract with Waste Management, which currently enjoys deeply discounted tipping fees at the Ivy facility. Draper Aden suggested dumping that deal, whether the board decides to scrap the transfer facility or not. The contract renewal deadline is December 31, and the board has called a special meeting December 18 to make a decision.
But there will likely be a lot of discussion about the future of the Authority as a whole, too. Boyd and Graham said the county wants to hear from RSWA Executive Director Tom Frederick whether he believes the Authority can run the Ivy facility as a self-supporting operation. If not, it’s time to look at other options, they said.
“We’re considering their request in light of what we feel we can offer, while making sure we can maintain high quality of customer service,” Frederick said. “It’s complicated, but we’re working through those issues, and we hope to have a proposal on December 18.”
Ultimately, though, the RSWA’s services have to line up with what its municipal partners want. “If the county were not to extend a new contract with us, more than likely the Ivy facility will close,” Frederick said.
"Haunted House" by Valero Doval at The Haven. Image courtesy of the artist.
First Friday is a monthly art event featuring exhibit openings at many Downtown art galleries and additional exhibition venues. Several spaces offer receptions. Listings are compiled in collaboration with Piedmont Council for the Arts. To list an exhibit, please send information two weeks before opening to arts@c-ville.com.
First Friday exhibitions: December 7
BozArt Gallery 211 W. Main St. Annual All-Members Show. 5-7pm.
Café Cubano 112 W. Main St. Paintings by Robin Hoffman. 5-7pm.
City Clay 301 W. Main St. “Tis the Season” features work by local potters and wheel demonstrations. 5-7:30pm
Chroma Projects 201 Second St. NW. “Alchemy,” a collaborative series by Pam Black and Lauren Taylor with Todd Leback in the Front Gallery, “Mnemonic Devices” by Kim Boggs in the Passage Gallery, and “A Study,” an installation by Corry Blancin the Black Box Gallery. 5:30-7:30pm.
CitySpace Gallery 100 Fifth St. NE. Quilts made by the Crescent Hall Quilters. 5:30-7pm
C’Ville Arts 118 E. Main St. “Happiness, Love, and Wisdom” features clay sculptures by Tanya Tyree. 6-8pm.
FIREFISH Gallery 108 Second St. SW. “The Animal Series,” oil paintings by Sigrid Eilertson, “Glass.Metal.Fire.,” cloisonne jewelry by Charlene Cross, and “C’ville Vargas Girls: A Pin-Up Project for Brain Cancer.” 5:30-8pm.
The Haven 112 W. Market St. “There’s No Place Like Home,” an art auction to benefit this day shelter for the homeless. Plus, open artist studios and a pop-up shop of homemade goods. 5:30-8pm.
The Honeycomb 310 E. Market St. “Deep Shadows,” enamel paintings on wood by Elliott Downs. 5-9pm.
Java Dragon Coffee House 923 Preston Ave. Works by Janet Pearlman as well as other local artists. 5-7pm.
Second Street Gallery 418 E. Main St. “…And Justice for Mall of America,” an installation by Brent Birnbaum in the Main Gallery and “Piñata” a video installation by students from Light House Studio in the Dové Gallery. 5:30-7:30pm. Artist talk at 6:30pm.
Studio Baboo 321 E. Main St. Box assemblages by Deborah Rose Guterbock, sequential illustrations by A.I. Miller, and paintings by Rhonda Raban. 3-7pm.
South Street Brewery 106 W. South St. (upstairs offices) Paintings and etchings by Tom Tartaglino. Artist reception reception 5:30-8:30pm.
Warm Springs Gallery 103 Third St. NE. “Museum Studies” featuring paintings by Bradley Stevens. 6-8pm.
WriterHouse 508 Dale Ave. “Live in Possibility,” abstract paintings by Judy Longley. 5:30-7:30pm.
OTHER EXHIBITS
Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society 200 Second St. “1962 Time Capsule” and “Queen Charlotte,” as part of the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society’s collaboration with Celebrate!250.
Cavalier Inn 105 N. Emmet St. “Charlottesville’s Streetcar Railways” and “The Wealth of Theaters,” as part of the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society’s collaboration with Celebrate!250.
Cityspace 100 Fifth St., NE “Charlottesville Maps,” as part of the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society’s collaboration with Celebrate!250.
City Hall Lobby 605 E. Main St. “The City’s Public Schools,” as part of the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society’s collaboration with Celebrate!250.
Coca-Cola Bottling Works LAB 134 10th St. “Mi Ossa: Made by Hand in Haiti and Virginia,” local artist Clay Witt uses sustainable and recycled fair trade materials from Haiti to create unique jewelry and leather accessories.
Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection 400 Worrell Dr. “What They Wanted,” an exhibition by Melbourne-based artist Yhonnie Scarce.
Mudhouse 213 W. Main St. “Serpents,” a small series of paintings by Sharon Shapiro.
Over the Moon Bookstore 5798 Three Notch’d Rd., Crozet. “Fury’s Hallowed Trace,” featuring photographs by Bill Mauzy.
Speak! Language Center 313 Second St. SE, Suite 109. Rick Weaver’s watercolors of the plazzas and marketplace scenes of Cortona, Italy in the front space and Jennifer Byrne’s black and white photographic studies of Italian architecture in the main room. A collaboration with Chroma Projects Art Laboratory.
UVA’s Fralin Museum of Art 155 Rugby Rd. “Ancient Masters in Modern Styles: Chinese ink paintings from the 16th-21st centuries,” “Jean Hélion: Reality and Abstraction,” “Making Science Visible: The Photography of Berenice Abbott,” and “The Valley of the Shadow: American Landscape in the time of the Civil War.”
Visitor’s Center 610 E. Main St. “Charlottesville Mosaic: A City of Neighborhoods,” as part of the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society’s cooperation with Celebrate!250.
Check out PCA’s Google Map of local galleries and cultural hotspots to plan your visit.
Relay Foods founder and CEO Zach Buckner. Photo: John Robinson
Zach Buckner was on his hands and knees in the crawlspace under his house with a tool belt and the wrong type of screws in his hands when the original idea for Relay Foods was born in 2007. He’d already made several trips to Lowe’s that weekend, and had no desire to make another hour-long drive for $4 worth of hardware. His solution? The serial entrepreneur created Retail Relay, an online hub and delivery system for everything from sheet metal screws and toilet paper to produce and handmade belts.
“It’s a totally irrational thing to do,” he said. “The odds are against startups.”
After months of test runs in his dining room with one employee and a rented delivery van, Buckner narrowed his market to a product with higher value density and return purchase rate: groceries. In 2010 Retail Relay became Relay Foods, a startup business that allows shoppers to buy groceries online from dozens of local vendors —it’s a grocery delivery service with a twist. The concept is based on a model that failed elsewhere over and over, so the founders came up with a new solution: Cut out the last mile of delivery, and let the customers come to them. Now, after the company bought Arganica Farms Club and became the largest online food marketplace in the Mid-Atlantic, Relay delivers 25 truckloads of groceries each week, employs about 70 people across five cities, and is currently hiring.
Attempts at online grocery businesses have failed all over the country. It’s particularly hard to make the model work in the suburbs. Going door-to-door in areas like greater Charlottesville, where homes are more spread out than metropolitan cities, isn’t sustainable with gas prices as high as they are. That’s where the “relay” concept comes in.
The Relay Foods distribution center on Carlton Avenue is always bustling with employees sorting groceries, packing and checking individual totes, and loading the trucks for drops and deliveries. Photo: John Robinson
Relay employees make regular trips to local vendors and stores, which range from Whole Foods and Foods of All Nations to AnnaB’s Gluten Free Bakery in Richmond and the Cheese Shop in Afton. They then sort thousands of groceries into row upon row of Rubbermaid totes at the distribution center on Carlton Avenue and load them onto one of 15 trucks. Shoppers can pick up their groceries at any of the 22 drop locations, which are scattered across the city and surrounding counties as far as Afton and Lake Monticello.
“They’re positioned so you don’t have to drive to them,” Buckner said. “You’re driving by that spot anyway, so it’s like we’re passing the baton to you for the final leg of the relay.”
Marc Levinson, author of The Great A&P and the Struggle for Small Businesses in America, has spent years studying the history and economics of grocery stores. He said historians have paid far too little attention to the economic impact of changes in grocery distribution. The industry shifted to big box stores after World War II, and he said he expects more changes in the near future.
“We’ll see a very different business model,” he said. “Everyone will be trying to integrate their physical presence with their online presence.”
Levinson said he thinks the 100,000 square foot grocery stores and the mom and pop local shops can coexist, but there’s no telling for how long.
“Clearly there are still plenty of people who show up at the big box stores. That being said, there aren’t so many being built anymore, and a lot of them are too big and being subdivided,” he said. “I think all retailers in general are searching for an answer.”
The guys at Relay believe they’ve found the answer.
Grocery gurus
A born entrepreneur, Buckner started out selling flowers and opening a computer sales business as a kid. Now a father of four, the UVA graduate has a master’s degree in electrical engineering and five patents. He’s also founded VCMentor.com and Data Mining Advisors, online consulting companies.
Shortly after starting Retail Relay, Buckner met Arnie Katz, an Israeli food lover who, after helping out for a summer and tossing around ideas, became co-founder of Relay Foods.
Katz spent most of his life on a kibbutz in Israel, where fresh, homegrown food was the only option. As the son of a farmer, he grew up eating fruits and vegetables straight from the ground and drinking milk from a cow he could see from his kitchen window. When he came to the U.S. to attend UVA’s Darden School of Business about five years ago, he said he had no idea where his food was coming from and couldn’t get used to the flavors. He met Buckner in 2009 when Relay consisted of one truck and three delivery runs per week, and instead of taking a job with the Boston Consulting Group, he opted to work for Relay with no pay for almost a year. He said he’d hoped to see a successful online grocery model since the 1990s, and was thrilled to join the team.
“I fell in love with the company,” he said. “The tastes from my childhood started coming back.”
Buckner and Katz said they embraced the mistakes made in previous models like Webvan, the online grocery business that went bankrupt in 2001. After three years, Relay Foods is growing, and the executives at Relay don’t plan to rest until the service is available coast to coast.
John Whiteside of Wolf Creek Farm has his local, grass-fed beef distributed through Relay Foods, and says it helps him reach an entirely new customer base. Photo courtesy Relay Foods
Vendors are thrilled at the opportunity to reach an entire customer base they never had access to before, and city folk can try out products like Wolf Creek Farm’s beef without traveling to Madison.
Expanding was an easy decision for the Relay executives. Delivery trucks started making the trek down I-64 to Richmond in 2010, and the online market opened up to D.C. area customers two years later when Relay acquired Virginia-based Arganica Farms Club.
According to Buckner, the company is on the verge of even more expansions. Executives are preparing to close on a round of investments that will enhance and extend Relay’s service across all markets. A new version of its website—including mobile and tablet versions—is in the making, he said, and things like fresh, wholesome lunch bento boxes and juicing kits are on the way.
“We started from zero, and our goal is to be a national company,” said Senior Vice President Kevin Kurzendoefer. “We’ve grown triple digits in sales every year, and we now have delivery trucks operating every day.”
Watching the bottom line
Kurzendoefer joined Buckner and Katz in 2010 with an MBA and seven years of experience working at Kroger as everything from bagboy to logistics project manager.
“For me it was less about local food, and more about not going to a grocery store,” he said.
Now that he’s been with Relay for two years, he said he and his wife are much more conscious of healthy, local eating. But he came on board with an interest in getting food from point A to point B as efficiently as possible, and an understanding that cutting out the middleman was going to make grocery shopping easier for everyone.
The scattered drop-off locations save customers the hassle of driving all over town for the perfect assortment of local groceries, Kurzendoefer said. And especially for those who used to travel from Rebecca’s Natural Food for NoBull Burgers to Chandler’s Bakery for a loaf of pumpkin bread, the free pickups save gas and time.
Gas money aside, Kurzendoefer said customers can actually save on weekly grocery bills using Relay because it’s easier to keep track of the cost.
“Every one of us has had sticker shock in the grocery checkout line,” he said. “But when you do it online, it tallies everything for you.”
Skeptics of the company may have a hard time allowing strangers to pick out ingredients for the meals they’re feeding their families. But Kurzendoefer said the concept of someone else selecting your food is nothing new.
“For as long as people have been going to a grocery store, people have also been going out to eat,” he said. “If you order a steak meal from a restaurant, you don’t know where the cow comes from. You don’t know how the potatoes are prepared. You trust that chef to pick out the best food and prepare it exactly how you would like.”
And for produce lovers with trust issues, who have to find the perfectly un-bruised apples and the right consistency avocados every time, Katz added that Relay’s process actually ensures that as few people handle the fruit and vegetables as possible.
“Most of the waste from a grocery store comes from the fact that people are picking things up, squishing them,” Katz said. “That’s about 20 percent waste. Imagine 20 percent of the milk in the grocery store gets thrown away every day.”
Katz said it’s pretty simple why Relay is the best option for groceries.
“It’s good for the consumer because the prices are better, and it’s good for the environment,” he said. “It’s just good for everyone.”
John Whiteside of Wolf Creek Farm, a grass-fed natural beef producer in Madison, said he’s always loved the outdoors and valued local food. He spent his early adult years in corporate America, using his degrees in geophysics and business from Yale and Harvard to pursue a career with IBM Global Network. Whiteside found himself in Virginia in the 1980s, and has since devoted his life to raising antibiotic-free, grass-fed cattle.
Buckner approached Whiteside while the concept of Relay was still coming together, and wanted to know what he thought as both a farmer and a businessman.
“I thought the idea was pretty encouraging,” Whiteside said. “The consumer base is very well educated about the local food movement, and the technology allows people to go back to a more personal relationship with whoever’s making their food.”
Whiteside believed the model could work, but said he saw three huge risks on his end: time, money, and branding.
Teaching the founders about his farm alone took up a tremendous amount of time, he said, but it was essential for a successful business relationship.
“I had to educate them on the dimensions of my business,” he said. “For example, it takes two years for me to get an animal to harvest weight. There’s lots of planning, figuring out the demand.”
Financially, entering the partnership was a huge risk for Whiteside. Relay didn’t yet have the capital to buy the beef wholesale and resell it, so Whiteside essentially put his product out on consignment, without a guaranteed sale.
Whiteside had been in the local food market for years and had a loyal following of customers who had high expectations for the beef. Factors like freezer temperatures at the distribution center and inventory dates could affect the meat’s quality, potentially tainting the farm’s reputation with damaged goods.
“We confronted those risks head-on,” Whiteside said. “We’ve had an open flow of communication, and it was absolutely worth it. My customers love it.”
Relay Foods doesn’t change what farmers do. Whiteside said he is still responsible for educating his customers through farmers’ markets and tours. But once consumers know what they’re looking for, he said, Relay is a “tremendous distribution mechanism” that allows shoppers to get everything in one place.
Culture of innovation
The company’s founders are young—both in their 30s—and their efforts to give even those in entry-level positions a voice in the startup has made it an attractive place for many recent college graduates.
Pickup locations scattered throughout the city and surrounding counties are friendly and less hectic than the lines at grocery store checkouts. Photo: John Robinson
In addition to flexible work hours and competitive benefits, Buckner said educated young people in the area are naturally attracted to an innovative, technological company that is growing so quickly. With recent expansions and more on the horizon, employees in their 20s who started out as drivers are taking on more leadership roles.
UVA graduate Brandon Cline has a bachelor’s degree in systems engineering, and started working for Relay just over a year ago.
“We wear a lot of hats around there, which can be a challenge,” he said.
His responsibilities include delivering food door-to-door on morning routes, sorting and loading hundreds of totes at the distribution center, and doing evening drives and drop-offs. Managing so many jobs can be daunting, but he said it lends itself well to a cohesive and collaborative team. Because everyone dabbles in a little bit of everything behind the scenes, he said employees on every level get a say and are encouraged to weigh in and problem solve.
Frozen foods, for example, used to be kept in coolers on the trucks, separate from the rest of the orders. Drivers had to check the cooler for items every time a customer picked up an order, which Cline said was easy to forget during rushes. So a driver suggested storing the goods in individual freezer bags packed with the rest of the order, which Cline said has been much more efficient.
“Everyone’s opinion matters,” said Cline. “It’s a really great group of people to work with.”
The tractor trailers with giant cows painted on the sides are hard to miss when they’re parked around town, and the atmosphere couldn’t be more different than in a bustling grocery store. The drop-off time windows are about four hours, and Cline said even during the evening rush, he doesn’t usually have a line of more than four or five cars at a time waiting for their groceries.
Moms in minivans and young professionals on bicycles steadily trickled in, chatting with one another in line and thanking Cline profusely for the care he put into loading their groceries.
Mary Wade, a nurse at Martha Jefferson Hospital and a mother of three, has been shopping through Relay for about two years. As a connoisseur of local food who used to go to the farmers’ market every Saturday morning just for free-range eggs, she said it’s been a godsend.
“I actually enjoy grocery shopping. And in a couple years if I ship all the kids off to grandma’s and want to make something crazy, then I’ll go and source all the ingredients myself,” she said. “But right now it’s more about the time, and what I would rather be doing.”
In the years she’s been buying her groceries online, Wade said she’s come across a few overripe avocados and only one real mix-up. Relay also offers city trash disposal tickets, and when Wade realized at home she’d been given the wrong set, she called customer service and was astounded.
“They came to the house with the right tickets and a box of Gearhart’s chocolate,” she said. “It was amazing.”
After Cline helped her haul four bags to the car and waved to her kids in the backseat, Wade thanked him, slammed the side door shut and climbed in the front.
Americans are hungry. We work more hours per week than our counterparts in Europe and we eat more, too. Charlottesville has over 370 restaurants and a grocery store for every palate. We have no staple food, culturally; the cornucopia is our defining principle. Stay hungry out there, a pee wee football coach might say. Eat his lunch.
While the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank can attest that members of our society still can’t afford the food they need, hunger increasingly has become a metaphor in our world of material bounty, a Calvinist tut-tut fewer and fewer of us can attach to personal experience. Reminder: Hunger is an elemental force, and, like cold and evil, death’s cousin. As Knut Hamsun’s eponymous existential novel and a Franz Kafka short story testify, metaphor cannot transmute substance.
I crossed paths with two young men over the weekend. One worked at C-VILLE as an intern and the other as a freelancer. Depending on how you look at the numbers, which are pretty fuzzy, half of recent college graduates are unemployed or underemployed. Like an encounter with the ghosts of job market present and yet to come, somehow the two interactions stuck with me. I remembered, distantly, the hunger I felt in my 20s. The one fella, perusing a record collection with a well-dressed young woman on his elbow, seemed bemused when I asked what he was doing, and he ran off a list of low-paying service sector jobs before adding, with a rueful smile, that he was “you know, serving the community.”
The other fella, who makes ends meet doing farm labor and whatever other heavy work is at hand, wrote me a story pitch concerning his generation’s fruitless quest for meaningful employment that contained the following sentences: “Faced with the sickening realization that there are no seats left at the table, like so many bastard orphans, we have been cast into the streets. And out here in the gutters, like a pack of enraged wolves, nursing our wounds, slowly, day by day, we are learning to fend for ourselves. However meager or bountiful the meal may turn out to be, we’re out to make our own feast.”
Which brings me to this week’s cover story on Relay Foods, a business built by hungry entrepreneurs to satisfy our discerning tastes that has put to work a new generation of employees, starving for the opportunity to build a career.
RKG employees at their 2012 summer picnic. Photo: Courtesy RKG
Gotta go to work, gotta have a job! But is it really necessary that our jobs feel like chores? Dare we dream of a work environment that’s relevant, productive, and engaging? That inspires us?
For the Millennial generation, which makes up 25 percent of the current workforce, the answers to these questions are paramount. To facilitate the optimism and innovative thinking Millennials bring to the table, a company must create the kind of office culture that will strike a careful equilibrium between productivity and fulfillment. In Charlottesville, look no further than the Rimm-Kaufman Group for a local employer that understands that balance is the lynchpin of a dynamic office environment.
Tucked neatly downtown, RKG is a recognized thought leader in data-driven online marketing solutions. In a uniquely laid back office, some of the brightest minds in the field are pioneering new digital marketing frontiers, while down the hall, colleagues are squaring off in ping-pong tournaments. Fun is fun, but RKG maintains its impeccable corporate image and its client list (which boasts over 40 of the Top 500 Internet Retailers), by delivering top-notch results. End of story.
And since Millennials aren’t likely to see themselves as another cog in the machine, RKG puts an emphasis on recruiting ambitious self-starters with the enterprise to make a difference immediately. As opposed to being just another white-collar zombie, new employees directly add value to client accounts the moment they sign on. Collaboration and the free flow of ideas across all corporate strata are encouraged, developing leaders in-house and positioning RKG squarely on the cutting edge of a rapidly growing industry.
Millennials are done with the “Me” generation; they’re about investment in people, social responsibility, and community engagement. RKG prides itself on being an active member of the Charlottesville community. Events such as the annual Toy Lift and a partnership with Habitat for Humanity allows for RKGers to give back, walking the walk in and out of the workplace.
As they approach the new labor market, Millennials are looking for an alternative to the bleak white cubicle or the stuffy, wood-paneled investment bank. Tradition and old-fashioned aesthetics have their place, but they need to be discarded when they become a liability. Given the multitude of employment options for our next generation of workers, it’s nice to know there’s a local company who’s setting the new standard for success.
Shoppers check out at Reid Super Save Market, a Charlottesville institution for decades. Photo: Ashley Twiggs
From Feast! to Food Lion, Charlottesville is home to dozens of grocery stores, and recent months have brought more to the already crowded field of options for shoppers.
The city is packed with small urban markets, specialty shops, and big box stores. Trendy chain Trader Joe’s arrived with great fanfare last month, and two new foodie-centric options—a Fresh Market in Albemarle Square and a Wegmans on Fifth Street—are on the way. Local online shopping service Relay Foods, detailed in our cover story this week (p.18), has hit on a formula that uses the landscape of national chains and mom-and-pop shops to its advantage. So how do you survive in an industry famous for slim profit margins? The trick, it seems, is loyalty.
At the brand-new Trader Joe’s at The Shops at Stonefield, brightly colored packaging and seemingly handwritten signs line the walls, and North Face-clad college students compare the merits of crunchy almond and sunflower seed butters. After sampling a shot-sized cup of spiced apple cider, a woman with a full basket rushes to a shelf of ketchup bottles: ”Wow! Organic for $1.99!”
Trader Joe’s has built up a cult following since it made the switch from convenience to grocery store in the 1960s, and local shoppers said they’re thrilled to have a location closer than Richmond.
Waynesboro resident Bob Roetto said Trader Joe’s is a little cramped and usually crowded, but worth the drive.
“It’s just the value,” Roetto said. “And everything seems really fresh.”
Reid Super Save Market on Preston Avenue feels like it’s a long way from shining Stonefield, but the stores are alike in a lot of ways. They’re comparable in size, and they’re not far off in product price—Trader Joe’s organic Granny Smith apples cost a little less per pound than Reid’s Bartlett pears last week. And yet, they cater to very different customer bases.
Reid draws loyal, price-conscious shoppers too, many of whom live within walking distance in the nearby 10th and Page and Rose Hill neighborhoods. The shop has all the basics at cheap prices, and it’s known as the go-to butcher for custom cuts and know-how—and pork jowl and turkey gizzards.
For many Reid customers, a trip to the store is a social outing. On a recent afternoon, carts clogged the narrow aisles as shoppers stopped to catch up, and cashiers chatted with longtime customers before waving them out the door.
“You’ll see the same people multiple times a week, even multiple times a day,” said manager Mark Miller.
Outside, Samira Samadi, 10, got ready to head home with mom Marzieh Mohaghagh and their bags of groceries. “We come here two or three days a week,” she said, translating her mother’s Farsi. “It’s near our house, so we can walk.”
Economist and historian Marc Levinson, author of The Great A&P and the Struggle for Small Businesses, studies the impact of big box grocery stores on the little guy. He said there’s room for diversity, but there will always be a place for the classic corner grocery, even as options diversify and flashy new chains move in. “You still need a place to get canned tuna fish,” he said.
Early Mountain Vineyards hosts its third annual Holiday Open House the weekend of December 8. Photo courtesy Early Mountain Vineyards.
One stop shopping (and drinking)
Kill two birds with one stone at Early Mountain Vineyards on Saturday, December 8 and Sunday, December 9 for the third annual Holiday Open House from 11am-5pm. Shop from local artisans selling crafts and specialty food items while enjoying a glass of Virginia wine. Gift baskets stuffed with local fare and Early Mountain wines will also be available.
Santa will be visiting from the North Pole on Saturday from noon-3pm and Sunday from 3-5pm. Plus, the vineyard will also be collecting canned goods and nonperishable food items to donate to local food banks throughout the month of December.
A barrel of fun
For the beer enthusiasts in your life, share the love on Tuesdays at Blue Mountain Brewery’s “Geeks Who Drink” trivia night. Starting at 7pm, the brewery is packed with like-minded brew fans psyched to answer all sorts of trivia questions. The answers get loopier as the hand-crafted beer goes down quicker.
For the more sophisticated beer lover, head down Route 29 to the Barrel House, Blue Mountain’s sister brewery in Arrington, open Friday-Sunday from 11am-7pm for tastings, glasses of beer, and complimentary tours. Bring the growler for a refill on tap, or purchase 750ml bottles of specialty brews, such as the Mandolin (artisanal ale), Dark Hollow (imperial stout aged in bourbon barrels), Isabel (chocolate orange porter), Steel Wheels (extra special bitter), or the Uber Pils (imperial pilsener) to take home for yourself or to give as gifts.
Sagittarius
(November 22-December 21): If you thoroughly shuffle a deck of cards, the novel arrangement you create is probably unique in all of human history; its specific order has never before occurred. I suspect the same principle applies to our lives: Each new day brings a singular set of circumstances that neither you nor anyone else in the last 10,000 years has ever had the pleasure of being challenged and intrigued by. There is always some fresh opportunity, however small, that is being offered to you for the first time. I think it’s important for you to keep this perspective in mind during the coming week. Be alert for what you have never seen or experienced before.
Capricorn
(December 22-January 19): I wish I could do more than just fantasize about helping you achieve greater freedom. In my dreams, I am obliterating delusions that keep you moored to false idols. I am setting fire to the unnecessary burdens you lug around. And I am tearing you away from the galling compromises you made once upon a time in order to please people who don’t deserve to have so much power over you. But it’s actually a good thing I can’t just wave a magic wand to make all this happen. Here’s a much better solution: You will clarify your analysis of the binds you’re in, supercharge your willpower, and liberate yourself.
Aquarius
(January 20-February 18): In his book Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, Tom Robbins talks about a gourmet who “gave up everything, traveled thousands of miles and spent his last dime to get to the highest lamasery in the Himalayas to taste the dish he’d longed for his whole life, Tibetan peach pie. When he got there, the lamas said they were all out of peach. ‘O.K.,’ said the gourmet, ‘make it apple.’” I suspect you’ll be having a comparable experience sometime soon, Aquarius. You may not get the exact treat you wanted, but what you’ll receive in its place is something that’s pretty damn good. I urge you to accept the gift as is!
Pisces
(February 19-March 20): “Having ‘a sense of self’ means possessing a set of stories about who we are,” according to William Kittredge in his book The Nature of Generosity. He says there are two basic types of stories: The first is “cautionary tales, which warn us” and therefore protect us. The second consists of “celebratory” tales, which we use to heal and calm ourselves. I believe that you Pisceans are now in a phase when you primarily need celebratory stories. It’s time to define yourself with accounts of what you love and value and regard as precious.
Aries
(March 21-April 19): Spencer Silver was a co-inventor of Post-it notes, those small, colorful pieces of paper you can temporarily attach to things and then remove to use again and again. Speaking about the process he went through to develop this simple marvel, he said, “If I had thought about it, I wouldn’t have done the experiment. The literature was full of examples that said you can’t do this.” I’d like to make him your patron saint for the next few weeks, Aries. Like him, you now have the chance to make practical breakthroughs that may have seemed impossible, or at least unlikely. Ignore conventional wisdom—including your own. Trust your mischievous intuition.
Taurus
(April 20-May 20): The axolotl is a kind of salamander that has an extraordinary capacity for regenerating itself. If it loses a leg in an accident, it will grow a new one in its place. It can even fix its damaged organs, including eyes, heart, and brain. And get this: There’s never any scar tissue left behind when its work is done. Its power to heal itself is pretty much perfect. I nominate the axolotl to be your power animal in the coming weeks, Taurus. According to my reading of the astrological omens, you now have an extraordinary ability to restore any part of your soul that got hurt or stolen or lost.
Gemini
(May 21-June 20): In the coming months, I hope that you will get sweet revenge. In fact, I predict that you will get sweet revenge. Keep in mind that I’m not talking about angry, roaring vindication. I don’t mean you will destroy the reputations of your adversaries or reduce them to humiliating poverty or laugh at them as they grovel for mercy while lying in a muddy gutter. No, Gemini. The kind of revenge I foresee is that you will achieve a ringing triumph by mastering a challenge they all believed would defeat you. And your ascent to victory starts now.
Cancer
(June 21-July 22): I would love to speak with you about your hesitancy to fully confront your difficulties. But I will not speak forthrightly, since I’m pretty sure that would irritate you. It might even motivate you to procrastinate even further. So instead I will make a lame joke about how if you don’t stop avoiding the obvious, you will probably get bitten in the butt by a spider. I will try to subtly guilt-trip you into taking action by implying that I’ll be annoyed at you if you don’t. I will wax sarcastic and suggest that maybe just this once, ignorance is bliss. Hopefully that will nudge you into dealing straightforwardly with the unrest that’s burbling.
Leo
(July 23-August 22): “Drama is life with all the boring parts cut out of it,” said Leo filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock. By that criterion, I’m guessing that your experience in the coming week will have a high concentration of magic and stimulation. You should be free from having to slog through stale details and prosaic storylines. Your word of power will be succulence. For best results, I suggest you take active control of the unfolding adventures. Be the director and lead actor in your drama, not a passive participant who merely reacts to what the other actors are doing.
Virgo
(August 23-September 22): One of my spiritual teachers once told me that a good spiritual teacher makes an effort not to seem too perfect. She said some teachers even cultivate odd quirks and harmless failings on purpose. Why? To get the best learning experience, students must be discouraged from overidealizing the wise advisors they look up to. It’s crucial they understand that achieving utter purity is impossible and unrealistic. Being perceived as an infallible expert is dangerous for teachers, too; it makes them prone to egotistical grandiosity. I bring this up, Virgo, because it’s an excellent time to reduce the likelihood that you’ll be seduced by the illusion of perfection.
Libra
(September 23-October 22): This would be a good week to talk to yourself far more than you usually do. If you’re the type of person who never talks to yourself, this is a perfect time to start. And I do mean that you should speak the words out loud. Actually address yourself with passionate, humorous, ironic, sincere, insightful comments, as you would any person you care about. Why am I suggesting this? Because according to my interpretation of the astrological omens, you would benefit from the shock of literally hearing how your mind works. Even more importantly: The cheerleading you do, the encouragement you deliver, and the motivational speeches you give would have an unusually powerful impact if they were audibly articulated.
Scorpio
(October 23-November 21): In the fairy tale Beauty and the Beast, a grotesque human-like creature hosts the heroine in his home, treating her like a queen. She accepts his hospitality but rejects his constant requests to marry him. Eventually, he collapses from heartache. Moved by the depth of his suffering, she breaks into tears and confesses her deep affection for him. This shatters the spell and magically transforms the Beast back into the handsome prince he originally was. Your life may have parallels to this story in the coming months, Scorpio. You might be tested. Can you discern the truth about a valuable resource that doesn’t look very sexy? Will you be able to see beauty embedded in a rough or shabby form?
