Sitting at the edge of IX Art Park is the new Three Notch’d Brewery restaurant and production facility, which will top out at 11,000 square feet between the indoor and outdoor spaces. The setup is similar to a traditional beer garden, but bigger, and Three Notch’d says it will be the largest restaurant in Charlottesville.
A mural featuring its new logo brightens up the building, along with giant windows with views of the art park.
“It’ll be very similar to the cool, laid-back vibe that the IX Art Park has done for the other businesses,” says Scott Roth, Three Notch’d’s chief financial officer.
Inside, there’s plenty of seating separated by an island bar and surrounded by an indoor/outdoor wraparound bar. High ceilings give an open, airy vibe, and tall windows look out on Monticello Avenue and IX Art Park. There’s also an event space that has views of the brewers in action.
Three Notch’d will continue to serve collaboration brews from its Harrisonburg, Richmond and Charlottesville locations and will work with UVA’s Darden School of Business, local nonprofits and homebrewers on new ones. The full-service, open-concept kitchen will use as many Virginia-sourced ingredients as possible, such as meat from Timbercreek Farm and microgreens from Fidelis Farm in Crozet, for dishes like beer-braised short ribs with fried cheese curds, hand-cut fries and Jack’s Java gravy, and a French onion soup that uses Three Notch’d’s West Coast IPA.
The restaurant is almost self-serve, says Roth: Walk up to a kiosk or use the smartphone app to place your order, and a waiter will bring it to your table.
But back to the beer. This production facility triples Three Notch’d’s distribution capacity, and the company plans to expand its distribution to other spots in Virginia and surrounding states. This means adding somewhere between 90 and 100 new jobs.
Three Notch’d hosts the Virginia Craft Brewers Festival on Saturday at IX, but the restaurant won’t be open until late August.
Salt in the wound
Salt Artisan Market, the sandwich shop in the old rock store on Thomas Jefferson Parkway, closed for good on Sunday, August 6. In a letter handed out to customers and friends, owners Barrett Hightower and Rani Morris (the brain behind sandwiches like the lamb-fennel bratwurst with harissa-roasted tomatoes, balsamic caramelized onions and arugula) credit their four-plus years in business to dedicated customers, local farmers and small producers.
When Reverend Ann Willms, rector at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Simeon (located across the street from Salt), told her parish the shop would be closing that day, she says the congregation collectively sighed. With Salt, Hightower and Morris “cultivated a lively and authentic neighborhood sensibility. They have been a meeting spot, a place to regroup and refuel, a place to linger with friends over creative local fare,” says Willms. “They will indeed be missed on our corner.”