Month: September 2018

Categories
News

Few Florence floods: But local area hit with power outages

It’s too bad Saturday’s UVA football game against Ohio University was moved to Vanderbilt Stadium in Nashville—with little rain, the Cavs probably could have played at home. Photo by Jack Looney

Grocery store shelves in Charlottesville and Albemarle County were picked clean last week by people preparing for Hurricane Florence’s worst. But come this week, those cases of water, boxes of batteries, and jars of peanut butter had gone largely unneeded.

While a tornado left one person dead in Richmond, and significant flooding threatened folks in Nelson, Green, and Madison counties, the immediate local area was relatively unscathed.

“Florence could dump a foot of rain on already saturated ground,” predicted state climatologist Jerry Stenger before the hurricane, when Virginia was projected to be in its northeast quadrant. “We’re going to have trees down all over the place.”

Stenger was right. And wrong.

The majority of area rain fell Sunday, September 16, through Monday, September 17, and by Monday morning, the National Weather Service had issued a flood warning for the city and county. Local areas reported receiving between a half and two inches of rain, with minor flooding reported in Albemarle.

In the state, approximately 500 roads were temporarily closed, with eight of those in Albemarle, according to the Virginia Department of Transportation.

Approximately 3,800 Dominion Energy customers in Charlottesville and Albemarle County were out of power from 10am Sunday, September 16, until Monday morning, when about 2,300 of those people had their electricity turned back on, according to Dominion spokesperson Daisy Pridgen. Remnants of Florence hit the local area the hardest around this period, and she says the outages were largely the result of trees falling on power lines.

At press time, the energy company’s interactive power outage map showed only 27 and 181 customers were still without electricity in Charlottesville and Albemarle, respectively.

The Virginia State Police are already offering tips for next time, such as dialing 511 before driving for the latest updates on road conditions and closures, and always using headlights while windshield wipers are activated—not only because you can see better and you become more visible to other traffic, but because that’s the law.

And perhaps the most important tip, and one you’ve likely heard before: Turn around, don’t drown.

More than half of all flood-related drownings occur when a vehicle is driven into hazardous water, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The state police add that it only takes 12 inches of rushing water to carry away a small car, and two feet of it can wash most vehicles down a roadway.

“It’s never safe to drive or walk into flood waters,” says VSP spokesperson Corinne Geller. “No matter how shallow you might think it is.”

Storm statistics

  • 1 death in Richmond
  • ½ to 2 inches of rain in Charlottesville
    and Albemarle
  • About 500 road closures across the state
  • Nearly 4,000 local power outages for Dominion Energy customers
  • $60 million authorized by Virginia
    Governor Ralph Northam to spend in response to Florence

*Numbers provided by the Virginia Department of Transportation, National Weather Service, and Aubrey Layne, the state secretary of finance

Categories
Arts

Making lemonade: Inman Majors’ comedic novel is a love letter to single moms

Inman Majors will sign copies of his new novel, Penelope Lemon: Game On!, at Common House on Wednesday, September 19, at 6pm.

It might not sound like a comedy: A twice-divorced single mom living with her mother tries to save money from her food service job to move into her own apartment. But Penelope Lemon: Game On!, is just that.

“It’s hard to describe why something is funny,” says Inman Majors, an English professor at James Madison University. “Penelope’s backstory is tough. But that’s where comedy starts. You catch a person at one of their lowest points.”

For Penelope, it is all of the above plus her venture into online dating and the discovery that a private photograph from her first marriage has resurfaced into the very public sphere of the internet.

“When I’m writing comedy, I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Majors says. “The best comedy happens accidentally.” While he might plot out a little where necessary, “so much of comedy is spontaneity and improvisation that builds on character,” he says. “There should be comedic tension throughout, even in the serious moments. The reader has to realize that they’re going to come out the other end and it’s going to be funny again.”

Part of the inspiration for the book was his aunt, Betty Winton, to whom the book is dedicated. She was the first person Majors knew who attempted online dating, and she had many funny stories about the experience. Betty, who died last year from the same brain cancer as John McCain, possessed “a great appreciation for the absurd,” Majors says.

Initially, he thought it would be a serious book. Observing Betty in the world of online dating, he says, was “the first time I realized how tough it is to be single and 40 or above, specifically for women.” While coaching his son’s baseball team in Waynesboro years ago, before his family’s move to Charlottesville, Majors would observe single moms in their 20s and 30s who worked hard jobs, had three kids, and managed to get them all to their extracurriculars without the help of a partner.

“It wasn’t like they felt put upon by life. This was life,” he says.

During an extended illness, he observed the same hard work, smarts, and capability in his female nurses. After regaining his health, he decided to write something funny, and had plenty of material to draw on for the strong woman character he had in mind.

Majors grew up watching Lucille Ball, Mary Tyler Moore, Gilda Radner, Carol Burnett, and, later, Amy Poehler and Tina Fey. He recalls his mother and her friends sitting around the kitchen table laughing and talking in his childhood home in Knoxville, Tennessee. “I was always the kid who’d come in and take my sweet time getting something out of the refrigerator,” he says, just to hear them talking in a way they wouldn’t normally talk in front of a child, and to hear them laugh.

In the book, the spark of a new friendship is, in many ways, the catalyst for the upward trajectory that makes it a comedy when Penelope befriends another single mom during their sons’ baseball game. “In all of my comedies,” Majors says, “the main characters are like the straight-man (or straight-person), and then they have this wilder alter ego, like the Kramer of Seinfeld.” While the protagonist may be “a little bit wilder than most, or subversive or absurdist,” the foil for her is “sort of the unencumbered id expressed,” he says.

That unencumbered id, named Missy, convinces Penelope to pursue a much younger man on a Christian dating app given to her by her mother. As it turns out, he is not as angelic as he appears. “I’m not trying to make any point about hypocrisy,” says Majors, the son-in-law of a preacher. “I’m very much a ‘live and let live’ type of person.” Through his spontaneous method, he simply followed the comedy, writing to make himself laugh, he says.

The setting for the book, a fictional town called Hillsboro, has grown into “this whole universe in my head,” he says, “like a PG-13 or R-rated Mayberry,” inspired by the small Southern towns in which he’s lived.

His life has informed his art in other ways, too, like the bartending and serving experience he gained from ages 18 to 32, which he applies to Penelope’s restaurant job. And the shorty robe worn by Penelope’s second husband, inspired by a friend Majors had in graduate school.

But in the act of writing, Majors’ life becomes the art for a time. Putting on his professorial hat, he says, “when it comes to narration and point of view, you want to become the character as opposed to observing the character from afar. When it’s going well, I’m not Inman Majors, I’m Penelope Lemon.”

Categories
Arts

All are welcome: Theatre CHS repurposes immigrants’ poetry, prose for unprecedented play

“Dreaming America: A Devised Theater Performance” will take place at Charlottesville High School Black Box Theater for one night only on Tuesday, September 18 at 7pm as part of Welcoming Week. A panel discussion with poetry book editor Seth Michelson will follow. While free, the event will offer donation opportunities to benefit the Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights Coalition. Photo by Mohammad Alsheikha

By Caroline Hockenbury

Freedom is ringing, but that’s because youth are belting about it on stage, deconstructing it on Twitter, and demanding it—at full-tilt—at student-led protests. The next generation’s cries for justice buzz in every ear.

Charlottesville High School theater students are merging their voices with teens across the country who, simply put, expect more from America. With a one-night-only performance the night of Tuesday, September 18, Theatre CHS will propel the otherwise choked voices of Latinx teen immigrants by reimagining the poems collected in Dreaming America: Voices of Undocumented Youth in Maximum-Security Detention for the stage.

Dreaming America, penned by adolescents confined to isolation cells in a Staunton maximum-security detention center, is a book of bilingual poetry oscillating between imagination and anguish. Using the unaltered text as a skeleton for a script, Theatre CHS students thoughtfully wove speech snippets, musical riffs, and movement between the ribs of the poems, first produced in weekly writing workshops with Washington and Lee University Professor Seth Michelson at the detention center.

Co-directors and CHS seniors Mila Cesaretti and Evelyn McKenney selected most of the cast from the Theatre CHS program, but to fill the remaining roles, they resorted to sending email blasts and pinging peers on social media platforms. They snatched up sophomore Mohammad Alsheikha via Instagram direct message (or “DM,” as they say).

Alsheikha, who fled his home country of Syria in 2014 and immigrated to the U.S., hears snags of his own experience in the lines spilled on stage. One of the show’s sequences features a gut-wrenching monologue about a teen parting from her dog, cutely dubbed “the dude” (the revery is quickly suffocated by sound effects of police dogs’ snarls); Alsheikha recalls fighting off stray dogs during a three-day desert stay at the Syria-Jordan border. As for later lines underscoring the senseless loss of children? “There was this day when I was fourteen [when] I went to my job, and there was a jet [that] attacked people,” Alsheikha says. “I saw girls and boys and men and women on the floor dying.”

The set is hauntingly bare, barring a few benches, black boxes, a single desk, and blue tape gridding the floor. “I see beautiful things, but I can’t touch them,” one actor moans. “When I think of my future, I think of leaving this place,” another aches. Lights hang overhead, looming like lamps in an interrogation room, their eerie hum completing the space’s transformation from simple stage to detention center.

In presenting these poems to the public, Cesaretti and McKenney hope to spark conversations that might otherwise be swallowed up by the comfortable chaos of daily American life. “By sitting and being indifferent toward this problem or reading the news and not deeply caring, then you, in a sense, are a part of the problem,” says McKenney.

Cesaretti adds that reframing your perspective may be as simple as switching up the crowd you sit with at lunch or engaging daily with community members with backgrounds different than your own.

In a city—and state—strengthened by the presence of countless immigrants, McKenney argues it is critical for us to familiarize ourselves with “what’s going on in our own backyard.”

Delivering words written by incarcerated children proves an emotionally taxing endeavor for these student actors. Instead of getting bogged down by despair, though, the cast opts to focus on the change-inspiring intent of the play instead. “When we think about…what we have the potential of doing with a show like this, then…that glimmer of hope [prevails],” says McKenney.

The opening musical moment, an intimate conversation between one guitar and two lilting voices, inverts the lyrics of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land” to pose a pressing question: “Is this land made for you and me?” The cast and crew of this homegrown performance are ushering in hope for a new day, when the response to this question will be an unmistakable, resounding “Sí.”

Categories
Arts

Album reviews: White Denim, Ariana Grande, Amos Lee, and Sha La Das

The Sha La Das. Publicity photo

White Denim

Performance (City Slang)

The new record by Austin’s scraggle rock standard bearers opens with the tumble of a spinning radio dial. It sounds ironic but it could also be a statement of purpose; on Performance, White Denim skillfully updates various ’70s rock styles from the jump, the horn-laden, glammy stomp of “Magazin” leading straight into the taut, blithely ripping title track. “Double Death” sports a frilly jazz-rock riff; “Moves On” gets to sounding a bit like a Styx demo, and “Sky Beaming” is even proggier. White Denim almost substitutes insistence and tightness for melody, but their insistence and tightness are high qual, especially on the Steve Miller- meets-T. Rex “It Might Get Dark.”

https://whitedenimmusic.bandcamp.com/

Ariana Grande

sweetener (Republic)

Pop duchess Ariana Grande responds to the horrific terrorism that visited her 2017 Manchester concert by keeping calm and carrying on, and making half a great record to boot. These inward-looking love songs are pretty basic—a lot of lying down and holding and dreaming—but Grande’s fluid vocals bring them to life. The phalanx of producers on sweetener get mixed results—the songs by Max Martin and fellow Swede Ilya Salmanzadeh sound crude and plodding; “God Is a Woman” is too lumbering for Grande’s light sensuality, which sounds better on the sweet pulsing of “R.E.M.” and the title track, both produced by Pharrell Williams. sweetener is wisely frontloaded with Williams’ tracks, and Grande turns his packets of nimble funk into dance floor magic on “blazed” and “borderline.”

Amos Lee

My New Moon (Dualtone)

Amos Lee made his name opening up for Norah Jones and Bob Dylan, and landed a No. 1 record with 2011’s Mission Bell. He slipped a bit with the too-soulful-by-half Spirit (2016), and while he doesn’t lose the affectations on My New Moon, his mood has turned darker. He’s not angry—he’s just bummin’. Sure, there’s “a crooked leader on a crooked stage,” but “it turns out it’s all crooked, y’all.” Lee doesn’t say “I love you,” he says “I look at you and I don’t feel so alone.” To a friend in ambiguous but dire straits, Lee blandly suggests “hang on.” To another in a different song, it’s “don’t fade away.” Amos Lee seems to aim his growly Americana at the NPR set, but sheesh, even “Morning Edition” has more good news than My New Moon—and it’s more articulate with the bad.

https://amoslee.bandcamp.com/album/my-new-moon

Sha La Das

Love in the Wind (Daptone)

The story seems too on-the-nose: The four Schaldas—father Bill and sons Will, Paul, and (hell yes!) Carmine—grew up singing harmonies on their Staten Island stoop, connecting decades later with the Daptone crew that helped make belated stars of Sharon Jones and Charles Bradley with their meticulous revival of ’60s soul. A cynic would view Daptone’s production of a greaser-soul vocal group as an expansion of its retro kingdom, and maybe it is. But the results are swell. Unsurprisingly, Love in the Wind is a sonic delight. And vocally, the Sha La Das are truly greater than the sum of their parts—individually shaky, but together, effortlessly and instantly evoking doo-wop and early ’70s soft soul with broken-but-beautiful vibes, like when you’ve been up all night and you’re about to work a double, but the sun’s coming up on the beach and there’s a song in your cynical heart.

Categories
Arts

Small gathering: A little means a lot at Second Street Gallery

Lou Haney’s “Funion” adds whimsy to the large collection of small works in Second Street Gallery’s “Teeny Tiny Trifecta,” on view through September 28. Image courtesy of the artist

Second Street Gallery begins its 45th year with “Teeny Tiny Trifecta,” a group exhibition in the Dové Gallery featuring 72 artists working in a wide range of styles, techniques, and media. Curated by Kristen Chiacchia, the gallery’s executive director and chief curator, the artwork was solicited through an open call, which garnered submissions from more than 100 artists.

“I didn’t really have a number of how many artists to show in mind ahead of time,” says Chiacchia. “There were so many fantastic submissions that I didn’t want to say no to any of these artists.”

The common denominator that links the work is its size; everything measures 10 inches or less. When coming up with this requirement, Chiacchia had several things in mind. Presenting a show of small work means one can show more, and it also allows for the price point to be kept low—a major consideration in introducing people to the idea of collecting art. So, everything in “Teeny Tiny Trifecta” is priced at an affordable $100. Small is in vogue these days, and with more people living in compact spaces, diminutive works have great appeal.

Small work also lends itself well to salon-style hanging, an approach that features large groups of work hung together on a wall. Though rarely used in gallery settings as it can overwhelm the individual work, it functions well with little pieces—gathering them together imparts a visual weight that the work doesn’t have by itself.

With salon style, one also appreciates the overall crazy-quilt effect—a pleasing visual sum made up of many parts. “I’ve always been really drawn to salon-style installation and the whole idea of a cabinet of curiosity,” says Chiacchia. “I have a lot of art [primarily Pop Surrealism] and I have a whole wall at home that is completely filled with it.”

“I was looking for a way to involve local and regional artists in the exhibition,” says Chiacchia. With 50 locals in the show—some familiar, some new to the scene—she succeeded. The balance is made up with artists from Richmond and as far away as New York City. Each artist was asked to contribute three pieces. In some cases, the three are all very similar and could almost be considered a series.

The show also represents an important resource for Chiacchia. “I am still fairly new to town and I don’t get out in the world as much as I would like,” she says. “It was great meeting everyone when they came to drop their work off. It was also nice because I’ve discovered artists I may be interested in working with in the future.”

The work ranges from edgy contemporary to more traditional still lifes and landscape, and so there’s something in the show to appeal to every taste. Allyson Mellberg Taylor’s nifty little portraits in vintage frames have a spare intensity that is arresting. The flatness and primitive quality of the drawing recalls early 19th-century watercolors of children—the restrained colors and patterns, Japanese woodblocks. But the disgruntled back-to-back twins and the scowling girl whose spots on her face mirror the egg between her hands add a strange discord that piques one’s curiosity.

With the focus on food and flowers, Lou Haney’s bold little statements include a sunny collage of daisies and two smaller tondo paintings of a flower and half a red onion. The latter, with its outside edge following the uneven circle of a cut onion, is particularly effective, a witty, trompe l’oeil work that grabs attention.

Courtney Coker’s photographs are atmospheric and evocative. It’s not entirely clear, but they seem connected in some way, like clues to a hidden story. The woman floating in the lake and the child in the forest are linked as figures in landscape, and the child in the forest is clearly the little girl of the portrait identifiable by her dress, hair, and age. They’re winsome, contemplative images that form such a potent trinity; one hopes they will be purchased as a set.

Based on Caravaggio, Michelle Gagliano’s figure studies possess a presence that belies their size. Her forceful, confident line and the use of black oil paint on canvas to render these sketches endows the two lower ones with a subtle power.

Resembling strange fungi, spores, or microscopic specimens, Jennifer Cox’s mixed media on panel works have a lushness of color and form. Her compositions occupy the space with intention and restraint.

Aaron Miller’s striking graphic sequences take inspiration from traditional comic strips. But the narratives of non sequiturs and enigmatic references push these works to a completely different place. Each piece is divided into a quartet of related images. Their black-and-white palette and classic, austere draughtsmanship offer a refreshing, ordered simplicity, and demonstrate the continued aesthetic power of the genre.

There are many practical considerations for mounting a show of small works, but let’s face it, there’s something just plain appealing about them. They often contain the visual interest and heft of much larger pieces, but it is presented in concentrated form within the confines of limited space. “Teeny Tiny Trifecta” illustrates this well with work that surprises, beguiles, and enchants.

Categories
Arts

Matters of the art: Going behind the scenes of local galleries and museums

Henry Skerritt, curator of the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection, takes a look at one of the museums pieces.
Categories
News

Hurricane expert: Jerry Stenger’s Florence predictions

Jerry Stenger is always popular during natural disasters. Photo Fariss Samarrai

When there’s a weather disaster in the forecast, Jerry Stenger is on everyone’s speed dial. We didn’t catch up with the director of the State Climatology Office at UVA until yesterday afternoon, and even though Hurricane Florence has shifted south, here are his predictions for the storm—and tips on what to eat.

“For us, the big problem is the massive amount of rainfall and wind,” says Stenger. “Florence could dump a foot of rain on already saturated ground. We’re going to have trees down all over the place.”

That means that parts of the state—like here—could be without electricity “much like 2003 with Isabel, which caused a huge outage.” His mother, who lives in Richmond, was without power for two weeks, he says, an unpleasant situation experienced by many in Albemarle County.

“I fear there could be a prolonged period without power,” says Stenger, who notes that power company crews are going to be working from South Carolina first and then heading north.

The heavy rain can lead to flash flooding and urban flooding with backed up storm drains. “The storm is forecast to slow down as it hits landfall, which will exacerbate” the situation, he says.

Virginia will catch the northeast quadrant of the storm, which will start expanding once it hits land and pile the water up. “This is not good,” he says.

So what does a hurricane expert do to get ready for a monster storm?

“I bought these packages of Indian food that keep without refrigeration and don’t need to be heated up,” says Stenger.

And because he’s on a well, “I’m filling every container with water that I have.” Stenger is also filling gas cans, because with widespread electricity outages, service stations can’t pump gas.

Categories
Living

False promises: The myth of hypoallergenic dogs

The idea that pet owners can find a hypoallergenic dog is not backed by science. Image: Getty Images

Finding a new dog isn’t trivial, and I’m often faced with questions about the process. There are so many variables to consider. Should you adopt a puppy or rescue an adult? What size dog best fits your lifestyle? Some questions have easier answers than others, and many require a degree of generalization that makes me uncomfortable. I can never say for sure that a certain breed will be good with children or that your choice will be easier to house train. But there is one thing I do know for sure: You can give up on your search for a hypoallergenic breed.

Allergies to pets are a very real thing. For many, the symptoms are some mild sniffling and sneezing. But more severe reactions are possible, ranging from rashes to asthma attacks. It is understandable that people afflicted with such allergies might want assurance that their new best friend isn’t going to be a medical liability. And that’s why it is vitally important to make this clear: As pervasive as the idea has become, there is absolutely no evidence that some breeds are hypoallergenic.

Don’t put away the tissues just yet.

Research has shown absolutely no difference in the presence of allergens in homes with supposedly hypoallergenic dogs compared to homes with “regular” ones.

Allergies happen when the immune system overreacts to something that wouldn’t otherwise be a threat. In this case, proteins in a dog’s skin or saliva are the trigger. While direct contact with dogs can produce symptoms, it isn’t necessary. Microscopic flakes of skin are constantly being shed from any animal. These particles, collectively called dander, will spread well beyond the dog’s reach. Some will remain suspended in the air, waiting to be inhaled. Others settle on clothing or furniture, ready to trigger skin allergies on contact.

While many breeds of dog are advertised as hypoallergenic, the most common ones seem to be those perceived as shedding less. The idea is that if they aren’t filling your home with fur, then they must not be filling it with dander either. It’s a completely reasonable supposition. Unfortunately, it also turns out to be a false one. Research has shown absolutely no difference in the presence of allergens in homes with supposedly hypoallergenic dogs compared to homes with “regular” ones.

Wittingly or not, breeders have seized on the popularity of hypoallergenic breeds. These dogs are often sold at premium prices to families willing to spend thousands of dollars for a perceived medical necessity. These families deserve to know that they are buying into a fiction.

If someone in your family does suffer from pet allergies, it is important to speak to your physician or allergist before adding a dog or cat to your home. Perhaps the allergy is mild enough to be managed with air filters, designated pet-free rooms, or medication. But the decision and its consequences are too important to revolve around a myth.

Dr. Mike Fietz is a small animal veterinarian at Georgetown Veterinary Hospital. He received his veterinary degree from Cornell University in 2003 and has lived in Charlottesville since.

Categories
Living

Another adios: La Taza closes its doors after 13 years in Belmont

La Taza’s last day is September 16—the restaurant and building have been sold, and the new owners will open a different eatery on October 1.

La Taza owner Melissa Easter has recently struggled with a big decision: Should she close her restaurant of the past 13 years or expand? Ultimately she decided it was time for a lifestyle change, and she and her ex-husband, Jeff, sold the restaurant and building to new owners.

“I’ve been thinking about it for a while,” says Easter. “My daughter is having a baby in September and I was just ready.”

“The new owner is pretty cool” and seems to be embracing the area, says Easter, adding that the restaurant will likely become a breakfast, lunch, and dinner spot. “I’m still a Belmont neighbor, and the first thing I asked is ‘will there be coffee?’ I don’t think it’s going to change a lot but I think they want to do their own thing. They like that it’s a community seat, and I believe they’ll make it better,” says Easter. She adds that the new restaurant will likely take over the Cabinet Solutions space, next door to La Taza, as well, ultimately expanding the venue.

Gilie Garth, a server for the past two years, says she’ll forever be grateful for how LaTaza and Easter helped her get back on her feet when she was struggling.

“I was pretty devastated to hear it was closing because this place has a great deal of meaning to me. I’m a drug addict in recovery from addiction. I got clean a little over three years ago, and Melissa Easter, my employer and beloved friend, gave me the opportunity to work again as a server at the age of 47. It has enabled me to become financially independent and has been a huge boost to my self-esteem,” says Garth. “The people here, both employees and customers, are family to me. It’s going to be a great loss for the community and a huge personal loss to me.”

Garth plans to return to her nursing career by the end of the year, but employment at La Taza was a great stepping stone for her to get her life back together.

La Taza’s last day will be September 16, and Easter says the new owners plan to re-open October 1.

Let’s do lunch

While The Haven regularly provides meals to community members facing homelessness, they will once again also offer home-cooked meals in a weekly pop-up café every Wednesday from noon until 1:30pm, starting September 12. The three-course meals—there are always vegetarian and carnivore options—include a beverage and are available with a suggested donation of $10, which benefits The Haven.

Eat food, do good

Meals on Wheels of Charlottesville/Albemarle will hold its annual food and beverage tasting event, Taste This!, from 5:30-8:30pm, Tuesday, September 18, at the Boar’s Head Resort pavilion. The event is the primary fundraiser for the organization, which provides homebound neighbors with food and social contact, and will feature food from a cornucopia of local restaurants and food purveyors, including Chimm, Ivy Inn, Little Star, Junction, Oakhart Social, Orzo Kitchen & Wine Bar, Prime 109, Common House, PVCC Culinary School, Travinia Italian Kitchen, Vivace, and, of course, the Boar’s Head. There will also be cheese tastings from Caromont Farm and pastry snacks from Iron Paffles & Coffee and MarieBette Café & Bakery. And to drink? Beverages from Starr Hill Brewery, wine from Market Street Wine, cold brew and hot coffee from Grit Coffee. There will also be a cash bar available.

Jazz group Bob Bennetta & Friends will provide music, and there will be a silent auction as well. Tickets are $75 per person and can be purchased at cvilletastethis.com or by calling 293-4364.

Categories
Living

Raising the steaks: Downtown steakhouse is primed for launch

Prime 109, the Downtown Mall steakhouse that’s the brainchild of the team behind Lampo Neapolitan Pizzeria, is slated to open later this month. Image: Signe Clayton

Prime 109, the much-anticipated local-farm-centered steakhouse located in the former Bank of America building on the Downtown Mall, opens this month after nearly two years of planning and design.

The restaurant is the brainchild of the Lampo Neapolitan Pizzeria team of Ian Redshaw, Loren Mendosa, Andrew Cole, Shelly Robb, and Mitchell Beerens, and it will showcase the cooking of Bill Scatena, formerly of Pippin Hill Farm & Vineyards, as chef de cuisine.

What’s the number?

Prime 109 takes its name from steakhouse slang for prime rib. When a steakhouse orders “prime 109” from a butcher, the butcher knows to send over roast-ready prime rib of beef. Ian Redshaw, executive chef at Prime 109, is especially excited for the restaurant’s namesake item, a Virginia-raised, 109-day dry-aged 109 steak.

Sharing center stage with Prime 109’s locally grown and produced food will be the interior Beaux-Arts décor of its 100-year-old neoclassical building, an architectural gem from a bygone era.

Redshaw, Prime 109’s executive chef, says the intent behind the restaurant is to feature the bounty of central Virginia’s food while operating in the most sustainable way possible.

“Creating a sustainable cooking community is really hard in Charlottesville because a lot of people outsource everything,” says Redshaw. “We’re trying to keep everything local as much as possible, from our beef all the way down the line, so it’s really to walk the walk of a local restaurant. With Virginia being such a great place to [raise] livestock, it fits hand in hand. Through the community we can vertically integrate everything we have. It creates a language everyone understands—we can tell a farmer ‘I need to talk to you about a cow we need 24 months from now’—and they like that!”

Redshaw adds that we here in Charlottesville are fortunate to have such amazing food grown and sold right in our proverbial (and sometimes literal) backyards.

“We’re trying to feature the bounty of the Shenandoah Valley. It’s such a big bread basket that people forget about it—but it’s some of the best vegetables and livestock around.”

Redshaw reassures Lampo fans currently fretting about the team redirecting its focus to this much larger venture: “Because of our management structure, it’ll just run as Lampo has run; you’ll see the familiar faces, Mitch and Loren will be there. A lot of the partners are pulling double duty to make sure it’s the same experience for our customers.” Cole will be Prime 109’s wine director and Beerens its pastry chef.

Prime 109’s options run the gamut from, well, steak, naturally, to a meatless Bolognese that Redshaw says is particularly delicious.

And, of course, there’s the steak so exciting, they named the entire restaurant after it, the prime 109, which Redshaw says is local pastured beef meticulously dry-aged and cooked to the customer’s liking.

He says they have a dry-aging facility at Seven Hills Food Co. in Lynchburg, a wholesaler of premium pastured Virginia family-farm-raised beef, whose mission is to connect local meat producers with local meat consumers.

“We have a lot of stuff going on in-house, but they do the majority of the processing there [at Seven Hills]—we’re bringing the beef in to them, and we teamed up with them as the livestock producer to help us out in this way.”

Sharing center stage with the locally grown and produced food will be the interior Beaux-Arts décor of the 100-year-old neoclassical building, an architectural gem from a bygone era. Two rows of Corinthian columns, which repeat the design and grandeur of the columns that front the building’s façade, grace the cavernous open space inside of the building, and support gilded coffered ceilings that invite your gaze. Banquettes flanking either side of the restaurant—decorated by local design company Jaid—are showcased by burnished maple floors reclaimed from a mid-19th-century building.

Just past the main dining area on the left is a butchering area and the main production part of the kitchen, where diners can sit at the chef’s table in front of the custom-built, wood-fired grill created by Corry Blanc of Blanc Creatives. Directly across from this is the bar, which will be headed up by Abraham Hawkins, formerly of the C&O.

The polished Carrara white tile flooring leads to a marble staircase that ascends to the mezzanine-level private dining space, which seats 40, overlooks the restaurant below, and lends an up-close look at the space’s gorgeous architectural flourishes.

Redshaw is thrilled to see the Prime 109 team’s dream of a truly local restaurant come to fruition.

“It’s been a huge undertaking with local artisans to bring everything in—from beef producers to blacksmiths to all of our plates are handmade in North Carolina. This collaboration with all local and regional artisans lets us show off what Virginia and the region has to offer.”