The Virginia Press Association announced its annual awards today, and C-VILLE Weekly took home 9 editorial and design and 5 advertising awards.
C-VILLE garnered five first place awards, and nearly swept the feature writing category, with a first place award for culture writer Erin O’Hare’s story on the Holsinger photo project, and second place for editor Laura Longhine’s feature on downtown day shelter The Haven.
O’Hare also won first for her profile of local jazz legend Roland Wiggins, who passed away last fall. O’Hare, photographer Eze Amos, and designer Max March won first for combined picture/story for this feature on working the night shift.
Longhine won first place in editorial writing for her column This Week and freelancer Dongyun Lee won first place in illustration for his charming cover for our Apartment Living issue.
Second place awards went to March and art director Bill LeSueur for cover design, Amos for his feature photo from the Cville Pride festival, and photographer Sanjay Suchak for his series on the destruction of U-Hall.
Photo by Sanjay Suchak
Graphic designers Tracy Federico and Lorena Perez won four first place and one third place award for advertising design.
The last time I went out for dinner was a Friday in early March. My husband and I met friends for drinks and nachos at Beer Run, then headed to the Downtown Mall for dinner. We probably shouldn’t have: Schools had just been closed (for “two weeks”), we were all washing our hands maniacally and not giving hugs. But it was a warm, beautiful spring night, and it felt like maybe the last time in an long time we’d be able to feel some semblance of normal.
Restaurants were packed that evening, but over the next few days they all began to close, one after another. More than a month later, Charlottesville’s food scene is still in limbo, as local spots try to survive through a springtime with no graduation, no lunch crowds on the Downtown Mall, no Fridays after Five, no weekends of live music and picnics at the wineries, no weddings.
Some places tried takeout and delivery for awhile, then closed. Others shut down immediately, but have recently reopened with revamped menus and ordering systems and curbside pickup. None of it has been easy. “We are working more now than before we closed, and we were open seven days a week,” says Angelo Vangelopoulos of the Ivy Inn. Vangelopoulos has enlisted family members to help turn the sit-down, upscale American spot into a takeout joint open four evenings a week.
For eateries that had already done some takeout, like Mel’s Café on West Main, adapting is a little easier, but business has still taken a hit. “It’s not the same money right now,” owner Mel Walker told us. “But we’re hanging in there.”
As businesses continue to try to access federal support, the City of Charlottesville has offered some financial assistance of its own, though many restaurants were unable to qualify for its recent BRACE grants. More help is coming, says Jason Ness of the city’s Office of Economic Development. Let’s hope it’s enough.
The James River Water Authority wants to build a water pump station at the confluence of the James and Rivanna rivers, an important historic site for the Monacan tribe. Photo: Carrie Pruitt
By Zoé Edgecomb
Between now and May 7, Virginians have a rare opportunity to facilitate a moment of justice for the Monacan people whose land we live on.
Zion Crossroads, at the intersection of I-64 and Route 15, is developing rapidly, and local politicians have known for years that the groundwater is insufficient. Their solution is to pump water from the James River, and Louisa and Fluvanna counties created the James River Water Authority to make this happen.
The men on this board have determined that the cheapest, and therefore best, place for the water intake and pumping station is where the Rivanna River flows into the James —you may know it as Point of Fork or Columbia. The earliest maps of Virginia called it Rassawek, and European explorers noted it as the principal town of the Monacan, who occupied a large area in central Virginia, from the Fall Line (Richmond, Fredericksburg) into the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Several alternative locations for the project were studied, but after a well-attended meeting where over 100 people traveled to a gated community golf clubhouse to speak against it, the JRWA chose to continue the colonialist tradition of prioritizing profit over justice, and voted to submit an application for the third of four required permits to the Army Corps of Engineers.
The mindset that has allowed the project to get even this far is a product of centuries of myth-building: European colonists came to an empty, untamed land in which the Indians had already died off, and made the land fruitful for the first time. But the Monacan people have always been here, even if some of their number chose to incorporate into other tribes. The heart of the current community, a federally recognized tribe since 2018, beats just an hour south of Charlottesville, around Bear Mountain in Amherst County.
Few of us growing up around here learned much about the Monacans, and even today, few know about the doctrine of discovery that helped justify colonization. Accounts vary as to the exact beginning, but a few papal bulls (essentially letters from the Pope) played a critical role: In 1455, Pope Nicholas V gave Portugal the right to colonize the African coast. Portugal was encouraged to “invade, capture, vanquish, and subdue all Saracens, pagans, and other enemies of Christ, to put them into perpetual slavery, and to take away all their possessions and property.”
Later, Protestant colonizers found their own mandate for colonization in the Bible. The kings and queens of England borrowed the Pope’s religious language to grant tracts of land they had never visited.
After they shrugged off their own status as colonial subjects, U.S. settlers relied on a distinction between “Christians” and “heathens” to justify further expansion into Indian territory. In 1823, Justice John Marshall’s ruling in Johnson v. M’Intosh put it this way: “…discovery gave title to the government by whose subjects, or by whose authority, it was made…which title might be consummated by possession…the character and religion of [the original] inhabitants afforded an apology for considering them as a people over whom the superior genius of Europe might claim an ascendancy.” In other words, finders keepers, as long as the original caretakers of the land could be perceived as pagans.
The legacy of the discovery precedent continues today, as corporations, government entities, and private citizens insist that Native Americans’ rights must give way to the “greater good” of pipelines, mining, and ranching.
Federal recognition means tribes must be consulted when federal projects will directly impact the tribe. This is one such project. Monacan people historically buried the dead in mounds near principal towns, so there is almost 100 percent certainty that human remains of Monacan ancestors will be unearthed if construction goes forward at Rassawek. Chief Kenneth Branham has stated that he and the Monacan community have participated in the process of reburial in the past. It is a deeply painful experience that no one wants to repeat.
To issue this permit, the Army Corps of Engineers is required to consider comments from the public. They need to consider all impacts, including on historic and cultural resources. Already, the site has allegedly been impacted by inept investigations: The archaeological firm hired by JRWA is accused of inflating its qualifications to do archaeological work of this nature, and of performing excavations at the site in a manner that may have permanently destroyed historic resources.
For more information, visit the website of the attorneys representing the Monacan Nation in this important struggle. Write to the Army Corps of Engineers and sign the letter to Governor Ralph Northam before the May 7 deadline. Tell them you oppose JRWA’s permit application; it is not in the public interest; and that Rassawek should be preserved as an important part of national, Virginia, and tribal history. Request a public hearing on the permit application and an environmental impact statement.
Louisa and Fluvanna counties must implement sensible water use guidelines, such as disallowing high-impact uses like golf courses. Ask developers to pay their fair share. By now, we should be able to recognize that the Monacan people have given up enough.
Zoé Edgecomb is a landscape architect and visual artist based in Charlottesville, located on Monacan lands.
Animal-lovers had a lot to look forward to with the Virginia Festival of the Book’s March 2020 lineup—before it was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic.
If you’re doing what you’re supposed to do (please say yes), you’re just staying home. For many of us, that means fattening comfort food and boozy evenings binge watching “Tiger King.” Though it’s unquestionably difficult to watch Joe Exotic’s mistreatment of the majestic creatures he’s bred and trapped into an unnatural life, the great cats are a draw for viewers.
Animals fascinate us. Yet those in zoos live their whole lives in a kind of quarantine lockdown and now we’re almost right there with them. Unlike our beastly relatives, we’ve still got options, however small those might seem. In addition to what’s streaming into our homes, we’ve got two other powerful means of escapism: reading books and going for walks outside.
A bevy (rook? business? school?) of animal-themed titles slated to be part of the wisely canceled Virginia Festival of the Book is still available to provide us with a detour from our own thoughts and the onslaught of grim headlines. Through pages ranging from the scientific and ecological to the fictional and symbolic, the authors implore us to recognize how animals of all stripes are constantly striving to overcome difficulties compounded by our recklessness.
Conservationist and Audubon magazine field editor Kenn Kaufman offers Season on the Wind: Inside the World of Spring Migration. Though we’re all rightfully anxious about how coronavirus may continue to disrupt our lives—let alone all of those lost travel plans—Kaufman’s latest explains how climate change and human development have seriously upended birds’ schedules and flight paths. His timely seasonal tome recounts some of the utterly incredible accomplishments of migrating birds, including those converging along Lake Erie in northwestern Ohio.
Take for example the blackpoll warbler. The migratory songbird about the size of a human thumb isn’t much to look at and weighs, appropriate to this article, about as much as a ballpoint pen. Yet this generally nondescript little chirper is known to fly more than 6,000 miles from the Amazon to the Arctic by way of Florida and Ohio. Then, just to spice things up, he takes an alternate route back south. After a rest stop in Massachusetts, it’s a monumental 80-hour flight for four nights and three days—2,000 miles straight to South America. And you’re complaining about getting your steps in this week.
Looking to submerge instead? Author and retired Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries manager Paul Bugas lends his expertise to the Field Guide to Freshwater Fishes of Virginia. The reference details the denizens of our nearby waterways, drawing on Bugas’ decades of hands-on experience (he’s also a biologist); he and his fellow contributing authors and artists illuminate the commonwealth’s many natural-born swimmers. Tips explain how to collect, handle, and protect central Virginia’s diverse fish populations, but it’s not just for anglers: You’ll learn where you can best observe these fish locally, which, to be fair, will be much easier after the stay-at-home order is lifted.
If you’re more apt to dive into fiction, three novelists offer up thematic forays into the philosophical and political use of beasts.
Washington, D.C.-based Rick Hodges mixes political intrigue with a nature tale in To Follow Elephants, an eco-minded adventure thriller inspired by his travels in Africa. The story of an 18-year-old American seeking out his missing army captain father wraps its narrative around the education of a young elephant by his herd’s matriarch; the resulting style informs Hodges’ novel with a wisdom that transcends the petty squabbles of man, and elevates the pachyderms as characters in their own right.
Speaking of young ones, Johanna Stoberock has created an allegorical work about four children on an island that receives the entire planet’s trash, which the kids sort and feed to a herd of hungry pigs. Lord of the Flies comparisons are inevitable, but Pigs provides another take as the adults occupy a much different function for the endangered youths, acting as cruel overlords; the elders party like the power hungry porkers of Animal Farm while the children toil. The plot thickens when a boy suddenly washes ashore.
Barn 8 by Deb Olin Unferth tells a less fantastic tale, but one that’s no less loony. It’s a half-love/half-heist story about two egg industry auditors and their plot to steal a farm’s million chickens under cover of darkness. The bizarre, funny, and politically charged tale about love’s ability to fuel odd decisions makes grand and cavalier jumps into the minds of chickens—and maybe more unexpectedly— zips thousands of years forward into a bleak future where the animals navigate a planet destroyed by humans.
Of course, that dire possibility is what people like Kaufman and Bugas have spent their lives warning everyone about, while doing what they could to prevent that kind of catastrophe. And as we’ve got a very real disaster of our very own to contend with, it’s just better to keep the door closed for now, and hunker down with a good book.
Through pages ranging from the scientific and ecological to the fictional and symbolic, the authors implore us to recognize how animals of all stripes are constantly striving to overcome difficulties compounded by our recklessness.
Veritas Vineyard and Winery is just one of the many local winemaking operations that had to pivot quickly to sell wines online and curbside due to the coronavirus’ effect. Courtesy subject
For many, COVID-19 has made it feel as if time is standing still. For local wineries, however, the early- April budbreak marks the start of the growing season and serves as a hopeful, but also stark, reminder that the cycle of winemaking continues forward. Planning, attention, and hard work is required now if wine is to be made in 2020.
In large part, Virginia’s wineries are small, family businesses and face significant financial challenges during this unprecedented time. Not only must they pay immediate expenses associated with taking care of vineyards, but revenue generated now is required to pay for the harvest and winemaking in the fall.
The wine industry is inextricably intertwined with the restaurant, event, and tourism industries, and springtime in Virginia is usually a peak time for these businesses. With tourism down an estimated 78 percent versus last year, tasting rooms closed, and weddings canceled or postponed, wineries have been forced to move away from their reliable business models.
George Hodson, general manager of Veritas Vineyard and Winery and president/co-owner of Flying Fox Vineyard & Winery describes the Virginia wine industry as “foundationally built on the wine-tourism model. We have set ourselves up to sell wine at full retail out of our tasting rooms.” He believes the industry must adapt, but that it’s nimble enough to do so. Like many wineries, Veritas and Flying Fox have pivoted from on-premises sales and consumption to online sales and delivering the product to consumers in their homes. “We have been forced to completely restructure our sales model.”
Rather than seeing this as a temporary or undesirable response, Hodson believes changes wineries are making now will position them well for the future. “I actually believe that this will be a catalyst event that will change the way people purchase wine. People have been trending toward increased online purchasing, this is going to accelerate that curve exponentially.”
Elizabeth Smith, who owns Afton Mountain Vineyards with her husband, Tony, has also turned to online sales. Their winery had an e-commerce website in the works for several months, but COVID-19 served as an impetus to move forward quickly. In addition, they added wines from Monticello Wine Company, a second label intended only for distribution, to the website. Smith describes online sales as a lifesaver for their business. Like many wineries, they are offering free shipping and curbside pickup.
Afton Mountain usually has about 95 percent of sales go through its tasting room, but going forward Smith says “we will continue with online sales and increase the number of states with which we register to ship wine.” The rapid launch of their e-commerce platform has necessitated a lot of troubleshooting and revamping of operations, but has also allowed them to learn the new system quickly.
In the vineyards, physical distancing is relatively easy because there is a lot of open space, but there are other factors that impact employees. Smith says that normally they would hire extra crews to help with the workload, but this year they are only using core workers for both financial and safety reasons. In addition, they’ve asked their employees to stop working other jobs and limit their social interactions when at home.
In the winery, distancing has delayed bottling in some places, as bottling lines often require workers to stand side-by-side for long periods. While most wineries have not yet addressed what things will look like during harvest, they stress that winery work can continue with proper protocols in place.
Some, like Benoit Pineau, winemaker at Pollak Vineyards, do not anticipate many changes. He says they have a very small team that, through staff education and common sense, can continue to work without risk. However, similar to Afton Mountain, they are asking employees to be responsible with personal time. Pineau refers to the ideal scenario as “home-work-home” with limited or no social activity.
Amidst all of this, it’s obvious there is still great optimism for the 2020 vintage and for the future of Virginia wine. Hodson sees the response from the state government as an important measuring stick. He explains that the governor, secretary of agriculture, and Virginia ABC have worked hard to aid the industry. “Postponing tax payments, easing restrictions, allowing modified operations…we simply cannot ask for more support than we have received,” says Hodson. “This is a signal of the importance of our industry on a state level, which is also a signal of the maturation of our industry.” It’s estimated that the Virginia wine industry has an annual economic impact of over a billion dollars, and the state clearly recognizes that.
Perhaps an even greater cause for hope is consumer support. With online sales and curbside pickups, many wineries across the state are reporting that sales are exceeding their expectations. Hodson describes the response as “overwhelmingly positive,” and is excited about what it indicates. The fact that customers are responding with dollars “tells me our community is supportive of our industry. Ultimately, we are seen as integral members of our community and people want to make sure we are around when this all ends.”
Drink local
A guide to getting central Virginia wine to your table
Tara Laskowski appears in the online series Shelf Life to discuss her novel One Night Gone on Thursday. Publicity image.
Beach bound: When uber-popular mystery writer Tana French calls your debut novel “a subtle but relentlessly unsettling book,” you know you’ve got what it takes to thrill readers. Tara Laskowski appears in the Virginia Festival of the Book’s streaming series Shelf Life to discuss One Night Gone, a suspense story set in an off-season beach community awash with dark secrets. The series features livestreamed author conversations and book talks on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
The art of Chicho Lorenzo is just one of the many artists who've contributed to the Community Coloring Book. Courtesy of the Bridge PAI.
Like a rainbow: In the search for silver linings during these homebound days, the Community Coloring Book unites us through a collection of designs by local artists. With contributions from Chicho Lorenzo, Sam Gray, Thomas Dean, Bolanle Adeboye, Federico Cuatlacuatl, Charles Peale, and many others, the collaboration is the most recent addition to a series of inspirational and creative engagements from The Bridge that includes the Quarantine Haiku and Art Apart. Download, share, or send in your own design—let’s color our world together.thebridgepai.org. Ongoing.
Mel Walker has always offered takeout at his eponymous soul food diner, but most of his business comes from eat-in and catering orders. “It’s not the same money right now. But we’re hanging in there,” he says, thanks in part to support from his loyal customers.
Standing in the Chimm dining room, Jay Pun felt a sense of unease. It was the weekend of March 7, and the tables were full of diners noshing on Thai and southeast Asian street food dishes.
“This is really starting to freak me out,” said one of Pun’s employees, who was also surveying the scene. Pun had to agree. COVID-19 was becoming an increasing threat, and it was nearly impossible to look around the dining room without cringing at the sound of a sneeze or a cough, or wondering who among them might be an asymptomatic carrier.
“It’s every restaurateur’s dream to have a packed house, to always have a business going,” says Pun, but that night, the dream started to feel more like a nightmare.
Pun, who co-owns both Chimm and Thai Cuisine & Noodle House, had good reason to worry: Just a few days later, on March 11, the World Health Organization would classify COVID-19 a global pandemic, and a few days after that, on March 16, the City of Charlottesville announced its first confirmed case.
On March 17, Governor Ralph Northam issued a public health emergency order for restaurants to enforce a 10-patron limit, and by March 23, he ordered them closed for service other than takeout and delivery.
Once that mandate came down, eateries had to decide what to do next: Close indefinitely? Expand an existing takeout business? Build a takeout program from the ground up? Lay off employees so they could start collecting unemployment benefits, or try to keep some on in a modified way?
These are not easy decisions to make. The Charlottesville area has a high number of restaurants per capita (not to mention significant wedding and tourism industries), and the restaurant and hospitality industry employs a significant percentage of the local population. Reductions in hours and service options affect thousands of workers and their families.
And while those decisions have varied greatly from restaurant to restaurant, and continue to shift each week, the desired outcome—survival—is the same across the board.
“There are a lot of formats that make sense” in how to maintain a business right now, says Ben Clore, co-owner of Oakhart Social and Little Star, both located on West Main Street. “Every restaurant should do what’s best for them.”
At first, Clore says, they reduced staff and tried takeout (using a combined menu for both places) to clear out the pantry and see how it went. But after weighing potential health and financial risks against benefits and rewards, Clore and his business partners decided that moving to a takeout model just wasn’t worth it. Both spots are closed for now.
Just down the street at Mel’s Café, Mel Walker continues to prepare his full soul food menu. Mel’s has always offered takeout, but the catering and dine-in side of the business “was a lot more money,” says Walker. “It’s not the same money right now. But we’re hanging in there.”
Walker’s had to buy more containers and utensils than he usually does, and says packing to-go orders requires more work than prepping eat-in plates. And as restaurant suppliers start to run out of certain things, most notably fresh meat (a number of America’s largest meat processing plants have had to shut down due to COVID-19 outbreaks among workers), he’s a little worried about being able to get all the ingredients he needs.
Jay Pun’s restaurants, Thai Cuisine & Noodle House and Chimm, already had takeout systems in place, which has helped during the shutdown. Photo: John Robinson
Before the pandemic, Pun estimates between one-quarter and one-third of his restaurants’ business came from takeout orders. “Looking back, I’m glad we had that in place,” says Pun.
Business is doing well enough that he hasn’t had to lay off any employees. And for those who don’t feel comfortable working in the restaurant space, despite everyone wearing masks and gloves and taking extra cleaning precautions (like trading natural products from Method and Seventh Generation for CDC-recommended Lysol and Clorox-type cleaners), Pun’s tried to give them back-end work if they want it.
“So far so good, knock on wood,” says Pun. “I don’t know if it’s a trend, if it will continue, or if it’ll get even busier.”
Other spots, like Moose’s By the Creek in Hogwaller and Ivy Inn on Old Ivy Road, are doing takeout for the first time.
“It’s going as good as it can go,” says Moose’s co-owner Amy Benson. Moose’s now offers its full menu of diner staples, including breakfast, at expanded hours (9am to 5pm Wednesday through Saturday), plus special family-style meals on Sundays. “You just have to find the thing that keeps people coming back,” she says. Demand has been high enough that Benson says she’s been able to keep on all five of Moose’s full-time employees.
After Moose’s closed its dining room following the weekend of March 15, some regulars pressed to come in in groups of nine or less, but Benson wouldn’t allow it. She adores both her regular customers and her employees, and it wasn’t worth the risk.
“Hopefully we’ll get through this and get going again,” she says.
After initially closing his restaurant, the Ivy Inn’s Angelo Vangelopoulos is now serving takeout Wednesday through Saturday. Photo: John Robinson
Angelo Vangelopoulos closed the Ivy Inn’s dining room after that second weekend in March, too. Like Pun, the chef-owner had a growing sense of unease at seeing his restaurant full of people, and kept thinking, “We’re doing the wrong thing to make this better.”
Vangelopoulos, who’s been with the restaurant since 1995, made the decision to close temporarily. Takeout didn’t seem like an option for the Ivy Inn’s upscale seasonal American cuisine. “We’re not a carry-out restaurant; we’re not equipped for it,” says Vangelopoulos. And he wanted his employees to be able to apply for unemployment as soon as possible. “I knew the line would only get longer,” he says.
“It was one of the toughest days I’ve lived through. We’ve got almost 30 people that rely on us for their well-being and income. And there’s a pretty tight social structure inside a restaurant, too—we consider each other family, we take care of each other. That was really hard, getting the message out to my people.”
But the restaurant was losing $800 every day it remained fully closed, so, as it became clear that stay-at-home directives wouldn’t be ending anytime soon, takeout seemed worth a try. After taking a week to figure out menus and ordering systems, and purchase takeout containers, the Ivy Inn now does carryout four days a week, with a different daily menu, Wednesday through Saturday (Thursday is “Mr. V’s Greek Night,” an homage to Vangelopoulos’ father, who’s now helping out in the kitchen and who owned and ran a restaurant in Springfield for many years).
To keep costs as low as possible, Vangelopoulos and his family are handling everything themselves, and like many restaurant owners, he notes that takeout is even more work than eat-in. There are lots of moving parts, from taking orders to prepping food to texting with customers waiting in the parking lot. “I am not joking you when I say we are working more now than before we closed, and we were open seven days a week,” says Vangelopoulos.
“I’m fully happy running with a lower profit margin at this time to really survive, to keep a little bit of cash flow coming into the checking account,” says Vangelopoulos. It also helps that his landlord has told him not to worry about rent right now.
For PK Ross, owner and flavor virtuoso of Splendora’s Gelato on the Downtown Mall, the COVID-19 pandemic has made her think differently about her business. Immediately after the governor issued the stay-at-home order, she moved to carry-out only and added delivery. She has kept only one employee, her general manager, on the books. “Customers are ordering, but it’s nowhere near our walk-in business,” she says, in part because nobody’s out on the Downtown Mall.
Normally at this time of year, Ross would be making between 18 and 24kg of chocolate gelato per week, one of the shop’s biggest sellers. Last week, she made eight.
“Customers are ordering, but it’s nowhere near our walk-in business,” says PK Ross of Splendora’s. Photo: John Robinson
Even before the pandemic began, Ross had planned to close her Downtown Mall storefront in August. “Holding on until this mess lifts was my initial hope…so that I could have a farewell summer with my customers,” she says. But now she’s thinking of keeping Splendora’s going beyond the summer, in a different spot, and with something close to the model she’s currently operating—a scaled-down shop with more emphasis on delivery.
Even the most seasoned restaurateurs aren’t sure what’s next, and as the pandemic continues, the situation only grows more complicated. Already, one local restaurant—the Downtown Grille—has closed its doors for good. To receive the federal Paycheck Protection Program loans many small businesses are applying for right now, restaurants would have to keep their entire staff on the payroll. But between state unemployment benefits and the additional $600 per week federal benefit, many workers who have been able to qualify are making more direct income on unemployment than they would in a restaurant. And even if restaurants are allowed to open in the next few months, customers, servers, and cooks still might not feel safe congregating in dining rooms and kitchens.
At this point, it’s impossible to know what the industry will look like in even a few months. But for now, many are grateful for the community support they’ve received, both from the funds set up to help their employees, and from takeout orders. Pun notes that “people are so much kinder than they ever were, which has been awesome.” Even in the best of times, customers typically don’t tip enough or at all on takeout, but Pun’s noticed that lately, folks are tipping the standard 15 to 20 percent, if not more.
And Walker’s glad he can maintain relationships with his loyal customers, relationships he’s established through reliably serving hamburgers, fried chicken, cornbread, and collards for years. “I want the whole community to know how much I appreciate the support. I want everyone to stay safe and try to do the best they can to get through this,” he says. “I’ve been in the restaurant business a long time, and ain’t nobody seen anything like this before.”
Walter Slawski (of Shebeen Pub & Braai and The Catering Outfit) has worked with Sysco Food Service of Virginia to establish a twice-weekly food pantry for laid-off restaurant and hospitality workers. Photo: John Robinson
Feeding the cooks
South African eatery Shebeen Pub & Braai and its sister restaurant/catering biz The Catering Outfit are among the local spots that have stayed open, serving takeout and chef-prepared meal kit offerings. And in a partnership with Sysco Food Service of Virginia, they’ve also opened a food pantry to help unemployed restaurant workers (including some of their own) stock their home kitchens.
“I know what my employees are going through,” says Shebeen and Catering Outfit owner Walter Slawski. “Not only are we trying to create revenue streams” to pay them if they want to work right now, “we’re trying to help people.”
Sysco’s provided more than $25,000 worth of groceries, says Slawski, and they’re relying on private donations from the community, too. So far they’ve given out more than $32,000 worth of food to over 1,000 food service and event workers.
The pantry is open Mondays and Thursdays from 11am to 2pm in the Shebeen parking lot, and what’s in each pre-packed bag varies from pickup to pickup. Sometimes it’s a lot of dry goods and refrigerator items like cold cuts, bacon, and juice, or fruit like bananas and oranges. One week, LittleJohns donated bags of potato chips and bread. Sysco’s donations are a little more on the wild side—five-pound bags of macaroni, for instance—but Slawski says there’s been nothing but gratitude.
Any restaurant and hospitality industry worker can visit the pantry, which Slawski says operates on an honor system: People will be asked where they work, or used to work, prior to the pandemic, but that’s it. “We don’t turn anybody away.”
Atlas Coffee's Lorie Craddock was disappointed when she did not receive a BRACE grant, which would have helped pay fixed expenses at the temporarily shuttered shop. PC: John Robinson
As the coronavirus epidemic has devastated small businesses nationwide, many local shops and restaurants have sought federal relief. But the City of Charlottesville has also rolled out several of its own assistance initiatives this month. The Building Resilience Among Charlottesville Entrepreneurs grant, which awarded up to $2,000 to city businesses, received nearly 150 applications in three days.
The program is intended to help companies cover costs associated with changing their business models to adapt to social distancing requirements, says Jason Ness, business development manager for the city’s Office of Economic Development. But it could also be used to cover fixed costs like utilities and rent.
With $85,000 allocated for the program, “we spread it out as much as we could,” says Ness. After reviewing applications and conducting virtual interviews, OED staff decided on 69 awardees, who received an average of $1,200 each.
Ness says the city gave priority to people who were going to use the funds locally. For instance, “if a business needed to do deep cleaning and was going to hire another [area] business to do that work, that scored higher.”
“The more information and explanation the business owners gave us, the easier it was for us to decide,” he adds.
OMG! Cleaning Team owner Stephanie Ragland, who received a BRACE grant, demonstrates cleaning at a routine location in her protective gear. PC: Zack Wajsgras
Belmont restaurant The Local was among the awardees. Since March 18, the eatery has offered 10 meal options for a flat $10 fee, with 100 percent of the sales going to support its furloughed employees. It’s also provided free meals daily to its staff, and free and reduced-price meals to community members in need.
“The money from the grant is helping with food costs,” says Director of Operations Michelle Moshier. “We are [also] actively working on federal loans and grants that are available, as well as anything available through the city. …We’re hopeful that that support will help us to keep going with delivery and takeout until the restaurant can reopen.”
After losing more than two-thirds of her clients, Stephanie Ragland, owner of the cleaning service OMG! Cleaning Team, was also able to secure a $1,500 BRACE grant, which she plans to use to pay for a new professional vacuum (her old one broke), and compensate her employees. The funds also helped her pay off the rest of the fees associated with her company’s new website.
Ty Cooper filming his ongoing project, “Your Covid Story,” in his protective gear. PC: Subject
The local arts community wasn’t left out: With the $1,000 BRACE grant he received, filmmaker Ty Cooper, founder of Lifeview Marketing & Visuals, purchased a high-quality professional light that will allow him to film outside, which he was unable to do with his older equipment. He plans to use the light for his ongoing project, “Your Covid Story,” showcasing how the pandemic has impacted the lives of area residents.
Still, with the limited amount of funds allocated for BRACE grants, more than half of the applicants did not receive any money—a significant portion of them local restaurants.
“We have a text thread with about two dozen restaurant owners and managers to communicate every day,” says Maya co-owner Peter Castiglione. “There was a handful from our group…who did receive their $2,000 from the BRACE grant, but most of us got an ‘unfortunately’ email, which is what I received.”
Castiglione would have used the grant to help pay for some of Maya’s ongoing expenses. While the restaurant is currently offering curbside pickup meals, the entire staff has been laid off, he says.
“Obviously, we’re disappointed that we didn’t make the cut [for the BRACE grant]. That $2,000 would have gone a long way towards helping our staff,” he adds. However, “I was very excited to know that some of the restaurants in our group did receive it.”
Atlas Coffee also did not receive a BRACE grant. The shop’s owners planned to use the grant for fixed expenses because Atlas is not currently offering delivery or takeout options.
“For a couple months, we’re fine…but [say] we open back up in May, June, July, whatever. If you look at the Spanish flu and that experience, it’s the second wave that really affected people,” says Atlas co-owner Lorie Craddock. “If we have to do it again in November and shut for another six [months], we’re really going to be in the weeds at that point.”
Applications for other city business assistance programs—the Business Equity Fund Resiliency Loan and the Growing Opportunities Hire Grant—have already closed, but the city and county have provided funding for the Community Investment Collaborative’s Business Recovery Fund microloan program, which is currently accepting applications.
According to Ness, the city plans to look for more ways to provide aid to local businesses.
“We’re still interested and have resources available to help with more assistance in the future,” he says. “It’s just a matter of trying to see how things are going to play out in the next couple months, with hopefully [things returning] back to normal as soon as possible.”
Local newspapers faced an uncertain future even before coronavirus ground life as we know it to a halt. Now, with events canceled and commerce limping along, advertising revenue has cratered and the industry is in crisis. Over the past month, weeklies and dailies around the country have paused operations or gone dark completely.
The Daily Progress has been around since 1892, but coronavirus presents an unprecedented challenge. To help cut costs, the Progress’ corporate ownership has mandated that everyone take an unpaid two-week furlough in the next two months, and some fear worse is still to come.
But Progress staffers have a new force in their corner that might help them weather the storm: The Blue Ridge NewsGuild, their newsroom’s union. The newsroom announced its intention to organize in October, and contract negotiations with the paper’s corporate owners, Lee Enterprises, concluded last week.
Allison Wrabel, the Progress’ county government reporter and the secretary of the union, says that readers will notice the absence of furloughed staff. “I purposely put my furlough weeks on weeks when there aren’t big [county government] meetings. Those will go uncovered if something happens,” she says.
“That’s the price of furloughing employees during a pandemic,” says Katherine Knott, the Progress’ education reporter and the unit chair of the union. “The only thing you get is less.”
The virus crisis raises the stakes for the Progress’ new collective bargaining team. The unionization effort started in earnest in early 2019, when Progress staffers watched as BuzzFeed cut 15 percent of its staff and local newspapers continued to disappear.
“You don’t want to wait for the layoffs, because you’ve missed your chance,” says Knott. “We were trying to be proactive, because we knew changes were coming.”
The Progress isn’t the only paper taking such steps. Its union is part of NewsGuild, a larger union of journalists and communication workers. Jon Schleuss, the president of NewsGuild, says that 2,900 workers have voted to join the organization since the beginning of 2018, a record-breaking new influx.
Schleuss says that the uncertain future of the industry is the main driver of this new organizing, but adds that unions and journalists are a natural fit for each other: Both unions and journalists seek to “protect the work, and have a voice, and hold your own institution accountable,” he says.
“In some cases, we’ve got chains or managers or companies that just take advantage of people,” Schleuss says.
The Daily Progress, once family-owned, is now controlled by Lee Enterprises, an Iowa-based media conglomerate that publishes 46 different daily papers in 21 states. Consolidation of media is a national trend —25 companies own two-thirds of all daily newspapers in the country, according to the University of North Carolina’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media.
The Blue Ridge NewsGuild’s website notes that Lee fired 42 percent of its employees between 2012 and 2017. The Progress has been understaffed for months—since October, the newsroom has been short a copy editor, a designated UVA reporter, and a sports reporter.
Lee Enterprises’ first contract offer was an eight-page document that said “we’re gonna do whatever we want, move on,” says Knott. After months of negotiation, the final contract is 28 pages, and includes a variety of new guarantees for Progress newsroom staffers.
The union’s biggest win was a salary scale adjustment for its members. The newsroom’s lowest salary is now $34,500, up from $31,900. Those who have worked at the Progress for 20 years will make at least $48,500. Even with these improvements, the salary for 20-year veterans is still around $4,000 lower than the national median earnings for people with a college degree.
“The paper has made big jumps towards paying its employees a decent wage—I won’t say fair, but it’s a little bit more reasonable,” Knott says.
The union was forced to compromise on a number of key points, however. The union asked for 60 days notice for any newsroom layoffs, which Lee negotiated down to 14 days. That’s better than the current policy, though. “No one’s going to be met at the door with a box of their stuff, which is what they’ve done before,” says Knott.
Lee also squeezed in a clause that allows the company to relocate the Progress’ design desk and copyediting positions to a central hub in the Midwest. If the company exercises that option, the Charlottesville office would lose at least four jobs.
These negotiations reveal the fundamental friction that exists between local newspapers and their corporate owners.
“They’re beholden to shareholders,” Wrabel says.
“We’re beholden to the community,” Knott says.
“Our mission is to be the paper of record for this time,” Knott says, not to pad anyone’s bottom line. “You want to get the quotes about how people are living, because people are going to pull out your clips 20 years from now, for the 20-years-from-the-pandemic stories.”
For staffers staring down the barrel of weeks without pay, even the modest new raises can make a real difference. There are other benefits to membership, too—the union has been holding Zoom happy hours over the last few weeks. Still, the leadership isn’t upbeat about local media’s prospects during this pandemic.
“I think we’re fortunate we [unionized] in October,” says Knott. “Now we’re positioned, better than ever, to be there for each other, and harness our collective power. Even if that just means making sure everyone knows how to file for unemployment.”
