The team behind Junction, the Southwest-style Belmont restaurant that closed in 2020, has launched another eatery in the same space, but new patrons can expect anything but the same old.
The new resto goes by the name Mockingbird and serves up Southern comfort. Head chef Melissa Close-Hart worked with long-time collaborators Michelle Moshier, Matthew Hart, and Helen Aker to come up with the concept after carefully debating Junction’s reopening. Close-Hart says the new direction felt like a fresh start.
“Junction did an okay job, and I did an okay job in that position, but it wasn’t really my passion,” the acclaimed chef says. “We did a lot of research, and we finally just said, ‘The best food gets produced by people that are doing something close to their heart.’”
In addition to switching culinary focus, the Mockingbird dining room has been significantly downsized. Where Junction operated on both floors of the restored Belmont building at 421 Monticello Rd., Mockingbird will stick to the downstairs level. That gives it 100 floor seats and another 13 at the bar, down from 250. The upstairs will be devoted to Aker’s catering operation, and serve as an event space for parties up to 60 people.
At Junction, Close-Hart and her back-of-house team served 2,200 square feet of dining room out of a 210-square-foot kitchen. That wasn’t tenable, and the change will allow the chef not only to cook food aligned with her own Southern heritage, but to do more one-offs and boutique specials. Close-Hart says Mockingbird will differ from other soul food joints around town in that it’ll focus on the Deep South, with a bit of Cajun and creole thrown in, as well as Gulf Coast—rather than Eastern Shore—seafood.
On the menu at Mockingbird are staples like fried green tomatoes and crispy chicken and waffles, but also more unique items like bison hanger steak and the Not-So-Classic Pot Roast with blue cheese crumbles. Close-Hart wants to maintain five daily specials, as well, including an app and entrée along with the soup, catch, and ice cream of the day.
“Being at The Local for the last two and a half years, we do a lot of numbers,” Close-Hart says. “So a farmer might say, ‘I have two pounds of cowpeas.’ We can’t do anything with that.”
The other big change at Close-Hart’s new restaurant is in the chef’s personal focus. She’s been sober for the past three years and says she’s more energized and passionate about running a restaurant than she has been in a long time.
“When we opened Junction, I was not in the right frame of mind, and it took about two years to realize I was in trouble,” Close-Hart says. “And to be frank about it, there are a lot of parts of opening Junction I don’t remember, between the stress and the addiction issues.”
Close-Hart spent 30 days in rehab when she decided to fight her addictions. Some folks around her said she’d never be able to return to the restaurant business and stay sober. But being a chef “is who I am, not just what I do,” she says, and there was no way she was giving it all up.
Mockingbird opened to the public in late July after missing its soft opening the week prior. A COVID flareup likewise slowed the business for several days in early August. Otherwise, Close-Hart says things have been running smoothly, and she continues to revive her love of cooking. She’s also found support for her sobriety from a therapist and the growing crowd of sober chefs in Charlottesville and beyond.
“I don’t even think about it anymore. It is not a concept in my life, and I don’t struggle with it,” Close-Hart says. “I found a happy place, and I have great people that surround me. I’m happy to talk about my sobriety if it helps even one person think about getting sober. And, it keeps me accountable.”