If it weren’t for the Blue Ridge Mountains, restaurateur Ryan Becklund might not have brought her downtown vegan eatery Botanical Fare to Charlottesville.
A seasoned food service worker with eight years under her belt, Becklund was working at a vegan restaurant with locations in Washington, D.C., and Virginia Beach when the pandemic began.
“[The restaurant] was starting to grow and it became a much more full-time role for me,” says Becklund. “It was a career path that I wound up loving. And then COVID hit and it gave me time to reprioritize and think about what I really wanted to do long-term. I decided I wanted to do my own thing.”
Becklund had been vegan for years, so she knew she wanted her menu to be entirely plant-based. The challenge was deciding where to go. Becklund and her partner wanted to be on the East Coast, and eventually they were deciding between Charlottesville and Asheville.
“The decision to come here was the mountains. That was a big draw,” says Becklund. “I could see in Charlottesville that there was a lack of a fully vegan place. There are some great options in a lot of the restaurants here, but I knew there wasn’t a fully vegan one. So I figured it might be a little easier to get in and hopefully excite all the customers here.”
After its March 2022 opening, Botanical Fare quickly solidified itself as one of the city’s most popular new joints, for vegans and carnivores alike. The Crunchy Cauliflower Bowl, a savory dish with sticky rice and garlic ginger cauliflower nugs, has a cult-like following, the seasonal specials are always worth a try, and every now and then the unsuspecting space is transformed into a drag venue. You never know when you’ll see queens dancing between the tables and showing off their moves on top of the coffee counter.
It’s no surprise that Botanical quickly outgrew its kitchen, so talk turned to expanding, and this past summer, its sister concept, Bar Botanical, opened in Crozet.
Bar Botanical offers the same from-scratch, healthy vegan food that flagship regulars have come to know and love.
“It’s very similar in terms of the style of food,” Becklund says. “We do a little more ‘bar-style’ food. In Botanical we don’t use meat substitutions, but we use some impossible meats in Bar Botanical. It’s a little more approachable, casual.”
Located in Piedmont Place’s coveted rooftop space, Bar Botanical serves up delectable dishes like loaded hash browns, popcorn chicken bites, and wonton nachos alongside craft cocktails, draft beers, and wine.
Inclusivity is at the core of Botanical’s mission, so it was always the plan to bring the drag shows out to Crozet, and the performers have even more room to strut their stuff thanks to the larger space. In a small town with little to no nightlife, the drag shows have been a hit.
Even without performances, diners can still enjoy dinner and a show thanks to the rooftop views, which perfectly capture the sun setting over the Blue Ridge Mountains.