Is it a gourmet shop? A neighborhood grocery? A stop-by convenience store? A deli? A gift store? A coffee shop? A lunch spot? Foods of All Nations is all these things—and a Charlottesville institution that’s has been serving local customers for almost 70 years.
Stroll through Foods and you’ll find a range of quality produce and birthday cards, fresh sushi and baby gifts, a bottle of wine and dish soap, handmade chocolates and pet food, MarieBette baked goods and Caspari paper products. The store covers all these categories because its customer base runs the gamut, heavily influenced by its location next to UVA and on the west side’s main route in and out of town.
“We see lots of UVA athletes and students, faculty on their way home from UVA, parents picking up their kids from St. Anne’s-Belfield, and then there’s the Farmington/Bellair/Boars Head crowd,” says Butch Brown, Foods’ interim store manager. The outdoor seating is mobbed during nice weather, especially on UVA football game days. And, he adds, “This is a food town.”
Foods caters to foodies. Jams, jellies, and condiments from mustard to harissa fill one side of Aisle 4; Aisle 5 features foods from Greece, Indonesia, Asia, Spain and Mexico, the Middle East, India, and Africa. Toma, the sushi chef, draws a devoted clientele. The selection of wines, cheeses, and chocolate is amazing—many of them local (Foods stocks products from dozens of local businesses and “the widest selection of Virginia-made food and products” in town, says its website). Many customers come in every Sunday for their New York Times or Washington Post.
Foods was launched in 1955 by local businessmen Don King and Watt Jones; their first store, on Preston Avenue in Rose Hill, was called the Seven Day Shopping Center. A few years later, the store moved to Meadowbrook Shopping Center, and by 1970 it had settled at its current location in Ivy Square, with a new name. There was a metal sign on the roof, Brown recalls, proclaiming “Foods of All Nations: An Asset in Any Community,” although he doesn’t recall where that name or slogan came from.
A company associated with the UVA Foundation bought the Ivy Square Shopping Center in 2021, but Brown is confident that Foods will be around for a while yet. “The Foundation has been very supportive,” he says, including of the breakfast-and-lunch spot Foods operates at UVA’s North Fork Discovery Park.
That eatery is one of several adaptations that Foods has made over the years. A 1994 renovation expanded the back office and bakery space and turned the store’s original entry into a café offering tea, coffee, and pastries. The new entry and the space next to it became the flower and gift shop. In a nod to promoting local, that space is shared between Caspari products (the company is based here and its president is a Foods customer) and Alight Flower Farm in Keswick, which stocks the fresh flowers, indoor plants, and gifts.
“Foods was our main market when we started the farm in 2016,” says Alight’s owner Liz Nabi, “so when their florist left in 2020, Foods asked us to take over.” When it comes to the gift selection, she says, “I pick things that I like and am drawn to—colorful, often nature-themed.” Shoppers find it convenient to pick up hostess gifts, Christmas stocking stuffers, baby gifts, and birthday presents. “Because Foods has such consistent repeat customers, we always want to offer something new,” Nabi says.
While the store has adapted over the decades, one of its consistent features is its long-term staff. Brown has worked there for 35 years, Cindy Barker, the grocery manager, for 30 years, and deli section employees know customers by name—or by their favorite prepared food, specialty cheese, or cut of meat.
One long-time customer says he and his wife have been shopping at Foods for 50 years plus. “They carry real specialty European stuff,” he says. “It’s the place to go in Charlottesville for that. And it’s like a coffee house or café in Paris, or an English pub—you see students, grad students, faculty, elderly people, all the locals.”
Grocery manager Barker says she’s always looking for new products that her customers might be interested in: “I like to carry local products—our customers like to buy local—but I also try to get products from other countries.” Customers often ask her for specific products, and she does her best to oblige because she appreciates their loyalty. “We have the best customers ever,” she says.
And Foods’ clientele seems to reciprocate. The long-time customer we spoke with recalls picking a German hot chocolate mix off the shelf, but he couldn’t tell how much sugar was in it. “One of the staff came over and checked the German label ingredients for me—not many stores where that could happen,” he says.