So long, farewell
Fellini’s #9 will soon change hands, but current and new owners agree that, in this case, it’s definitely out with the old and in with the old.
“If it’s not broke, don’t fix it,” says the new face of Fellini’s, Justin Butler. He is the director of operations for MJR Enterprises—an independently owned company created by his sister to purchase the restaurant—and though he’s known for his success in helping to open Skybar and Rock Salt in Charlottesville, he doesn’t have any elaborate strategies for managing Fellini’s. In fact, he and the restaurant’s current owner of 10-and-a-half years, Jacie Dunkle, were able to close the deal on the premise of Fellini’s staying the same Italian restaurant and music venue its loyal customers have been coming to on and off since its original heyday in the late 1970s and ’80s.
“It almost feels like family,” Dunkle says, “like I’m passing it on to somebody that cares as much as I do.”
Butler stepped in recently as the manager at Fellini’s to familiarize himself with the restaurant until he becomes the head honcho at the end of this month. Dunkle is happy that her guests have had a chance to get to know Butler before he runs the show.
Butler plans to close for two days of maintenance before reopening with the rest of his team, which includes his brother-in-law and sister, Chad and Melissa Ragland.
“It’s going to be great to work with family, and we’ve got a lot of experience between the two of us,” Butler says, referring to his own culinary accomplishments, as well as Chad Ragland’s success as the owner of Wild Wing Cafe on West Main Street.
Fellini’s will keep its chef of seven-and-a-half years and, for the most part, says Butler, the menu will remain the same. After all, Dunkle says, the exceptional food is what’s kept people coming back after all these years.
And though she was teary-eyed and reluctant to give any last words, Dunkle admitted she is “sad, but happy at the same time,” and that passing down Fellini’s is both natural and necessary as she focuses on her new restaurant, Tin Whistle, the Irish pub just a few blocks away on Market Street.
She is excited to watch Fellini’s thrive under the operation of “young blood,” and for customers who aren’t ready to see her go, Dunkle promises she’ll still be in the kitchen cooking brunch on Sundays.
Better than a cronut?
Name it, and they will come. Or at least they’ll come if what you’re naming is a decadent, flaky breakfast pastry.
MarieBette Cafe and Bakery, the 6-month- old French eatery on Rose Hill Drive, planned to put its latest taste treat, the brioche feuilletée, on the menu for a week. That was before a clever turn of marketing phrasing made the “bronut” clickbait on major food blogs and websites.
Locally The Charlottesville 29’s Simon Davidson pointed out that with a better name, the breakfast/dessert food could be the “next cronut.”
“The brioche feuilletée needs a better publicist,” Davidson wrote on his food blog. “MarieBette’s version…is a knockout. With dense layers of light, flaky pastry, dusted with crystals of sugar, it is like a cross between brioche, a croissant and a donut. But its name doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.”
Boy was Davidson right. He suggested MarieBette call its pastry a bronut, which quickly caught the attention of Business Insider, Thrillist, Eater and dozens of other blogs and websites. MarieBette, meanwhile, has been scrambling to keep up with increased demand. On the Friday three days after Davidson published the blog, the bakery cranked out four dozen bronuts only to have them purchased and devoured in a matter of minutes. According to one MarieBette waiter, people were lined up waiting to get their mouths on one. Take that, cronut.
Waste not
For those of you who have hopped on the kombucha bandwagon, buying the locally made stuff can be a bit of an investment, and a lifestyle choice. Barefoot Bucha’s refillable swing-top glass bottles are $4 apiece and each refill is $4. The effort it takes to seek out a place with a refill station or a tap, and the potential wait in line at Whole Foods, Rebecca’s Natural Food or Integral Yoga is also a bonus to your planet-saving karma.
Kombucha brewers and company owners Kate and Ethan Zuckerman were deliberate in the creation of this self-bottling method when they founded Barefoot Bucha five years ago.
“We try to live our lives in as low-waste a manner as possible,” Kate Zuckerman says. “We wanted to look at how we could bring a product to the public without generating more waste, and also hopefully helping people to take their own steps to reduce waste.”
Seems like it’s working. As of last week, according to calculations determined by the number of kegs, amount of liquid and number of bottles sold, Barefoot Bucha consumers have saved more than 250,000 bottles through the company’s refilling model.
“It feels tangible to get to a number like that,” Zuckerman says. “A quarter million bottles, that’s a real impact, So that feels really cool.”
Thrilled as they are by the milestone, Zuckerman said she and her husband have been grappling with how to make their product more accessible to someone who may not want to invest in a hefty glass bottle or make the effort to refill it. That’s why, as of last weekend, Barefoot Bucha is available in 12-ounce bottles in the cooler sections at Whole Foods and Rebecca’s Natural Food.—Samantha Baars, Shea Gibbs and Laura Ingles