Author: restaurantarama

By the time you read this, the furor of graduation weekend, with its unholy crush of diners fresh off a major rite of passage and ravenous for a suitably memorable meal, will be over. Regular people will consider that a good thing, as will restaurateurs on their way to the bank. As for those of us around here at Restaurantarama, the departure of the newly educated means a chance to think about more grownup pursuits.

JacLynn Dunkle has about a zillion courses of yum she’d like to serve you at Fellini’s #9. Oh, and there’s wine—which,  apparently, some people are kind of into.

To come to the point: There are a lot of nice outings to be had in Charlottesville, what with the plethora of wine dinners and other oenophiliac events that pepper the calendar. Take, for example, the “Wine at the #9” dinner slated for May 30 at Fellini’s #9.

What’s the deal? The dinner is a prix-fixe affair, or whatever the equivalent Italian term might be, meant to preview a new summer menu and, apparently, to fill patrons to the point of bursting. Six courses, people! Sauteed shrimp, fennel-crusted tuna, oxtail ragu, caprese salad, grilled ribeye and a mango gelato float. Plus wine, of course. Sounds positively Roman to us, and even your lower noblemen could probably swing the $60-per-person or $110-per-couple price.

Wineries themselves also host a steady parade of events—especially at this time of year, when the grapes are beginning to swell along with everybody’s desire to stand around in the sun and drink until their sweat itself can be said to have a “nose.” Just in the remainder of May, there’s a May Day Mead Tasting at Hilltop Berry Farm & Winery in Nellysford (May 26, 11am-5pm), a wine festival to benefit the SPCA at Louisa’s Cooper Vineyards (May 26-27, 11am-5pm), a Fiesta de Primavera at Mountain Cove Vineyards in Lovingston (May 26-27, 11am-5pm), a Memorial Day event at Wintergreen Winery in Nellysford (May 26-27, 10am-6pm) and a Spring Fling at Oakencroft Winery (May 28, 11am-5pm). We get pleasantly sleepy just looking at the lineup.

Open for buzziness

Perhaps, then, it’s appropriate to segue into this news: The coffeeshop component of local roaster Shenandoah Joe, which we told you about several weeks ago, is now open on Preston Avenue. We popped in for a cuppa and a look around. It’s a roomy spot, for sure: A spacious seating area at the front opens onto an even bigger roasting area in back. We liked the eclectic furniture, and there’s room for more of it should owner Dave Fafara want to add seating. We liked the coffee (ha!) table books, the coffee bean bags decorating the counter and walls, and the orange and brown tones that cosy up what is essentially an industrial building.

Too, we liked our coffee, a medium-roast variety which we can describe, in good conscience, as serious. But what we liked most of all was the rare aroma of roasting beans that floated around the shop. Caffeine-infused air? We’ll take it.

Jazzing up Belmont

The Hinton Avenue jazz club Saxx has worked its way up to a regular schedule of performances, and next-door neighbor La Taza is supplying the menu to go with the music. La Taza owner Melissa Easter says she tried for a while to offer a special Saxx menu, but that it was too much for her small kitchen. Instead, you can simply get La Taza fare at Saxx, and Easter plans to experiment with adding Saxx-specific sauces to La Taza dishes—more New Orleans, she says, than Latin.

Meanwhile, at La Taza, June will be Guatemala month, with beers and specials from that country. And, Easter vows, “It’s hard to get their good rum, but if there’s a way to get it in here, I will.”

Got some restaurant scoop? Send tips to restaurantarama@c-ville.com or call 817-2749, Ext. 48.

College life is about learning, of course, and post-college life is about the furious consumption of luxury goods. It’s only proper, then, that gazillions of newly minted UVA grads and their mothers, fathers, siblings, grandparents, cousins and nannies will celebrate the great rite of passage that is commencement, scheduled for May 19 and 20, by descending in great hordes on every restaurant in town.

It’s gonna be crazy.

First of all, if you don’t have a reservation by the time you’re reading this paper, start picturing a commencement dinner that involves the parking lot of Wendy’s, a keepsake mug and a fistful of sporks. “Saturday has been booked for a month,” says Luke Stewart-Silver, a shift manager at Hamiltons’. That Downtown landmark started taking commencement reservations for its $55 fixed-price meals at the beginning of the year, he says, and even after adding 15 seats to its usual capacity for a total of 75, Hamiltons’ has been turning people away for prime-time tables.

Stock up on cans of beans and stay home: Every new UVA grad and their mothers will descend on the Downtown restaurant scene en masse May 19-20.

This might be the one time you’d be glad your parents got divorced, since smaller tables—for parties of four or less—are the one variety Stewart-Silver still had available when we spoke.

Perhaps a less-established eatery is the way to go. Charles Roumeliotes, a partner in Orzo Kitchen & Wine Bar, told us he still had some room in his book as of May 3. This being the restaurant’s first commencement, Roumeliotes wasn’t making many special plans to add seating or staffing. He did, however, promise a couple of special entrees: sea bass with caponata, or braised local pork butt with pasta, wild mushrooms and asparagus. (By the way, even if you have a fancy degree from a flagship university, it’s still O.K. to giggle at the term “pork butt.”)

Tom Walker says he’s worked numerous graduation weekends at restaurants around town; his current gig, Mono Loco, is taking reservations this year for the first time. (And, basically, they’re full.) Though they’re adding seating and beefing up staff, he still expects a wave of hungry celebrants that would test the mettle of any restaurant crew. “We can always tell it’s coming because at first there’s very little foot traffic and road traffic, and we see that swell, and we’re like ‘Here it goes, battle stations!’” he says, describing the scene this way: “It’s like Charlottesville goes to Foxfield and doesn’t drink; everyone’s dressed up and on their best behavior.”

Best behavior or no, it’s times like these that we, personally, are glad we don’t wait tables anymore. And you won’t find us battling the crowds that weekend, either; we consider the week or two after graduation to be the perfect time to rediscover local eats, especially on the Corner.

Rocky Mountain high

Reed Anderson, executive chef at Blue Light Grill, will take a break from his usual fishy endeavors June 15-17, when he’ll travel to Aspen, Colorado, for the 25th Food and Wine Classic—essentially, an orgy of top-flight chefs and to-die-for wines and, we’re guessing, a whole lot of really great haircuts. Anderson’s friend, Gavin Kaysen, is a chef at San Diego’s Rancho Bernardo Inn and one of 10 “Best New Chefs,” each of whom will contribute one course to a Saturday night for 1,000 very lucky people.

Anderson will act as Kaysen’s sous-chef, which means he’ll spend three and a half days cooking like crazy (they’ll have just 20 minutes to plate their as-yet-unassigned course) while rubbing elbows with the likes of Emeril Lagasse and the French Laundry’s Thomas Keller. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, says Anderson: “It’s not something that I probably will ever go to again.”

Got some restaurant scoop? Send tips to restaurantarama@c-ville.com or call 817-2749, Ext. 48.

Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar owner Matteus Frankovich has made more room for you and yours to belly up to the bar.

If you tried to stop by the Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar the week of April 9, you might have been stymied. An Easter weekend renovation took a few days longer than planned—what renovation doesn’t?—but the teahouse is up and running again and looks all put back together. Owner Matteus Frankovich and his crew extended the bar into the area that used to be full of couches and pillows and a pretend-opium-den vibe; now there’s more room in the kitchen and more chances to belly up to the bar. It’s a bit more open, as is the menu—now printed on a chalkboard so as to change easily with the seasons.

Stop by and have a cuppa; all the cool kids already have.

Staying late

What’s the oldest house Downtown? Why, the Inn at Court Square, built in 1785. Sitting on an appropriately stylin’ sofa in the front room, owner Candace DeLoach recently showed Restaurantarama pictures to prove how she’s poured on the fabulous since she took it over nearly a decade ago. Back then, it was a lawyer’s office with acoustic-tile ceilings; now it’s an upscale B&B whose guests can buy the antiques that grace their rooms, if they want. (DeLoach also deals antiques next door.)

It was a major upgrade, in other words. Now DeLoach is doing the same to the dining scene at the Inn. She’s long welcomed the public for lunch. About a month ago, chef Jesse Wykle joined her staff from Farmington—he’d also worked at Clifton Inn—and set to work preparing dinner and brunch menus.

The result is a luxe version of Southern cooking. Shrimp and grits get dressed up with goat cheese, chipotles and portobella mushrooms; North Carolina grouper comes with roasted okra and tomato gumbo sauce. “It’s the same ingredients they used back then,” says Wykle, referring to the era when the inn was built. He’s especially excited about a gazpacho he dreamed up with white corn and avocado: “The jalapeno oil gives a spice in the back of the throat,” he says.

Yummy. But how do you break into an already-crowded Downtown dinner scene? Well, having people already in the building—because they’re staying overnight—sure doesn’t hurt. And DeLoach says the historic ambience is something not many restaurants can offer. We concur; it’s a neat feeling to walk into a place in your own town and get the feeling you’re on a weekend getaway. If you want to escape, make a reservation; even for eating, there’s limited room at the Inn.

Dance for the cause

When a fire broke out on Lewis Mountain Road on March 18, it claimed the life of 25-year-old Brett Quarterman and severely burned Ashley Mauter, who was his girlfriend as well as an employee at Rapture. This is a bad situation, folks: Mauter has been in the hospital ever since. Her buddies at the restaurant would like to ease the financial pressure, so they’re putting on a benefit on May 3.

“I would like to raise at least $10,000 or more,” says Rob Bedford, a Rapture manager. The restaurant will match whatever money comes in the door (a $10 donation is requested). What do you get if you attend, besides knowing you’re helping out? Well, you get a Man Mountain Jr. show, dance sets by Sketchy, and a silent auction for stuff like Zocalo gift certificates and Starr Hill brewery tours. The good deeds begin at 9pm.

Gear shift

Mod, the Elliewood Avenue spot we told you about back in December, has changed focus: Rather than a café, it’s now more of a gallery. Proprietor Derek Breen says he’d like to try again to serve food beginning in the fall semester.

Got some restaurant scoop? Send tips to restaurantarama@c-ville.com or call 817-2749, Ext. 48.

It’s been a dozen years that Shenandoah Joe has been roasting coffee here in town. Talk mud with owner Dave Fafara, and you get an earful about the endless geekery one can undertake when it comes to those beloved brown beans. Just like its more-oft-discussed counterpart, wine, coffee is an agricultural product whose ultimate taste and texture is affected by a plethora of factors, from country of origin to the weather last September—and, of course, how it’s roasted.

It’s the appreciation for those sorts of nuances—the subtleties beyond the simple caffeine high—that Fafara likes to foster, and to that end he’s been letting customers sample his beans and pick his brain at the roastery off Harris Street for years. So his next move seems logical: He’ll move the roastery to a more high-traffic spot on Preston Avenue and turn it into a full-service coffeeshop.

Coffee snobs will be welcome at Shenandoah Joe, the long-established roastery that’s now expanding to include a java hangout.

“It’s going to be really really neat. People can talk to us while we’re roasting. It’s going to be really cool,” says Fafara, who’d obviously had his coffee the day we talked. Roasting on-site, he says, will allow him to offer a big selection of coffees—up to 25 on a given day, including three types of espresso—since he can serve a single portion of anything on hand. And, to continue the wine metaphor, he’ll do “cuppings”—that’s like a tasting, oenophiles—and feature, say, Guatemalan beans for customers to sip and compare.

As for food, this is purely about treats, folks. You’re looking at pastries and desserts. Fafara says he’ll get them from four local bakeries who’ve been coffee customers—Chandler’s Bakery, HotCakes, From Scratch Bakery and Breadworks. “It’s all about the joe,” says Fafara; sandwiches and soups would only interfere.

The spot in question is a newly refurbished building near Martin Hardware, to which Fafara is now putting the finishing touches—paints and stains. He plans to open in mid-May, so start getting your jones on now.

They’ll be right there

Noelle Parent and Austin Yount are distressed to think that anyone might be stuck in the cubicle wasteland of Route 29N without a hot dog. Figuring that, with traffic and all, it might be tough for the hungry to make it to the grub, they’re bringing the grub to the hungry. As of mid-April, their Curbside Catering Co. is operating as a sort of diner on a truck; it rolls from office to office, delivering breakfast and lunch to order.

As Parent describes it, the vehicle is a sort of cross between a UPS truck and a well-equipped RV. “The sides open up and we have an entire kitchen inside—sinks, grills, fryers, hot boxes and cold boxes,” she says. With this getup, they can run a mobile greasy spoon and charge down-home prices: under $4 for a BLT or a breakfast pita, or a taco salad for $5. They’ve got burgers, chicken fried rice, egg rolls and biscuits and gravy. Parent also let slip about a dessert special that might roll off the truck: Snickers bars covered in funnel-cake batter and fried.

More for your money, in other words. The truck follows a set route, and workers lucky enough to toil near one of its stops can call ahead and order up their heart’s desire for breakfast or lunch.

Parent and Yount, who are engaged, are local natives who have worked in the food biz “as long as I can remember,” Parent says. She put in some time at Foods of All Nations and Young has worked at the Birdwood Grill at Boar’s head Inn. Check in at 882-2141 to see if you’re on their route.

Got some restaurant scoop? Send tips to restaurantarama@c-ville.com or call 817-2749, Ext. 48.

If Ed Nafei cooks like he talks, expect generous portions. Restaurantarama has been eyeing the former Hong Kong spot on Emmet Street for weeks, ever since Nafei took it over and posted a sign promising a new restaurant to be called Savour. Finally we got him to start chatting about what we can look forward to at the former Chinese buffet. And chat he did! The man is a veritable fountain of quotes.

For example, on the feeling he had when he walked into Hong Kong as a prospective buyer, having already viewed around 20 other Charlottesville properties over a two-year period: “I walked in and it talked to me. Immediately I envisioned what’s going to be where. I took maybe 300 pictures.”

You may have seen this sign in front of what used to be Hong Kong. Along with the building’s new proprietor, Ed Nafei, we here faithfully reproduce it. As for what’s inside, you’ll just have to wait.

Nafei’s since been gutting the space, which he found to be layered with a sort of archaeology of Charlottesville cuisine. “When we took the first layer off we found another restaurant under it, then another, then another,” he says. When it’s all put back together, he intends it to feel more like someone’s house than a restaurant, with homey furniture and fireplaces. “The food is absolutely the main thing of this, but you’re not going to come to a place that looks like Las Vegas,” he says, one of many times in our conversation that he intimated a distaste for all things franchise. “I’m not a cookie-cutter guy… This is how I would do a room in my house; this is how I would cook for my family.”

So, yeah, what about that cooking? Nafei managed to skirt our questions about what, specifically, might show up on Savour’s menu. (That name, by the way, is meant to be a slightly continental version of “savor,” pronounced as such.) Instead, he waxed on about the current culinary trend in which chefs seek to impress diners with weird combinations of ingredients. “The lottery has 56 numbers and you have one in a million odds of winning it. When you have 2,000 raw materials to work with, how many combinations can you have?” Simply choosing a pairing nobody’s tried before—vanilla and pork, in his unappetizing example—does not a worthy plate make, Nafei says.

Rather, in describing his menu-to-be, he proclaimed, “The cuisine is not to have a cuisine”—in other words, elements like “classical French” and “contemporary American” may enter the picture, as well as, tantalizingly, “Mediterranean ingredients but not necessarily Mediterranean dishes”—but no one national cuisine will reign supreme. He also claims an interest in “reviving food that we love,” much as Wolfgang Puck did for pizza years ago.

We won’t hazard a guess as to what you might be able to order when Savour opens in early summer. We do know there will be a wine list, curated by a sommelier friend of Nafei’s from his days in California (he’s been in the business for 33 years and opened two previous restaurants, both in the Golden State). We know the menu will change often according to Nafei’s whims (“It’s whatever I feel like cooking,” he says). And we think we can state with confidence that Savour will be nothing like the old Hong Kong.

Trendel shifts

Last year, we followed the saga of Christian Trendel’s journey toward the debut of his Acme Smokehouse & Barbecue Company on Route 29N. Now, a new chapter: Acme is closed for sit-down business. Trendel says his catering commitments proved more pressing, so he’s using the kitchen now for catering only.

That’s not all. Trendel tells us he’ll be running the concessions at the Charlottesville Pavilion this season, and hinted at further restaurant plans someplace Downtown—perhaps an Acme revival. Stay tuned!

Got some restaurant scoop? Send tips to restaurantarama@c-ville.com or call 817-2749, Ext. 48.

Charlottesville’s a city that loves to eat, located in a state that loves to smoke. Though you can certainly order up a mean shrimp veloute in this town, depending where you order it, its flavors will be tempered with the subtle essence de Marlboro wafting over from the bar area—for at least another year, that is. On April 4, a proposed smoking ban for restaurants died in the General Assembly. (We can only assume it hacked and wheezed as it expired.)

The bill had traveled a long and winding road on the way to its demise. First, Virginia Senator Brandon Bell, a Roanoke Republican, sponsored a measure to ban smoking in most public places. This passed the Senate back in February. Meanwhile, over in the House of Delegates, Salem (ahem) Republican Morgan Griffith introduced a different, considerably more tobacco-friendly smoking bill: It eliminated the requirement for large restaurants to have a nonsmoking section and simply required smoke-friendly spots to post a warning to that effect at the door.

Tiffani Manteris and her fellow smokers can breathe easy for at least another year: The General Assembly stamped out the proposed restaurant smoking ban.

The two bills met very different fates. Bell’s sweeping ban died in a House committee. Griffith’s sweeping boon, though, won House and Senate approval and then hit a big snag—namely, Governor Tim Kaine’s amendment that would have banned smoking in all restaurants. Given that this revision completely reversed the intention of the bill, it’s unsurprising that the House rejected it 59-40. In return, Kaine vowed to veto the entire bill. (Cough, cough.)

So, aside from demonstrating the system of checks and balances in action, these bills accomplished nothing. But Restaurantarama’s razor-sharp legislative intuition tells us that one of these years, cigarettes in Virginia eateries will wave goodbye. (Robert Sawrey, managing partner at the Downtown Grille, said the same thing a few weeks ago when he called us about his place’s voluntary switch to a nonsmoking format.) Despite Philip Morris’ ongoing influence in Richmond, antismoking fervor is growing like a well-tended tobacco field.

Locally, we know that places like Miller’s and Scottsville’s Dew Drop Inn would be pretty different minus their ashtrays. But—given the abundance of al fresco seating that lines the Downtown Mall—we’ll be especially interested to see, when a smoking ban finally does go on the books, what it says about lighting up in outdoor eating areas.

New and renewed

Over at Pantops, Karen Laetare’s new venture, Brix Terrace Café, is open for business. We spoke to Laetare last month and caught some of her excitement about the brand-new space she’s occupying there and about the chance she now has to bring her Mediterranean-inspired menu, well established at Brix Café on Route 53, closer to town. Stop by for a glimpse and a morsel.

Another change: By the time you read this, Downtown’s Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar will have undergone a blitzkrieg-style renovation during Easter weekend, aimed at (says proprietor Matteus Frankovich) “cleaning it up around the edges.” Translation: a longer bar, a more flexible and seasonal menu, and a more grown-up vibe. “It’s definitely been an enjoyable ride,” says Frankovich of the teahouse’s last five years, to which he affectionately attaches the term “mayhem”—but, he continues, “I see this renovation as a coming of age.”

The change was inspired, he says, by the success so far of his month-and-a-half-old Staunton location: “a much smaller, simpler creation” where tea, not the scruff factor, reigns supreme. Frankovich says this was how he’d originally envisioned the Charlottesville location anyway, before youth and rock ’n’ roll intervened. After the renovation, look for fancy sakes, Belgian ales and a “more discerning” live music schedule. Fewer gutter punks? Only time will tell.

Got some restaurant scoop? Send tips to restaurantarama@c-ville.com or call 817-2749, Ext. 48.

Despite its seemingly auspicious location next door to the high-traffic Main Street Market, the former gas station at 420 W. Main St. has proven a tough row to hoe for several restaurateurs. Station occupied the spot for a while; then White Orchid tried to make a go of it. As we reported a few weeks ago, Vu Nguyen and Thomas Leroy are the latest to tackle the challenge with the British gastropub/French bistro concept they call Zinc. The new spot is now open and the pair are wielding a sophisticated Euro menu in the battle with any “cursed spot” demons that might possibly be lingering.

The ship that is Zinc has embarked, with Vu Nguyen (left) and Thomas Leroy at the helm.

Not literally, of course: The atmosphere is actually rather serene. (It must be noted, though, that Nguyen recently got the periodic table symbol for zinc tattooed on his forearm—a kind of war paint, if you like.) We dropped by to take a look at the new spot, which—just as Leroy’d promised when we talked to him earlier—now layers a Gallic sensibility over the existing industrial-style building. (It was, after all, a gas station, and the roll-up doors are still part of its odd charm.) The center-island bar is now covered in zinc, and new granite-topped tables fill the other part of the L-shaped space. A big chalkboard lists the specials.
Menu: big on seafood, with a whole section devoted to mussels. Fish ’n’ chips are prominently featured, as is hanger steak with shallots and the classic French lemon/butter/white wine approach in general.

There were more employees than patrons in the house when we stopped by, but it’s much too early to say how Zinc will fare. If you long for moules mariniere, go by and fill ’er up.

Mystery solved

That would be the mystery of why a straight-up Indian restaurant has a name that reeks of risotto and amore. Milan is not pronounced like the city in northern Italy, mi-LON. As owner Charanjeet Ghotra explained, it’s an Indian word meaning “meeting place” and is properly pronounced MILL-in.

We’re glad we cleared that one up, but Milan’s name wasn’t the main reason we met Ghotra for a recent chat. The real reason was we felt stupid for saying, stupidly, that someone else owned his spot (a stupid mistake we corrected the following week, as you may recall) and wanted to make it up to him.

This we did by asking a bunch of nosy questions about how frustrating it must be to serve one’s native cuisine to a bunch of uninitiated American yahoos. Ghotra was too graceful to take the bait—in fact, he praised Charlottesville’s great sophistication in matters of curry and tandoor. At least, we’re sophisticated compared to folks in Lynchburg (surprising, isn’t it?), where Ghotra and his partner Jaswinder Singh have run a sister restaurant to Milan since 2002. After fielding many a “What’s a curry?”-type question there, the pair were impressed with both the knowledge Charlottesvillians possess about Indian food and with our willingness to order the hottest sauces.

“I was surprised,” Ghotra remembers, “the day we opened [in 2003] it was packed. People were saying, ‘Do you have this dish? It’s not on the menu.’”

Like those of most Indian restaurants in the U.S., Milan’s menu is, primarily, descended from the foods of India’s northern regions. However, if you’re trying to replicate the authentic experience, save that mound of rice for the end of the meal, and eat your masala or vindaloo with bread instead—naan or pratha.

Ghotra and Singh will soon augment their established menu with specials, so swing on by. And don’t forget to say MILL-in.

Got some restaurant scoop? Send tips to restaurantarama@c-ville.com or call 817-2749, Ext. 48.

After nearly four years of running their down-to-earth Italian joint on Water Street, Franky and Meridith Benincasa are moving on. La Cucina will be closed by the time you read this.

Why? Two reasons. One, the Benincasas have a good incentive to leave: the chance to sell their restaurant to Bill Atwood, whose nine-story Waterhouse project was approved by the city last year for eventual construction on the current site of the clothing boutique Eloise. Two, the Benincasas have a very inviting somewhere else to go: They’ll relocate to Lexington and take over the Sheridan Livery Inn from Franky’s parents.

By the time you read this, Franky and Meridith Benincasa will have served their last meal on Water Street. But countless other meals (and fresh sheets) are in their future.

Running the inn sounds like a bigger job for these two: It includes not only a restaurant but 12 guest rooms and a banquet hall. Franky says they’ll move the menu, currently a “varied American” selection, more toward a Southern sensibility (“with my Italian accent”). We asked some leading questions about how bittersweet this all must be, but detected mostly excitement from Franky. Bon voyage to the Benincasas.

Trump cart

Spring means many things in Charlottesville—blooming redbud, a short-lived citywide passion for running, and the inability to stroll the Downtown Mall without tripping over hordes of al fresco diners. (Also, the inability to dine al fresco on the Mall without some stranger peering at your entrée.) Ah, ‘tis glorious. This year, spring will also mean a new option for quick meals: Patrick Critzer will open a gourmet food cart called Hamdingers, and park it in Central Place, in the second week of April.

Only in Charlottesville would a mobile one-man eatery boast a menu like this: teriyaki tofu skewers, bacon-wrapped dates, mango pudding and locally made sausages—all served in biodegradable packaging made from corn. In other words, this is no roach coach. Critzer calls it “a rotating selection of fancy treats,” always to include sausages, hot dogs and a veggie option. “Within those bounds I can try as many ethnicities and styles as I can think of,” he says.

Critzer’s prepared for this venture not only by laboring locally at A Pimento Catering and Tokyo Rose, but through a sort of independent study of food-cartism undertaken in—where else—New York City. “I spent a whole day tasting from food carts,” he says. “I was watching the ergonomics of how they situate themselves at the carts and how they lay them out—the hallal guys with the lamb and the chicken, the tamale ladies, the goat skewers.” If you’ve been to any events at the Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative lately, you might have seen Critzer outside, giving away chicken skewers and rehearsing his moves.

Why open a mere cart when one could run, well, a restaurant? Um, it’s easier. “I feel I’d be working 100 hours a week if I have a restaurant,” Critzer, the father of an 8-year-old, wisely explains. “If it’s raining or I don’t feel like going in, I don’t have to.” He likes being the man on the street, too. “There’s a lot of ego and vanity involved in [opening a restaurant] and creating a setting,” he says, “but I want to give people the food directly.”

Saving face

Looks like whatever happens inside the former Hardware Store building now that it’s owned by Octagon Partners, the facade won’t change too much. The city’s Board of Architectural Review, at its March 20 meeting, approved a proposal from architect Mike Stoneking to make minor changes to the Mallside entryway (like adding a second door, meant for upper-floor access, to the east of the existing one, and taking down flagpoles) and tabled discussion on the Water Street side. For more on this story, see the Development section on page 10; meanwhile, we’ll keep an eye on Octagon’s plans for the interior.

Got some restaurant scoop? Send your tips to restaurantarama@c-ville.com or call 817-2749, Ext. 48.

Restaurantarama might spend a lot of time tagging along with restaurateurs, but that doesn’t mean we actually know what it takes to open an eatery. Of the health inspections, liquor license applications, flatware choices and menu-related agonizing, we have only secondhand knowledge. Joanna Yoakam, though, has been there, and she wants to spare someone else from having to run the gauntlet.

Joanna Yoakam will practically give her bistro away—including the kitchen sink—to the winner of her essay contest.

Some lucky entrepreneur is going to acquire Yoakam’s restaurant for $199. That’s what she’s asking as an entry fee to her win-a-bistro essay contest. Other than that, the winner won’t spend a dime to acquire Sweet Peas Neighborhood Bistro & Pour House, the Lake Monticello spot Yoakam and her husband, Dean, have run since 2005. Sweet Peas’ website includes an exhaustive list of all the stuff the Yoakams will pass on to their chosen successor (“…omelet burners, assorted baskets and serving trays, extendable duster, extendable light bulb changer, step stool…”) along with the rules to the contest. It’s pretty simple: Entrants will write essays explaining why they want the place, Yoakam and two employees will pick their favorite in June, and then she’ll hand over the keys (and the equipment, inventory, and probably some staff as well).

Yoakam herself entered a similar contest in 1993, in which the prize was an inn in Vermont. She didn’t win, but the idea stuck with her. Having decided to move to Florida this summer, she and Dean figured they’d give the contest method a go. “We sat down with the entire staff and discussed it with them,” she says. “They don’t want to see us go, but after they thought about it and saw we’d let them be involved, they got pretty excited.” Unsurprisingly, so are would-be winners; since she announced the contest, the Sweet Peas website has gotten several thousand hits from around the country, says Yoakam. The winner will inherit a family bistro known for a menu of steaks and pastas, and blessed with the “fairly captive audience” of Lake Monticello, as Yoakam puts it.

Restaurantarama is pretty sure this represents a real-life example of that elusive phenomenon, human decency. Aspiring restaurateurs should get it while it’s hot.

Court date

We write these words on the anniversary of the early-morning fire that scarred Court Square Tavern last Ides of March. Since then, it’s been a long road for owner Bill Curtis as he’s worked to rebuild and reopen the basement-level watering hole, but when we dropped in recently for a look, things seemed to be getting reasonably close to the finish line.

Workers were installing lots of new kitchen equipment, which is not so much a repair as a major upgrade—Court Square used to function only on microwave power as well as kitchen support from Curtis’ other venture, nearby Tastings. Curtis showed us new features meant to keep the smoking section from impinging on nonsmoking. The space feels nice and bright, at least by basement standards, and a new stained-glass window replaces the old one, damaged by fire.

Curtis promises the same beer selection (which earned high marks from C-VILLE readers in years past) plus an expanded wine menu. His latest projection for an opening date is the end of March.

Speaking of fires…

Put your smelly cigar out before you enter the Downtown Grille, at least if you’re entering after April 1. The steakhouse will ban smoking on that date.

“I had more people saying they would like the restaurant to be nonsmoking,” says managing partner Robert Sawrey. Anticipating that, sooner or later, such matters will be legislated anyway, Sawrey figured he’d make the leap. Say aaaaahhhhh.

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