Having owned downtown consignment boutique Darling for two years, Linnea White says she's ready to be more intentional about where the business is headed. Photo: Tristan Williams
When Rachel Brozenske, VP with Allison Partners, sat down on a Wednesday morning in October with Linnea White, the two of them were feeling out the possibility of a coach-client relationship. Brozenske has been a business coach for more than a dozen years; White bought the boutique Darling, just off the Downtown Mall, with a friend in 2015, and has been sole owner for two years.
“Now that I’ve been able to have pretty steady employees, I feel better about pausing to really sit with the business and think about things,” she told C-BIZ. Darling is a curated consignment boutique, and as owner, White constantly juggles the day-to-day minutiae of running a shop with longer-term questions about where the business is headed. Often, she says, “I just kind of go, go, go. I’m ready to be more intentional about things.”
Their meeting was a little compressed in comparison with Brozenske’s usual first sessions with new clients, but she and White did get a couple of important things done. First of all, Brozenske explained to White what exactly a professional coach (her preferred term) is—and isn’t.
“I’m not going to crawl around inside your head,” she told her. “You’re smart and creative and whole and you don’t need me to come in and fix you, but I can observe what you’re doing and reflect that back with thoughtful candor. I’m going to tell the truth but not punch you with it.”
“I get this attitude of ‘I can do it on my own, I can figure it out myself,’” said White. “I need more of that refined dialogue, to bounce ideas.”
After talking through the differences between coaches and consultants, Brozenske led White through a freewriting exercise meant to uncover what’s most on her mind these days—what Brozenske calls “presenting areas of interest.” This consisted of 10 questions, like “What kinds of things are you struggling with at work or away from work?”
What came up? White later told C-BIZ, “Styling people, creating beautiful things, community, these are things I like about my work. Things that frustrate me are holding myself accountable to project-based things, that are important to the business but are not right in front of me.” The boutique’s website, for one, is a project that feels to her like a sticking point. As a visual person, she tends to put that project off and focus on the obvious, immediate tasks that she can see around her in the shop.
Brozenske’s response, says White: “She asked ‘How can you make those things on the business management side as important to you? Maybe it needs to be more visually represented in some way.’” An app or other tools might provide her with a reminder about tackling the website—a visual cue to compete with, say, mannequins that need dressing. White says this, for her, was an aha moment.
Brozenske explained to C-BIZ that unlike some coaches, she’s not a purist about avoiding direct advice. “With a lot of my clients I straddle the space between coaching and consulting,” she says. “The whole premise of coaching is the individual is complete and resourceful and can discover for him or herself what’s going on. Practically speaking, I also believe when it comes to some things where there is quite simply an answer, it doesn’t serve them best to make them go hunting for that themselves.”
If White were to continue with coaching, says Brozenske, their next step would be to set parameters about what questions the coaching sessions would address, and how many sessions there should be. “It’s really rare that something worthy of coaching can be meaningfully addressed in less than six or eight hours,” says Brozenske. “Often 16 to 20 is more than reasonable.”
Like many small business owners, White is always juggling a tight schedule, so investing time and money isn’t something she’d do lightly. She’s still considering whether to jump in with both feet. “I want someone who can speak to the brick and mortar world specifically too,” she says. “We were talking about the difference between a business coach or consultant or mentor, and I said what I’m really looking for is a mentor, someone who worked in retail.”
She followed up the meeting with a quick poll on Instagram: Have you worked with a business coach, and was it helpful? “It leaned in a little bit of the direction of ‘No, it wasn’t helpful,’ which surprised me,” she says. “If nothing Rachel said had sat with me, I would have been like, ‘I’m not going to do it.’ But I really did enjoy it; I did learn a lot from it.”
Two days into training camp with the Chicago Bears, Maurice Covington’s hamstring tore—and took his future plans with it. “Being focused about football and wanting to make it to the NFL and then having that taken from me,” says the former UVA wide receiver, “that transition was terrible.”
A decade later, Covington has turned that painful setback into a flourishing career. At Charlottesville- based Rede Wealth, he’s helping pro athletes make smart money decisions to prepare for a life after sports.
The Durham, North Carolina, native spent 2005 to 2008 with the Virginia Cavaliers. After his injury, he pursued a degree in sports management at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, where he worked as a graduate assistant and academic advisor for student athletes.
“I would constantly see the same thing,” Covington recalls. “These athletes—some of them were my friends, some of them were kids I mentored, some of my teammates—I would constantly see them go off and play three, four, five, six, seven years in the NFL or NBA, and then always revert back to their college for help.”
A 2009 Sports Illustrated study found that 78 percent of ex-NFL and NBA players were broke or struggling two years after retiring. “The biggest mistake they make,” Covington says, “is thinking that the money they’re earning at that level is going to come in forever.”
Athletes often spend beyond their means, fail to shop around for the best deals on big-ticket purchases, or offer their families financial help in ways they just can’t sustain long-term, he says. And they often fail to identify passions beyond sports, or seize the opportunities to network and work toward those interests.
After completing his degree at LSU, in 2012 Covington moved to UVA’s athletic program. He helped build a series of workshops that teach students to identify career goals and cultivate business skills—resume-building, elevator pitches, even dressing for success.
But Covington wanted to do even more to help, and a 2016 job offer from Rede CEO and co-founder Stephen McNaughton gave him that opportunity. At Rede, Covington manages money for around a dozen pro athletes—confidentiality forbids him from naming them—plus other local and national entrepreneurs.
Covington creates budgets for clients to follow, advises them on big-ticket purchases, helps them cultivate their credit, and creates custom portfolios to sock away a healthy share of their earnings. “They’re not putting too much of their assets in them, but enough to create them a nice pot of money,” he says. “Always, the goal is long-term wealth.”
Looking forward, Covington hopes he can help even more athletes avoid the pain he once felt. “There’s so many athletes out there mismanaging money or doing the wrong things, and some of them even being advised by the wrong people,” he says. “I really just want to be able to touch more people, and help them learn proper money management skills and save wisely for the future.”
Antwon Brinson never thought he'd be a chef, but “I had a teacher that believed in me,” he says. “He’d seen something in me that I didn’t see in myself.” Now, he wants to do the same for others through his culinary training program. Photo: Robinson Imagery
A teacher changed the course of chef Antwon Brinson’s life. Now, as he trains Charlottesville residents for kitchen careers, he’s trying to do the same for his own students.
Brinson says he never thought he’d become a chef. He enjoyed cooking growing up, but didn’t consider it a career until high school. “I had a teacher that believed in me,” Brinson says. “He’d seen something in me that I didn’t see in myself.” With his encouragement, Brinson joined the school’s cooking team, made it to state competition on his first try, and eventually started cooking for a living.
By early 2017, Brinson’s culinary career had led him from West Virginia’s exclusive Greenbrier resort to high-end restaurants in Hawaii and California, but he wanted more for himself and his family. “I started to look for something in a location that would allow me to plant my feet, and a position that had the potential for growth,” he says.
He spent the next year running the kitchen at Charlottesville’s Common House social club, where an initial hiring snag ended up inspiring his next step. “I couldn’t find staff to save my life,” he says. In this saturated restaurant market, a shortage of qualified employees left “everybody robbing Peter to pay Paul just to get one person to staff a restaurant who didn’t leave.”
Brinson decided to create a program that would help people make a decent living in the kitchen. “I’ve spent my entire career building teams, training people, and I’m passionate about it,” he says. He found partners in the city’s economic development office; local restaurants willing to take on the program’s graduates; and CATEC, which provided classrooms and kitchens.
Brinson’s class, free of charge to successful applicants, launched last May with six students. “It’s called Culinary Boot Camp for a reason,” he says. “It’s five weeks, five days per week, five hours per day.” He doesn’t accept casual or half-hearted students. “You’ve gotta be passionate. You don’t have to have any experience, you’ve just gotta want it.”
An initial classroom discussion about each week’s theme—life skills such as integrity, focus, and communication—gets fleshed out with kitchen drills in what Brinson calls “a controlled environment of failures.” Brinson challenges his students to make mistakes, learn from them, and then help each other avoid them. “By the fifth week, to be honest with you, they’re teaching each other.”
After a sixth week of real-world tryouts in Charlottesville restaurants, Brinson’s first class passed with flying colors. “We finished the program with 100 percent retention, 100 percent of all students passed the tests, and 100 percent job placement,” he says. His second cohort of 10 students launched October 15 at the Charlottesville Cooking School on Barracks Road, with four more students on a waiting list for a third class.
Down the road, Brinson says, he’d like to launch his own restaurant to develop students and help them impress future employers. He proudly keeps in touch with previous pupils as they pursue their new goals—passing on the same support that helped him get his start. “Having someone that had the foresight to say, ‘Hey, this kid has potential,’ and just taking the time to invest in you,” he says, “that’s what made all the difference for me.”
Cooking up a more satisfying future
Chef Antwon Brinson’s Culinary Boot Camp is helping locals with culinary talents sharpen their skills and their goals. One graduate of his first class credits Brinson with helping her realize her ambitions, while another followed Brinson’s advice out of the kitchen—and into a slightly different and unexpected career.
Shamia Hopkins has worked in the culinary and hospitality industries since her early teens. She signed up in part to obtain ServSafe food safety certification and further her career, but says she ended up learning a lot more than that. “You’re never too old to ask questions,” she says. “No question is a dumb question, [and] it’s okay to not know everything.” Hopkins says this insight changed her whole outlook on cooking: “I saw myself having the ability to create more than I thought I could. I felt like I regained my imagination and passion.”
The confidence she gained in the program has helped Hopkins expand her new catering business, including a successful “soulful farm to table” food booth at a recent Tom Tom Festival event. “Chef Brinson is one of my biggest hype men,” she says. “He encourages me to just go for the gold.” Long term, Hopkins says she wants to open “an awesome farm to table bed and breakfast.”
When Daniel Chen applied for Brinson’s Culinary Boot Camp, he’d just left a UVA graduate program in sociology. And while he says he’s loved cooking at home for years, his professional food-service experience began and ended with a former gig working front-of-house at a Chinese restaurant. Chen most remembers the classes’ emphasis on “the crucial balance between proactive preparation and on-the-spot flexibility,” which he said “paradoxically…helped me realize that I didn’t actually want to be a chef after all, but instead that baking was more my forte.”
In the final phase of boot camp, Chen sought out a trial run at MarieBette bakery, because “the more controlled atmosphere of production baking suited my personality better than more variable à la carte kitchen environments.” That tryout landed him a full-time job on MarieBette’s 4 a.m. shift. Chen now spends his early mornings baking dough from the night before, readying tarts and treats for the following day, and pursuing a new artistic interest in bread stenciling. “I’m enjoying my time at MarieBette and hope to continue learning as I work,” he says. “Whatever the future holds, I’m sure it will be some mix of bread and books.”—NA
Charlottesville’s downtown has been a source of debate and controversy for nearly a century. Could the debate finally be coming to a close?
For the first time in a long while, some agreement has emerged about how to balance downtown development—residential versus commercial, shared versus dedicated space and parking in particular.
“The downtown area is a vital part of the economic engine of our city, and there is great demand to do business there,” says Bob Kahn of Bob Kahn Realty & Investment. “This is where folks want to live and work, and I think it’s important that we continue to nurture it in a positive way.”
Kahn served as the listing agent for the Main Street Arena, purchased by Brands Hatch LLC and Jaffray Woodriff, who did not respond to requests for an interview, for $5.7 million in 2017. The arena will be torn down to make way for a 170,000- square-foot tech hub called the Center of Developing Entrepreneurs (formerly the Charlottesville Technology Center).
The center is one of several major transformations currently happening on and around the Downtown Mall, and together they stand to drive the future of one of C’ville’s most critical commercial areas.
The proposed Center of Developing Entrepreneurs (rendered above), a 170,000-square-foot tech hub that will replace the Main Street Arena, is at the center of several major transformations on the Downtown Mall.
Brick by brick
It was a windy path for the Downtown Mall to get where it is today. The story starts in the 1970s, when, as downtowns nationwide searched for ways to bring people back from the suburbs to do business in the city, pedestrian malls emerged as the answer. According to The Charlottesville Downtown Mall, a 2010 documentary by producer Karl Krause, more than 200 U.S. cities adopted the concept of the pedestrian mall around that time.
Unfortunately, only a handful were successful, and the numbers dwindled to about 30 by 2010. The staying power of the Charlottesville mall, according to Krause, was owed to a combination of a smallish, active population, and the nearby university.
The heart of the city prior to its bricking, looking west toward the Vinegar Hill neighborhood.
The mall also in part owes its existence to one of the more controversial developments in Charlottesville’s history—Vinegar Hill. The largely black residential area, situated just west of what is now the Downtown Mall, was razed in 1958. For a decade, it stood idle.
What Vinegar Hill eventually became—a commercial strip and roadways—is still an emotionally charged subject for many, but its redevelopment went hand in hand with the launch of the mall in 1973. The urban planning firm that recommended destroying the Vinegar Hill residences also originally conceived of a downtown pedestrian walk, according to an article by Sarita Herman in the Magazine of Albemarle County History.
The mall, too, had its detractors at the beginning. Council members said Charlottesville wasn’t amenable to a “mall concept.” But a narrow vote pushed the redevelopment plan through, and a San Francisco design firm created a pedestrian thoroughfare that has more or less stood the test of time, both functionally and formally—a rebricking in 2009 brought the surface up to date along with the mall’s commercial opportunities.
Into the future
The mall’s original conception incorporated several spaces that never came to be, including an anchor farmer’s market on the east end. That’s contributed to much of the surrounding developments’ fluctuation over the years.
Now, residential spaces are in the works that should bring more housing to Charlottesville’s downtown—and with it residents with disposable income.
In the zone
Valerie Long helps shape the city’s landscape
By Erika Howsare
As a longtime local real estate attorney, Valerie Long—who’s been in the business for nearly 20 years, and with the Williams Mullen firm since 2006—has represented developers of some of the biggest projects to reshape Charlottesville in recent memory, including Stonefield and Fifth Street Station. We asked her to share some of her expertise regarding development in the city’s Downtown.
Valerie Long. Photo: Amy Jackson
C-BIZ: What are some of the biggest challenges for developers in Downtown Charlottesville?
Valerie Long: I think probably the most challenging thing right now is that the process has become so contentious in many cases. So often developers are met with skepticism from the beginning. There are reasons for that, but I’ve been trying to figure out ways we can improve that process. It helps to work with residents near projects and trying to develop those relationships better and earlier in order to understand the perspective of residents who live and work near projects.
How does the need for affordable housing play into these issues?
Everybody shares the goal that we need substantially more affordable housing units in the city. That often means that in order to make those financially viable, we need market rate units coming online at the same time. Sometimes that’s seen as counterproductive, so we’re trying to make folks understand they can be complementary.
Under the current zoning ordinance, the density limits are set relatively low in terms of what you can do by-right. The incentive is to obtain a special use permit (SUP), but now with the process being more expensive and time-consuming, it’s creating a disincentive. For the economics of a project to work, the incentive is to have fewer units at higher prices or rental rates. We’re advocating for higher density levels as an incentive to provide affordable and lower-cost housing. But people perceive higher density as a real negative—they start worrying about traffic and the impact on their neighborhood.
How do historic designations affect the process?
Much of Downtown is located within a historic district, so any time you have a project within that, it has to get design approval from the Board of Architectural Review (BAR). If you do need SUP or rezoning, as part of that process, the BAR will have an initial hearing. That’s to provide guidance to the Planning Commission about whether the BAR thinks the request for an SUP is appropriate for that historic district. The application for SUP goes through a two-step process: first the Planning Commission for a non-binding recommendation, and then it’s ultimately approved by City Council. Landscape design is also within the BAR’s jurisdiction, as well as signage.
What changes have you seen in your career that are positive for the community?
In the last five years the city started requiring community meetings for SUPs and rezoning applications. It comes down to earlier communication and outreach. That’s always a positive. It’s an opportunity to explain to adjacent neighborhoods and community members the details of a proposed project. In the vast majority of cases, that results in a better project.
“This community needs residential development in the worst way possible,” says David Mitchell of Great Eastern Management Company, the developer working on creating up to 126 condos at East Jefferson Place (1011 E. Jefferson St.). “No one can say we don’t need more residential development.”
What type of residential development is more a subject of debate. Mitchell calls East Jefferson “workforce housing” that “complements the neighborhood.” Across the mall on Water Street, a mixed-use property would add another 85 residential units, as well as a permanent home for the City Market.
The Water Street project, West2nd*, has been in the works for several years, and construction is finally slated to begin this fall. “That is a prime example of how the city is well managing the growth of downtown,” Kahn says. “These things are complicated developments, and they take time for the details to be worked out.”
Low-income housing at Friendship Court has been renewed for the next two decades through an agreement between the Piedmont Housing Alliance and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Photo: Skyclad Aerial
West2nd developer Keith Woodard, whose Woodard Properties also owns McIntire Plaza and properties on and around the Downtown Mall, was unavailable for comment on the status of the project. But local media reports indicate construction should take about two years once it begins.
Meanwhile, the low-income housing at Friendship Court (418 Garrett St.) has been renewed for the next two decades through an agreement between the Piedmont Housing Alliance and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The 150 units meet the HUD definition of affordable housing, and while detractors might be concerned about the residents’ ability to fuel commerce on the mall, some local business owners recognize their importance.
Tight fit
Downtown parking vexes city
By Erika Howsare
Looking for a parking spot? You’re not alone. Parking has gotten tougher Downtown, and it will probably get tougher still. In
the words of the city’s parking manager, Rick Siebert, “There is an impending and significant parking shortage” due to development projects still in the pipeline.
The last few years have been a stormy time for the city as it’s tried to address the parking problem. By Erika Howsare
Here’s a breakdown of recent events:
1986, 2000 and 2008: City commissions study of the parking situation downtown.
2015: A new study recommends establishing a city parking department, installing meters Downtown and setting garage rates lower than meter rates.
March 2016: Mark Brown, owner of Water Street Parking Garage and president of the Charlottesville Parking Center (CPC), sues the city over a dispute over rate increases on the 973 public spots in the garage. The city and the CPC, equally represented on the board that governs the garage, had deadlocked over whether rates could be raised to reflect market rates. This led to Brown’s suit, which demanded $1 million in damages and the city’s removal from decisions on rate-setting.
April 2016: The city countersues.
September 2016: Rick Siebert is hired to oversee the city’s Parking Action Plan.
November 2016: The city announces it will pay $2.85 million to buy the lots on East Market Street currently occupied by Lucky 7 and Guadalajara, in order to build a new garage.
September 2017: Parking meter pilot program is launched with 105 spots around downtown. Parking at these meters costs $1.80 an hour. Simultaneously, garage rates are lowered. The program earns $18,000 in its first month for the city’s parking enterprise fund. However, in an online city-conducted survey, 57 percent of respondents say the meters have caused them to avoid coming downtown.
January 2018: City Council votes to end parking meter pilot program about two months earlier than planned.
July 2018: The city and the CPC finally reach a settlement under which the city will have full control over Water Street operations. The city will pay $413,000 to buy another 73 garage spots, and will lease the remaining 317 spaces from CPC for $50,000 per month for 16 years.
Dave Norris, CPC manager and former mayor, tells C-VILLE that the settlement “is really a good thing for all parties,” even though he and other CPC administrators will lose their jobs. (Other garage employees expect to keep theirs.) Siebert believes efficiency will result: “We intend to operate Water Street exactly as we currently operate the Market Street garage,” he says. “If you’re coming to park, you can choose whichever facility is most convenient for your trip.”
So, once the change is in place later this year, patrons will pay $2 per hour (first hour free) at either existing garage. As for meters, Siebert says the City Council will “consider reconsidering” the idea early next year, with mid-2019 being the earliest possible point that meters could be reinstalled.
“The expected revenue from meters would help defray the cost of a new garage,” he says, adding that garage revenue already goes into a separate fund intended for that purpose.
Meters or no meters, the new garage will be built—though its size and design are yet to be determined. One reason is that the city and Albemarle County are negotiating over whether county courts will remain within the city; if they do, the county is asking for 100 dedicated parking spots to serve those courts. “If we supplied the county with 100 spots,” says Siebert, “it would limit public spaces.”
Traffic patterns are also a sticky issue. “East Market’s pretty busy,” Siebert says. “Where will those cars go after they exit?” He calls it a “very real possibility” that the existing lot in front of the S&P building could become part of the garage, too, though if the garage becomes too big, traffic problems will grow as well. Public preference for keeping Charlottesville’s skyline low is another limiting factor.
Bike racks, anyone?
“That land is particularly valuable, and I’m glad PHA…doesn’t want to throw away the culture and the neighborhood,” says Hunter Smith, owner of nearby Champion Brewing Company and a PHA board member. “When it comes to housing, my business is not my first thought.”
Smith says the downtown commercial sector is also seeing a resurgence due in part to last summer’s Unite the Right rally, with business owners coming together to drive their mutual interests via dialogue and marketing efforts.
Restaurateur Will Richey, Smith’s partner in Downtown Mall restaurant Brasserie Saison, agrees. “Last year distinctly hurt us—there are no two ways about it,” Richey says. “I kind of feel like we are in a correction period, and we’ll be even stronger than we were before.”
Kahn says downtown parking, particularly settling the issues surrounding the Water Street garage, is also finally finding its groove. Parking, he says, can make or break the success of a downtown area.
Businesses like Richey’s, certainly, rely on folks being able to access the mall—not to mention enjoy the spaces once they get there.
“We always worry about these big projects that will be two to three of years of construction, but on the other side, they are going to be great and bring more people downtown and give them new things to do and new places to work,” Richey says. “It’s a cool transition.”
*On Tuesday, August 28, after this story went to press, it was announced that developer Keith Woodard would abandon the project.
Will Richey spends most of his time at Commonwealth Restaurant & Skybar and Brasserie Saison, the newest addition to Ten Course’s portfolio. “Not to pat myself on the back,” Richey says, “but I think it’s one of the finest restaurants in town.” Photo: Sanjay Suchak
Will Richey didn’t set out to launch Charlottesville’s most influential restaurant group. But when he created Ten Course Hospitality, he did it anyway.
“Is it planned, or is it sort of organic?” Richey says. “I guess it is sort of an organic process. As we are going, we’re always tightening up ideas, trying to find the right opportunities.”
Richey, who today presides over a fluid empire of about a dozen restaurants and service organizations, got his start as a sommelier and front-of-the-house guy, managing servers and caring for guests. His local break came at L’étoile, the French stalwart that closed after 20 years in 2014. Richey ascended the ranks at L’étoile and along the way met Josh Zanoff, his fellow Ten Course founding partner.
Richey credits Zanoff for teaching him the back of the house part of the restaurant world—how to cook, create menus, dial in culinary concepts.
Ten Course’s director of wine and hospitality, Will Curley, says the restaurant group’s goal is to raise the standards of service in Charlottesville. Photo: Sanjay Suchak
Richey and Zanoff started working together as caterers, but they wanted a restaurant of their own. The ideal concept? A French-style bistro. The concept that landed in their proverbial bowls after they’d nearly given up hope and gone their separate ways? Revolutionary Soup.
“Rev Soup isn’t what I set out to do,” Richey says. But it was a place he was familiar with—he’d previously worked there as a line cook—and when it came up for sale, it just made sense.
These days, Ten Course is consistently adding new restaurants and divesting of others. And while the opportunities themselves are organic, the fluidity is by design. Richey says he and his partners look to take on about one major project per year.
Expanding assets
When Ten Course began managing Draft Taproom and Commonwealth Restaurant & Skybar last year, for example, the group set to work installing its service and kitchen management practices. According to Richey, the owners of Draft brought Ten Course in to turn the business around before quickly selling it—meaning Richey’s team did its job in short order. At Commonwealth on the other hand, big changes are afoot, and Richey says Ten Course is only just getting started.
One of the big changes was bringing in chef Harrison Keevil, formerly of Brookville and currently of Keevil & Keevil Grocery and Kitchen, to redirect the Commonwealth menu. Keevil, Richey says, is the ideal chef to shepherd Commonwealth into its own as a representation of modern Virginia cooking.
Richey’s ventures
Wholly owned restaurants:
The Bebedero
Brasserie Saison
Revolutionary Soup Downtown
Revolutionary Soup the Corner
The Whiskey Jar
Support provided:
The Alley Light
Champion Brewing Company
Commonwealth Restaurant & Skybar
The Pie Chest
Other ventures:
Red Row Farm
The Wine Guild of Charlottesville
“One of the first things was a need for a tighter vision of what the restaurant was—it was all over the place with the cuisine,” Richey says. “With Brookville not being there, there was a need for a more upscale sort of Southern restaurant.”
Richey has brought yet another model to his management of The Alley Light and The Pie Chest. At both, he’s shifted into a slow buyout process with existing management. While Ten Course is technically no longer a direct owner of either business, the restaurants remain under the group’s umbrella, enjoying its service, management and marketing support.
Ten Course still directly owns and operates The Whiskey Jar, The Bebedero, both Rev Soup locations, Commonwealth and it’s newest addition, Brasserie Saison. Over the years, Richey has also founded the Charlottesville Wine Guild and Red Row Farm.
How does he manage it all? One way to think of Richey is as Charlottesville’s premier hospitality industry talent scout. Finding the best folks around town in individual niches and nurturing their abilities is critical to the Ten Course vision, according to director of wine and hospitality Will Curley.
“As we grow as a restaurant group, we try to identify our top people and find out what their goals are,” he says. “You might be a great server and want to move up, but you would have to leave your current restaurant to do that. We’re able to keep people in the family and leverage the larger talent pool.”
Getting it done
Richey says responsibilities break down like this: Zanoff focuses on The Bebedero and The Whiskey Jar, GM Lindsey Daniels handles Rev Soup and Richey himself spends most of his time at Commonwealth and Brasserie Saison.
“Not to pat myself on the back, but I think [Brasserie Saison] is one of the finest restaurants in town,” Richey says.
Joining on the launch of Brasserie Saison were career sommelier Curley and Hunter Smith, president of Champion Brewing Company. Richey “is a true collaborator,” Smith says. “He doesn’t have to be the guy on every project.”
Curley, who hails from Chicago, says he immediately hit it off with Richey after moving to Charlottesville less than two years ago. “The thing I am always most impressed with is how Will is able to marry his crazy passion for restaurants and hospitality with a good business sense,” he says.
Curley admits a concern with the growth of Ten Course is the dilution of the brand and lack of attention to detail by upper management. But it’s a challenge he’s convinced the team is up to. “What it has allowed us to do is become even stronger with our internal systems,” he says. “Every project we take on, we learn. We cherry pick the best ideas and take them back to the rest of the group.”
Curley says Ten Course’s goal is to raise the standards of service in Charlottesville, and to that end, Richey says he sees the group focusing increasingly on its consulting arm. In other words, Ten Course will be looking for more opportunities like the ones at Draft and Commonwealth going forward.
But Richey hasn’t given up on his bread and butter: fresh restaurant concepts. Who knows—that French bistro he and Zanoff once dreamed of may even happen one day.
“We always have a cache of concepts,” Richey says. “When you see the right space and opportunity, if you’ve built out the concept, you can pop it in.”
Christy Ford and Susie Matheson founded The Scout Guide in 2010 after positive response to Matheson’s buy-local blog. Photo: Sanjay Suchak
When Susie Matheson and Christy Ford launched the 10th edition of The Scout Guide Charlottesville this July, they did so as the leaders of a company that’s grown, in about a decade, from a simple blog to a small publishing empire with 23 local employees and 60 franchisees around the country. The Scout Guide is a printed adbook for high-end shopping and services, but originally it was a blog that Matheson wrote to highlight her favorite small local businesses.
After she recruited Ford—a photographer and co-owner of And George—to help produce the first print guide, the two began hearing from people in other cities who wanted to create their own Scout Guides. Now there are versions, each with its own local editor, in cities from Dallas to Cincinnati. Franchisees pay a $50,000 fee, take charge of photography and get their free guides designed and produced by the team at Charlottesville headquarters. We sat down with Ford and Matheson to find out more about their journey.
C-BIZ: When you started the blog, were you thinking there would be eventually be a print product?
Susie Matheson: No, it was a labor of love. It wasn’t a business. I was in Scarpa one day and a woman was trying on a pair of shoes, but she said she was going to buy them on Zappos. I thought, what is going to happen when these local businesses are gone? I don’t think they’re good at promoting themselves. So I started the blog, and after a while people started asking for ads. Christy and I came up with a way to put small business owners on a pedestal—to capture their face and not their logo. When we did the first book, we didn’t think about a franchise plan.
Christy Ford: We knew we could make a beautiful book, but we didn’t know beyond that.
How did the first franchise come about?
SM: Everyone who approached us had touched Charlottesville somehow—they had a student here, or they were visiting and picked up TSG Charlottesville.
CF: Charleston was the first licensing agreement; I had a high school friend there who had done advertising in New York, and she did a beautiful book. Then people wanted to do it elsewhere.
SM: Our lawyers advised us to become a franchise and protect the investment. How ironic, right? We’re the anti-franchise. But it made sense for our structure. We didn’t want to go to, say, Sarasota and hire a sales force; we wanted someone local. So we’ve loved franchising.
What was the moment when you knew you had a winning formula?
CF: When people would call And George and say, “I brought the book home to Houston, and I need a wedding gift sent to New York.” They were using it to shop from afar. And then people would grab the book [from the store] and say, “We need one of these. How do we get one?”
SM: For me it was when I went home and said, “People are writing us checks!” We said yes to everybody at first.
What’s the most important piece of advice you give your editors?
CF: It’s so important that you’re living the life already. Our editors don’t walk in as Suzy Salesgirl; they’ve used this business before.
SM: We say you’re in business for yourself, but not by yourself. We’ll take care of you. It’s been great for women—they want to go back into the work force after having kids, and they need flexibility. There are some women who become editors just after finishing school and others who are empty-nesters. We do these editor conferences and bring everybody together. They are a strong community in themselves.
CF: Our mission is the same, supporting small businesses, but our passion has become supporting women.
Over the course of the 2016 presidential election, then-candidate Donald Trump asserted the election was going to be “rigged” by unspecified actors. No evidence was ever offered to support that claim, and his concerns about election integrity curiously seem to have evaporated on November 9. But the uncertainty and doubt generated by those statements, and the repeated and ongoing attempts by the Russian government to interfere in U.S. elections, have made some folks take a closer look at how we secure our vote.
In Virginia, the ground game for election security is run by a dizzying array of more than 100 local registrars across the state, one for each city and county. Rosanna Bencoach, the general registrar for Charlottesville, brings more than a decade of experience with election policy and administration to bear, and describes her job as “ensuring that everyone who wants to vote can do so.”
That might be something of an understatement. Bencoach is responsible at the local level for ensuring free and fair elections, every single time. In practice, that means that for each election, hundreds of officials, staff and volunteers need to be carefully choreographed and mobilized to the right places so that voters can participate. The anonymous ballots used in the election are printed and shipped to secure locations, and afterwards they’re sealed and stored for at least one year to preserve a paper record in case there’s any dispute about the vote.
But as experienced as local registrars might be, they ultimately rely on state and federal government agencies to certify which machines are meeting security standards. How secure are the machines that manufacturers are making?
The answer: not very. The software the manufacturers use to power the digital systems that record votes is closed-source; it can’t be inspected for problems by experts among the general public. Without this check, it’s difficult or impossible to detect certain categories of vulnerabilities in the software. Even the physical mechanisms used to prevent direct access to the machines can frequently be bypassed or otherwise disabled without detection.
Despite assurances to the contrary, manufacturers have repeatedly failed in real-world tests when experts take a run at the machines. Last year at DEF CON, an international security and hacking conference, every single voting machine on display was hacked in less than two hours. Even security professionals who had never worked with voting machine technology before were able breach them. Some of these breaches were done wirelessly, on machines that were never supposed to have wireless access turned on.
Luckily, state electoral boards understood the threat. Citing the DEF CON demonstrations, Virginia decertified the worst offenders in 2017. Today, every voting precinct in Virginia uses paper ballots. Sometimes, the best technologies are the most reliable ones.
Of course, voting machines might not even need to be hacked at all to sway an election. Malicious foreign actors don’t have any need to tamper with an election when they can influence the minds of voters directly with an insidious patchwork of false advertising, misinformation and conspiracy theories carefully targeted to prey on the fears of citizens.
And there are certainly differing views about how zealous we should be in pursuing election security. In July, the GOP attempted to defund the Election Assistance Commission, the federal body that certifies voting machines and advises state agencies about how to conduct elections securely. But securing technology is always a moving target, and the work is never done. If citizens want security to be a legislative priority, there’s much more work to do.
John Feminella is the co-founder of analytics startup UpHex and an adviser at Pivotal. He lives in Charlottesville and enjoys solving difficult technology problems.
The Salad Maker owner Jacie Dunkle, who also owns Tin Whistle and formerly Fellini’s #9, says owning a restaurant is all-consuming. “You cannot expect that you won’t work in that restaurant all the time,” she says. Photo: Sanjay Suchak
In a town with 400 restaurants, one might be forgiven the occasional restaurant-ownership fantasy. And some of us actually take the plunge, becoming the lucky owners of diners, Chinese takeout joints or high-end date spots. But what do you actually get when you buy a restaurant?
That depends. Primarily, says business broker Stu Rifkin, “You’re buying the right to do business at that location.” In most cases, you’ll be taking over or renegotiating a lease, and that means you should look for a good landlord and location, just as you would when renting an apartment.
Jacie Dunkle, longtime former owner of Fellini’s #9 and current owner of Tin Whistle and The Salad Maker, says the lease must give you enough time to recoup what you’re spending on the business. “At Tin Whistle, when I took over the lease, there were three years left on the original lease with an option for five more,” she explains, “so I have eight years to recoup my money. Hopefully I’ll do well enough to ask the landlord for an additional five years.”
In some cases, buying a restaurant also means buying everything inside it—furniture, glassware, equipment, the works. These may or may not feel like what they’re called: assets. When Dunkle paid $90,000 for what had been Café Bocce, she inherited all its assets “whether I wanted them or not,” she says. “It was an Italian restaurant and I had to pull everything out to make it an Irish pub.”
Rifkin says buyers sometimes also inherit issues with the health department, as he did when he bought The Nook in 2006 (for, he says, “over $150,000”). If health inspectors had grandfathered certain violations with a previous owner, they’ll see the sale as a chance to require upgrades. Rifkin and his partners found themselves required to add four sinks to the kitchen to bring it up to par. You’ll also need additional funds, above and beyond the cost of the sale itself, for a business license, legal advice, and other costs.
From the seller’s perspective, says Dunkle, it’s important to make sure your buyer has some assets to serve as collateral in case she doesn’t end up paying her rent. Dunkle sold Fellini’s in 2015 to a buyer who only lasted a year in the space. “I still was the personal guarantee on the lease,” says Dunkle.
“She had no assets, so when she stopped paying rent I was personally responsible. I had to take the restaurant back and pay back the rent she hadn’t paid.” Dunkle sold again in 2017 to Fellini’s chef Chris Humphrey.
Dunkle says that spending money on a good logo and plenty of advertising at the beginning can be important—especially when trying to overcome a so-called cursed location (as she did at Tin Whistle) or a location that wasn’t previously a restaurant (like the Salad Maker, which used to be a clothing store).
Maybe the most important thing to know as a buyer is that your new business will require a serious investment of time. “You cannot expect you won’t work in that restaurant all the time,” says Dunkle, who estimates she put in 60-65 hours a week at Fellini’s. But she adds, “As many hours as I’ve worked, I’ve never regretted my decision. I’ve had the most fun, met the greatest people, enjoyed every minute of my misery.”
Charlotte Dreizen and Kelly Cramer manage Composting Collaborative and How2Recycle respectively, two programs aimed at helping businesses get more out of their materials. Photo: Amy Jackson
Greater productivity is good for business. What if the materials that comprised your products could be used—and reused—more productively over their entire life cycles? No matter what your business makes, you have potential to get more value out of your materials.
Charlottesville-based nonprofit GreenBlue can help. Its mission is to foster “a resilient system of commerce based on the principles of sustainable materials management.” Sustainable materials management is a new way of thinking about how society uses resources and provides new opportunities to reduce environmental impacts, conserve natural resources and reduce costs.
At GreenBlue, Charlotte Dreizen manages the Composting Collaborative, which brings together businesses, composters and policymakers to generate solutions to composting challenges. Kelly Cramer manages How2Recycle, the first and only comprehensive recycling labeling system for packaging in the U.S. C-BIZ spoke with Dreizen and Cramer about how local businesses could benefit from their programs.
Composting Collaborative
What does it do?
Charlotte Dreizen: It unites composters, consumer-facing businesses and policymakers to share best practices, resources and generate innovative solutions to shared challenges. It’s a great opportunity for Charlottesville businesses to plug into the national conversation around food waste and composting.
Who is it for?
Businesses that handle large amounts of compostable material—food, yard trimmings, paper and compostable packaging, for example—would likely benefit the most, whether a fine dining establishment, grocery store, coffee shop, catering businesses or a manufacturer of food products.
But almost all businesses have food or other compostable materials. Office buildings have left over food waste from employees’ lunches, as do event spaces, construction sites, university campuses, airports, public parks and most other public and private spaces.
For small businesses in a dense area, such as Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall, one has the opportunity to partner with neighboring businesses to share a composting bin if one generates less material than what may warrant individual pick-up.
Who’s doing it already?
Our 57 current members represent a range of stakeholders, from small, local Virginia nonprofits to companies with national operations, city and state agencies across the county, and small and large-scale composters.
Woodard Properties in Charlottesville composts at their office. Roots Natural Kitchen diverts pre-consumer kitchen waste to animal feed at local farms. And, of course, all Charlottesville residents are able to drop-off their own food waste at the City Market and at McIntire Recycling Center.
How2Recycle
What does it do?
Kelly Cramer: The How2Recycle label is an on-package, standardized recycling label that can be applied to any product or any packaging material. It tells people exactly how to recycle all parts of the packaging.
Consumer feedback tells us that the How2Recycle label is changing people’s recycling behavior, and refining their recycling knowledge. Our data suggests that 85 percent of consumers are more likely to buy a product that features a recycling label. Companies can demonstrate their commitment to environmental sustainability with a How2Recycle label.
Who is it for?
If you are headquartered in Charlottesville—for example a brewery, or a gym with your own branded bottled water—get in touch with us! We’ll analyze your packaging and determine the right recycling label for your product. Other good fits include vineyards, juice and snack companies, co-ops, bakeries, local restaurants with their own branded packaging, or shops with their own branded paper or plastic bags.
Any company with consumer-facing packaging is eligible to join How2Recycle. For an annual fee, companies receive custom recyclability assessments for their packaging, recommendations for how to make packaging more recyclable (if appropriate) and How2Recycle labels for an unlimited number and variety of packages.
We can give small, local businesses a discounted rate. We want to support local business to build the How2Recycle movement in our home community.
Who’s doing it already?
The program has about 100 corporate members that represent more than 700 brands, including Amazon, Target, Nestle, Coca-Cola, General Mills, Hasbro, the Kellogg Company, Walmart, Unilever, Clorox, Kimberly-Clark, PepsiCo, SC Johnson and Walgreens.
The words “back to school” don’t mean the same thing for everyone—it’s not all sharpened pencils and shiny red apples for the teacher. For many, it means scraping together tuition for college. But, school is a time for personal development (and not financial anxiety), which is where Virginia’s 529 plan comes into play.
Named after section 529 of the Internal Revenue Code, the 529 Savings Plan is designed to help families save for future educational expenses. They can be used to help pay for qualified educational expenses in any state and even at a large number of foreign schools. In Virginia, the two most popular options are: the direct-sold Invest529 and the advisor-sold College America. It is important to note that these are just two options out of many, and they might not be the best for everyone.
The first thing to understand about a 529 plan is that, if used properly, it offers substantial tax advantages. Every state’s 529 offers tax-free investment growth and tax-free distributions, as long as the money is spent on qualified educational expenses. For tax purposes, a contribution to a 529 is seen as a gift, and as such, it is currently capped at $15,000 per person, per year for 2018, before eating into an individual’s lifetime exclusion. However, there is a first-time catchup allowed, equal to an additional five years’ worth of gifts. In other words, an individual can contribute a one-time maximum of $75,000 in 2018 to carry forward for five years.
Virginia residents get the added bonus of a $4,000 unlimited, carry-forward, annual state tax deduction. For example, if you funded a 529 with $40,000 today, you could deduct $4,000 per year from your Virginia state taxes for the next 10 years. Those age 70 and over have the added benefit of being able to deduct the entire amount contributed to a Virginia529 account in a year.
Let’s say that the account is worth $80,000 in 18 years. As long as the money is spent on qualified educational expenses, there would be no taxes owed on the $40,000 of growth.
The last component of a 529 plan is the investment choices. Both the Invest529 and College America plans offer a wide array of well-diversified options. College America is a partnership between the state of Virginia and investment company American Funds. An investor is limited to that fund family if they choose that plan. Invest529, on the other hand, utilizes several different fund families to create strategically allocated portfolios from which an investor can choose.
One more piece of advice: There are several ways for a person to support themselves in college. From loans to jobs, it can be done. There are no such support options for retirement, and Social Security is typically not enough for a person to live happily on. In other words, deciding where to allocate savings is a decision with long-lasting consequences.
David Posner is local investment executive specializing in utilizing socially responsible options for long-term financial goals.
