Ashley Sieg – C-VILLE Weekly

Name that space, win a Benjamin!

Tavern & Grocery is offering $100 toward a meal by chef Joe Wolfson and his team to the C-VILLE Weekly reader who suggests the best name for a newly refurbished room in the 1820 Federal-style brick building on West Main Street. Accessible through the restaurant as well as its own entrance marked by a lantern and a glass door, the room seats up to 40 people and is one of three renovated dining and event spaces at T&G. “We have been working tirelessly on them over the past six months,” owner Ashley Sieg says. “We’ve stripped them back to the original brick and horsehair plaster, redone the floors, and more.”

Another event space, The Marseilles Room, is named for the French city. It connects with the downstairs bar, Lost Saint, and seats up to 70 people. Upstairs, the Booker Room—so called because Booker T. Washington stayed in the historic building at the invitation of the owner, Charles Inge, a local teacher, grocer, and freed slave—accommodates 35 diners. It has a wood-burning fireplace, antique tables and chairs, and finishes including reclaimed barn siding.

Sieg wants the name of the third room to reflect the building’s rich past. Among the older structures in Charlottesville, it has served as a tavern, foundry, and grocery store specializing in fish, beef, and locally grown produce. “The grocery was opened by Mr. Inge in 1891 and was actually one of the first African American-owned businesses in town,” Sieg says. “Inge’s family continued to operate it as a grocery until 1979.” It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

For a chance at that $100 prize, email a proposed name to info@tavernandgrocery.com with “win100” in the subject line. The winner will be chosen on Oct. 15, and announced via Instagram @tavernandgrocery and @eatdrinkcville.

Maximum foodie

The mother of all food festivals is upon us. The 13th annual Heritage Harvest Festival at Monticello brings together national and local culinary luminaries for a day of food education, demonstrations, garden tours, and more grub than you could shake a kebab stick at. A marquee event features Will Richey of Charlottesville’s Ten Course Hospitality and Chez Panisse’s Alice Waters, the doyen of contemporary farm-to-table cuisine. We’ve also got our eyes on a session about food justice, at which Richard Morris of the local Urban Agriculture Collective will lead a discussion with Karen Washington, recipient of the James Beard Foundation Leadership Award, and Jovan Sage, director of Slow Food USA and chair of the nonprofit Seed Savers Exchange. You will not find a better informed convention of food experts anywhere else in the world. $15.95 adults, $10 kids 5-10; 10am-5pm, 931 Thomas Jefferson Pkwy., heritageharvestfestival.com

Nibbles

With an impressively equipped new test kitchen, The Happy Cook in the Barracks Road Shopping Center is rolling out an expanded series of cooking classes. Hone your knife skills, master cast-iron cookery, learn to make South Indian food, and more. Sessions run $25 to $55 and are limited to 10 to 20 participants. thehappycook.com • Corner Juice—the health-conscious smoothie and sandwich shop—has added a second location at 200 E. Main St. on the Downtown Mall, directly opposite its nutritional antithesis, Citizen Burger Bar. (Chew on that one for a minute.) cornerjuice.com • Grit Coffee is about to give Pantops a caffeine jolt, moving toward completion of a sleek new space in the Riverside Village development on Stony Point Road. gritcoffee.com • Ivy-based Square One Organic Spirits, founded by UVA grad and Crozet resident Allison Evanow, has launched a line of vegan and gluten-free, low-sugar cocktail and mocktail mixers with tantalizing flavors like Lively Lemon, Luscious Lime, and Pink Daisy. They’re available for $10-$12 per 750ml bottle at shops including The Spice Diva, Market St. Market, and Foods of All Nations, and served at bars in Brasserie Saison, Orzo, Monsoon Siam, and The Fitzroy. Hell, the mixers are even in UVA sports hospitality suites at football, basketball, and baseball games. squareoneorganicmixers.com • Mark your calendar, bivalve gluttons! The Early Mountain Oyster Festival is set for 12-6pm, October 20, at Early Mountain Vineyards in Madison. Fifteen bucks will get you in to enjoy executive chef Tim Moore’s menu of crab cakes, fried oysters, clam chowder, and—mais oui!—Eastern Shore oysters on the half shell. The Currys will provide a rootsy soundtrack. Busy that day? Aw, shucks—more for us. earlymountain.com • King Family Vineyards has landed an accolade almost as prestigious as Best Winery in the 2019 Best of C-VILLE awards. USA Today has named the Crozet eonophile’s dream to its top 10 Best Winery Tours list, joining California establishments including Cline, Jordan, and Benziger. This is the big time, people! kingfamily vineyards.com • Firefly is celebrating its fifth year in business this weekend, September 21-22, with a $5 food-and-drink menu and much more. Saturday is the big blowout, with a plant sale outside by Edgewood Gardens, as well as music by Mojo Pie (2pm), Jay Seals and the Shara Tones (9pm), and DJ Rum Cove (10pm).

But baby it’s cold outside: Wine and beer delivered to your door

In case you need one more excuse to avoid going out in the frigid weather, Wegmans is now offering beer and wine delivery through Instacart.

“We know our customers are busy, and the holidays are no exception,” says Erica Tickle, Wegmans e-commerce group manager. “We wanted to help our customers spend less time prepping and more time celebrating.”

You can place your order on Instacart online or through the app, and orders will be delivered between 9am and 10pm.

It turns out wine delivery isn’t altogether new in the area, as several local wine shops have long provided delivery service.

Market Street Wine has been delivering for 30 years, say new owners Thadd McQuade and Siân Richards.

“This was established by [previous owner] Robert Harllee and we have carried it proudly on,” McQuade says. “We’ll deliver anywhere downtown—up to a case or two for free. We have a number of long-term clients who order a case from us every few weeks. We do everything from single gift bottles to large parties and weddings, and have delivered as far as 100 miles away.”

Foods of All Nations has also long been on board with this courtesy.

“We deliver whatever customers want, wherever they want, whenever they want, and we have for many, many years—as long as you’re 21 or older,” says Tom Walters, the store’s wine consultant. “We have some older clientele and regulars we deliver to on a regular basis and we deliver for special events, catering and things like that as needed too.”

Erin Scala, owner of Keswick’s In Vino Veritas, says she provides free neighborhood deliveries on certain days of the week—Glenmore and nearby get free Thursday delivery and Pen Park and downtown customers have free Friday deliveries. She adds that any order of $200 is eligible for free local delivery.

And Doug Hotz, manager/owner of Rio Hill Wine & Beer, says he also delivers within a 10-mile radius of the store, although there’s usually a fee. He adds that most people simply call ahead or email their order and pick it up at the shop. “It’s ready when they get here and they pull up and we load it up and they go.”

Anything to stay warm and dry.

Beer for a cause

Local breweries Devils Backbone, Champion, and Starr Hill have joined Sierra Nevada Brewing Co.’s effort to raise funds for California wildfire victims—with a collaborative beer.

Sierra Nevada, which originated in Chico, California, released its Resilience Butte County Proud IPA in a campaign to aid those who lost homes and property in the devastating Camp Fire in Northern California. They’ve enlisted brewers nationwide to also brew Resilience and donate 100 percent of beer sales to the Camp Fire Relief Fund.

A Blue Moon by spring?

Blue Moon Diner owner Laura Galgano is counting the minutes till she can open the doors to diner regulars.

“Our hopes were that we’d be back in business by January 1, but it’s looking more like March at this point,” she says. “We should be back in the space by January, but we won’t finish with our portion of the renovations until late February or early March.”

The beloved diner closed in May, 2017, in preparation for construction of Six Hundred West Main, the six-story apartment building (featuring a private art gallery as well as retail space) going up behind the restaurant. The complex didn’t end up breaking ground until almost a year after the diner closed, and is now set to open in fall 2019.

“We are very anxious to return to our wonderful, wonky diner space, and our wonderful, wonky diners!” says Galgano.

Tavern & Grocery hires a “Top New Chef”

Tavern & Grocery has hired Joe Wolfson, named one of the Top 100 New Chefs in America by Food & Wine magazine, to be its executive chef.

“He brings an exciting new menu to Tavern & Grocery, with dishes including sweetbreads, duck, and osso buco,” says restaurant owner Ashley Sieg, adding that in January the West Main eatery will introduce a Sunday Suppers feature, served family style.

Wolfson was the executive chef at the Old Stone Farmhouse on St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Ms. Rose’s Fine Foods in Charleston, South Carolina.