Tag: blue ridge bucha

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Culture Food & Drink Living

Students grab healthier options, and the Downtown Mall faces French paradox

Smoke in our eyes

A new Q joint started smoking last Friday. Vision Barbecue is pioneered by co-owners Mike Blevins and Gabi Barghachie, who came up with their “vision” for the restaurant while working together at Maya. These barbecue boys are on a mission to add their own take on authentic smoked meats and sides to the downtown restaurant scene. “We are using local wood and a match,” Barghachie says. “No chemical starters, no gas, no electric. Everything done the way it’s supposed to be done.” The menu offers meats by the pound, traditional sides with a spicy variation on pimento cheese, and Little Pig- and Big Hen-sized sandwiches for all appetites. Be sure to grab the wet naps when you pick up VB’s signature sammie, The Hot Mess, loaded with 10 ounces of brisket, pork, and chicken, and topped with pickled onions and jalapeño plus housemade cheese and pepper sauces. Vision Barbecue is located next to The Shebeen at 249 Ridge McIntire Rd., and is open Thursday through Monday.

Crammin’ the good stuff

While we can’t imagine students completely ditching Gusburgers, donuts, and Chinese food delivery, it’s exciting to see UVA’s commitment to healthy, sustainable eating through a new partner­ship with Harvest Table. A subsidiary of Aramark, Harvest Table specializes in bringing locally sourced, high-quality food to institutional dining. Throughout the fall semester, the company tested its “immersive culinary movement” with pop-ups inside Runk dining hall, before fully integrating to bring Hoos a fresh, eco-friendly alternative.

All Runk food now comes from within a 150-mile radius of Charlottesville and is prepared entirely in-house—no premade hamburger patties, no packaged desserts. Through the initiative, students can choose non-GMO, antibiotic-free, and grass-fed as well as plant-based proteins, and there are options for those with food allergies and sensitivities.

Peter Bizon, executive chef for Harvest Table at Runk, says that university dining halls provide an excellent opportunity to bring local businesses together. He’s teamed up with Shenandoah Joe’s for coffee and Blue Ridge Bucha for on-tap kombucha.

“Some farms have the necessary licensing to do business with us and some don’t,” says Bizon. “We specialize in connecting the ones who don’t with the ones who do in order to foster cooperation among local producers. It means a lot when you can work with local farmers. You can get others involved and create a strong community.”

Harvest Table is also partnering with Babylon Micro-Farms, an organization founded by UVA alumni that helps restaurants grow produce in-house with systems that are remotely climate controlled and can support a wide
variety of plants, from lettuces to herbs, and even some edible flowers.

The university hopes to extend Harvest Table’s services to its other two dining halls in the future.

Frites on hold

While many local restos have pivoted creatively to stay open safely, using igloos, outdoor heaters, blankets, and stepped-up takeout offerings, Brasserie Saison has opted to close temporarily for the winter. The official statement from the popular Euro-pub says, “The health and safety of our restaurant family and community come first and we feel that the risk is too great for indoor dining during these winter months.” Owners say they plan to reopen in the spring, after the majority of the restaurant staff is able to receive vaccines. Then we can finally get back to enjoying the moules frites.

Frites on the go

Meanwhile, just up the mall, there’s another new restaurant from Ten Course Hospitality (the group behind Brasserie Saison, Revolutionary Soup, The Alley Light, The Pie Chest, The Bebedero, and most recently The Milkman’s Bar at Dairy Market): Café Frank, with an original menu from Chef Jose De Brito, whose resume includes Fleurie, The Alley Light, and The Inn at Little Washington. The new café is located in the former home of Splendora’s Gelato (we miss you!), and promises casual, French dining on the Downtown Mall (plus a robust daily to-go menu). The café’s bar program is by Mike Stewart, and Will Richey will curate the bistro-style wine list. We are excited to try the Royal Paella-for-Two with lobster, mussels, shrimp, and chorizo, but the hidden gem of this new foodie magnet might be the 4pm aperitif hour, when De Brito creates unique bites to pair with a prosecco bar-style sparkling wine list and cocktails. Café Frank is accepting takeout orders, and will be open for in-house dining Monday through Saturday beginning in March. —Will Ham

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Living

Spirits on Water Street: Craft distillery approved for downtown location

A craft distillery is coming to the former Clock Shop space on Water Street. Rendering: Sage Designs LLC

A newly formed company—so new that it hasn’t gone public with its name yet—is looking to get into the spirits business with a craft distillery in the former Clock Shop building at 201 W. Water St. The working title for the project is Vodka House, according to Clark Gathright, the civil engineer and site planner who ushered the building’s new design through the Board of Architectural Review approval process. The initial idea had been to create a distillery and tasting room similar to Vitae Spirits, on Henry Street, and even to offer outdoor seating.

“We started out with that in mind,” Gathright says. “But we got smacked down.” Evidently, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau was not enamored of the tasting room idea.

Gathright says the distillery project is moving ahead, though he’s unsure what form it will ultimately take. Black Bear Properties LLC, which bought the building in 2016 and has ties to big-bucks developer Hunter Craig, had previously proposed to demolish it and build an eight-story luxury apartment building. The Charlottesville Planning Commission nixed that use of the site in November 2017.

In other news…

Potbelly Sandwich Shop, which has more than 500 locations in the United States and abroad, has opened at 853 W. Main St., in The Standard at Charlottesville apartment building…The Crozet Trolley Co. is up and running, ferrying tippling tourists to the area’s wineries, breweries, and distilleries in an old-timey looking bus. Tour prices start at $39 per person…Waynesboro-based Blue Ridge Bucha is touting its use of reusable bottles as evidence of its commitment to sustainability. “Since 2010, more than 933,750 bottles have been saved by customers choosing to refill their Bucha bottles on draft,” a recent company blog post stated…On March 31 at Junction, chef Laura Fonner of Duner’s joins Junction chef Melissa Close-Hart to create a four-course meal, benefiting the Sexual Assault Resource Agency. Cost is $40 per person; $55 with wine pairing. For more info, call 465-6131.

Gee Whiz! A Potbelly Sandwich Shop (home of the cheesesteak with Cheez Whiz sammie) is open for business on West Main Street. Supplied photo
Categories
Living

Don’t call it a comeback: UVA alum hopes to recapture Littlejohn’s former glory

Christian Trendel, the new owner of Littlejohn’s, has expanded the Corner eatery’s menu. Photo by Ashley Twiggs

Littlejohn’s New York Delicatessen, an institution on the Corner for 40-plus years, has undergone a renaissance under new owner Christian Trendel, who was brought in by the family of founder John Crafaik, Jr.

“Littlejohn’s used to be a fixture on the Corner,” Trendel says. “And we’re trying to bring it back to that status.”

A UVA graduate, Trendel says it’s kind of like old home day now that he’s back, albeit on the other side of the counter. “I first walked in here in 1980, as a student,” he says. “I never thought I’d be owning Littlejohn’s.”

Trendel, who’s worked with a number of Charlottesville restaurants, says he’s lowered prices, beefed up the quality of the meats and cheeses, hired new staff, and expanded the menu to include deli classics in addition to the specialty sandwiches Littlejohn’s is known for. The restaurant is also back to being open till 3am, which no doubt appeals to its target audience.

“Right now, we’ve never been better,” Trendel says. “We’ve surprised a lot of old-timers who remember it exactly like it used to be, which is great, but also those who have noticed the quality improving a lot.”

Bucha bottom dollar

Waynesboro’s Blue Ridge Bucha is a winner of the national SCORE awards, which recognize the achievements of U.S. entrepreneurs and small business owners.

Owners Kate and Ethan Zuckerman, who started their kombucha business eight years ago, were awarded Outstanding American Manufacturing Small Business for making an environmental impact with their handcrafted organic kombucha, a naturally carbonated, fermented tea.

The Zuckermans have gone from selling their product out of the back of an old Honda Civic to distributing the kombucha to more than 50 chain markets in Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C. They remain committed to making a large economic and social impact in the community while maintaining as small a footprint as possible: Their refillable bottles and innovative draft systems have kept 750,000 bottles out of landfills.

Here today, gone tomorrow

Kebabish we hardly knew ye. The Water Street restaurant, which featured Nepali, Indian, and Turkish cuisine, hadn’t been open long last year before closing for renovations, which never seemed to materialize. The restaurant is now officially shuttered.

Qdoba Mexican Eats, a fast-casual chain, has closed after a long run on the Corner. No word on why it’s leaving the student-heavy dining corridor, or what will replace it.

Finger-lickin’ in Ruckersville

Greene County resident Keith Simmons adds to the ’cue scene with the opening of his new restaurant, The Wolf’s Fixins Barbecue in Ruckersville.

Simmons, who began smoking meats when he was a teenager, became a caterer but longed to start his own restaurant. A decade later, his dream has finally come true. While he’s new to the business of running a restaurant, that shouldn’t stand in his way—Simmons says he had no experience with construction, either, but that didn’t stop him from building out the restaurant himself.

Categories
Living

Farm Bell Kitchen honors its historic roots

Farm Bell Kitchen’s owner, Ryan Hubbard, and executive chef, Jabari Wadlington, in their West Main Street eatery, which serves new Southern cuisine and is housed in a brick building constructed by Thomas Jefferson’s master carpenter. Photo by Stephen Barling

By Sam Padgett and Erin O’Hare

The weathered farm bell stationed outside the restaurant is a bellwether for what you’ll find inside: farm-to-table Southern cuisine. Ryan Hubbard, co-owner of Red Hub Food Co. and the Dinsmore Boutique Inn, has combined his love of preserving the past with his passion for new Southern cuisine into Farm Bell Kitchen.

The restaurant is located in the brick building (constructed by Thomas Jefferson’s master carpenter, James Dinsmore) across from UVA Children’s Hospital on West Main Street. According to Hubbard, the very same bricks that were used in the Rotunda form the walls of Farm Bell Kitchen (Dinsmore also helped build several buildings at UVA and James Madison’s Montpelier).

Beyond maintaining its historical legacy, Farm Bell Kitchen is dedicated to serving Southern cuisine with ingredients from local producers. The name came to Hubbard from the farm bell now outside the restaurant that he found in a Southwest Virginia salvage yard.

“It’s emblematic of our new Southern cuisine and our farm-to-table approach,” he says.

Farm Bell Kitchen will be open for lunch and breakfast daily, and periodically serve supper (note: not dinner), and brunch on the weekends. If you find yourself in the area, remember for whom the bell tolls: it tolls for those who are hungry.

Roast to success

Mudhouse Coffee Roasters won a 2018 Good Food Award for one of its roasted coffees, the organic Limu Dabsessa ($24 for 12 ounces of beans). The beans, which are roasted in the Charlottesville area, come from Yidnekachew Dabessa’s eponymous coffee plantation in the Oromia region of Ethiopia, where Dabessa, an experienced coffee farmer and entrepreneur, has expanded his small coffee farm into a large-scale operation over the course of a decade.

According to the Good Food Award’s website, “to qualify for entry, roasters and coffee farmers must emphasize fairness and transparency from seed to cup. Acknowledging the difficulties of verifying farm-level sustainability efforts across continents, the Good Food Foundation again turns to third-party certification bodies for assistance in identifying beans eligible for consideration.” Mudhouse is one of 15 roasteries to receive an award in the coffee category.

Last year, Mudhouse was named Micro Roaster of the Year in Roast magazine’s 14th annual Roaster of the Year competition, and possible additional accolades are on the horizon: After making it through the qualifying round earlier this month, Mudhouse will compete in the Specialty Coffee Association U.S. Coffee Championship in Seattle later this year.

Final push

Blue Ridge Bucha, formerly known as Barefoot Bucha, is competing in SCORE’s 2018 America Small Business Championship. Three grand-prize winners will each win $15,000, and two businesses from every state will score trips to the organization’s national networking and training conference in April. The public voting period ends February 14: Go to championship.score.org to record your vote.

Categories
News

Ending the bucha battle: Local company settles for new name

After a legal battle with Barefoot wine-maker Gallo, Barefoot Bucha has rebranded to Blue Ridge Bucha. Photo by John Robinson

In April, Gallo—the $4 billion corporation responsible for making Barefoot Wine—sued local mom-and-pop Barefoot Bucha purveyors Kate and Ethan Zuckerman for infringing on its name and logo’s trademark. The kombucha makers settled the suit in August by agreeing to change their name, and now, they are announcing the new moniker customers will see on their labels when reaching for a bottle of Elderflower Sunrise.

And the winner is: Blue Ridge Bucha.

To choose a new name, the Zuckermans created a crowd-sourced contest that received more than 500 entries.

“When we started looking at all the entries coming in, we noticed a distinct pattern: One in five contest entrants suggested Blue Ridge Bucha,” Ethan Zuckerman said in a press release. An Internet search for Blue Ridge Bucha already turns up hits for Barefoot Bucha because there’s a close association with their drink and the mountains where it’s brewed, he adds.

Because so many contestants suggested the winning name, the Zuckermans “literally drew a name out of a hat” to select a grand prize winner. Now Edward Warwick, of Charlottesville, will receive a year’s supply of kombucha.

“We love that our community picked the name,” Kate Zuckerman says. “It just feels right given our deep roots here. There were a lot of creative names submitted, but the beverage space is going through a bit of a crisis with trademark litigation right now. That’s definitely not something we want to go through twice, and picking a place name gives us certain protections from that.”

She says her team is thankful for the pro bono support of the University of San Francisco’s law clinic, because they were able to keep legal fees under $10,000, which is a low-end amount for this type of case. It will cost approximately $20,000 to rebrand their company, she says, “not counting the hundreds of hours of time it has taken us and our team to manage the trademark dispute and the rebranding project.”

The team is doing a soft launch of the new brand; once a store runs through its Barefoot Bucha inventory it will receive Blue Ridge Bucha-branded products.

With a company founded on environmental consciousness, the bucha brewers take pride in the fact that they’ve saved half a million bottles through their refillable bottle program, in which customers bring reusable bottles to filling stations rather than purchase a new one each time.

Whole Foods Charlottesville will host an official launch of the new brand from 3-5pm on January 15. Attendees will receive a free 32-ounce mini growler from Blue Ridge Bucha and no RSVP is required.