Calling all elves: Don’t be a cotton-headed ninny-muggins—treat yo’ elf to the Brew & Buddy Run followed by a screening of the holiday classic Elf. The three-mile run includes brewery breaks before heading to the theater for a journey through the candy cane forest, sea of swirly-twirly gumdrops, and the Lincoln Tunnel.
Sunday 12/19. $5-25, 4:30pm run, 6pm movie. The Paramount Theater, 215 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. theparamount.net
Remember live music? Us, too.
There’s reason to be extra grateful for recorded music right now (and for all the artists streaming sets into our living rooms), but it’s not the same as packing into a whatever-sized room with a bunch of other people to hear some tunes played just for you. Sweating, swaying, swooning, swirling, swilling a beverage while the band plays (we better not catch you talking)…it’s an experience that’s on hold during social distancing. It’s just too risky.
We can’t convene in our favorite venues right now, and won’t for a while still, but we sure can wax poetic about when we could. Some pretty rad bands have played some pretty rad shows in Charlottesville, and local folks have these stories to prove it (and others, like City Councilor Sena Magill, have the cool, hard proof: outrageous memorabilia).
Scroll down for an update on local venues.
What’s your favorite show memory? Tell us in the comments.
The Southern Café & Music Hall, April 2015
When Diarrhea Planet (RIP) was on, no band mixed respect for the grandeur of rock with tongue-in-cheek jibes at the ridiculousness of “maximum rock ‘n’ roll” like they did. —Charlie Sallwasser
Starr Hill, early 1990s
Starr Hill was a 400 [-person capacity] club on West Main. There were maybe 600 people in attendance and, as Toots found out when he held his mike out to urge people to sing along, everybody there knew every single word to every song they played. I went downstairs for a drink and the floor was literally moving up and down eight or nine inches in each direction. It was his A-list band—the guys he records with—and they were so stoked that the crowd really knew the material. —Charlie Pastorfield
Champion Brewing Company, October 2016
Lead singer Laura Jane Grace came out in a Trump mask to sing “Baby, I’m an Anarchist.” —Nolan Stout
Trax, February 1992
It was “immersive” and that’s an understatement. MBV was feel-it-in-your-spine loud and I am convinced that most of my current high-frequency hearing loss can be traced to that show. Then they turned on the strobe light and left it on for the duration of “To Here Knows When,” which felt like an hour [ed. note: the recorded version is 5:32]. The crowd, the bone-rattling, the sound, the blinding light all simultaneously induced euphoria and claustrophobia. It was honestly the greatest show of my life. I don’t remember the Dinosaur Jr. set at all. —Mike Furlough
The Jefferson School African American Heritage Center, September 2019
Hands down, the Roland Wiggins tribute. I had to watch it on Facebook because I was out of town doing a gig, but the surprise performances from his best friend made my heart smile. Super close second fave was [soul-rock musician and theologian] Rev. Sekou at The Festy [2019]. Lawd hammercy…. —Richelle Claiborne
Tokyo Rose, March 1998
Won’t do the Pud (too many to count), so I’ll say [this one]. I bartended downstairs that night; they made everyone very, very, very happy and very hopeful. They stayed at our house. I went to work and then they JAMMED AND STEVE RICHMOND DIDN’T RECORD IT (forgave). —Tyler Magill
The Southern Café & Music Hall, November 2015
Because every Jonathan Richman show is better than every show without Jonathan Richman. #RoadRunner —Siva Vaidhyanathan
Satellite Ballroom,
February 2006
The horns! Her voice! The dancing! The being young! —Nell Boeschenstein
The Jefferson Theater, February 2010
It was insane. Working with a hero. They rehearsed in the venue the day before, which was a real treat. Basically a private show. We loaded in during a blizzard. Tom Daly snapped one of my all-time favorite photos of me during the show. I was 24 years old and like a kid in a candy shop. —Warren Parker
The West Virginian (the basement of The Virginian), 1976
Astonishing electric blues. I wrote a review of the show for the Tandem Evergreen, and got into an argument with the editor, who sniffed that “all the songs were in E.” —Hawkins Dale
The Pudhaus, 2001
One of the sweatiest, most energetic, and righteous shows I have ever experienced. A room so full that the floor bounced but just an ecstatic feeling. Felt like the building levitated. —Davis Salisbury
The Sprint Pavilion, August 2019
Absolute and utter magic. The music. The energy of the crowd. The giant balloons and inflatable robot. I am not the same person I was before. —Emily Cain
The Bridge PAI, March 2017
University School (Peter Bussigel and Travis Thatcher) played a live techno set, did the whole thing wearing crazy animal masks and making hot dogs for everyone while they played. They even had veggie dogs for the vegetarians out there, and everyone was eating and having a great time. Not saying the concert convinced me to move here, but it definitely helped. —Kittie Cooper
Tokyo Rose, April 1996
I bet a few people mention this one—for those who saw it, many probably remember it as one of the peak music moments of their lives, including me. It was a benefit for the Sexual Assault Resource Agency, right after the album Call the Doctor came out. Curious Digit opened—in honor of the riot grrrl occasion they did Bikini Kill’s “Carnival.” Sleater-Kinney were so glorious, my friend Jeanine (who MC’d the show, repping both SARA and WTJU) threw her bra up onstage, where it landed on Corin’s microphone. She left it dangling there the rest of the show. —Rob Sheffield
Trax, early 1990s
I was a disaffected undergrad at UVA in the early ’90s when a friend told me Public Enemy was coming to Charlottesville. Why, to burn it down? Nope, to play a show, at Trax. I honestly couldn’t believe it; all I knew about Trax was that Dave Mathews played there all the time. This, was anti-Dave. But it was true, and we got tickets as soon as they became available.
The night of the show we walked over from our place with a Dr. Pepper bottle filled 50/50 with whiskey. Typical undergraduate idiots, not challenging any stereotypes. It was a packed house and the crowd was pretty…energetic? There was a sense that something crazy was about to happen but it was unclear what form it would take: a wild party, maybe a riot. Public Enemy didn’t show for a long time, and the crowd was getting more and more agitated. My friend went to sit down in the back, the whiskey and Dr. Pepper weren’t mixing well.
There was a palpable sense of relief when the announcement was made that PE was in the building and they started setting up. Almost immediately there was another delay, Terminator X’s turntables were messed up somehow getting them onto the stage. Not great; things really started leaning towards riot. There was some pushing, scuffling, a lot of impolite shouting. I was trying to figure out how I was going to get the hell out of there when everyone heard the unmistakable sound of Flav shouting, “Yo, Chuck!,” and it was on. Every single person was immediately through the roof. What followed was a two-hour-long sonic assault; angry, political, righteous, and absolutely everything I’d hoped for. Maybe this Charlottesville thing was going to work out after all. When it was all over, I went to find my friend, still passed out sitting on the floor with his back against the wall. I had to wake him up, and he groggily asked what he had missed. Everything.
I learned later that night that another friend had his face slashed somewhere in the pushing and shoving. He stayed for the show and got quite a few stitches later. We all agreed it was worth it, and that he had likely done something to deserve it. —Steve Hoover
Trax, late 1980s/early 1990s
He told the audience they were the rudest mofos he’d ever seen and he left the stage. He was right. Maybe not my favorite memory, but one of the more stand-out memories. —Jamie Dyer
The Jefferson Theater, October 2010
Not counting EDM shows, Charlottesville crowds are typically on the more reserved side, but something was in the air that night. It was packed and yet I was able to move freely from bar to stage, dancing from person to person on my way. It felt more like a party where everyone was a friend and Ratatat were the house band. On multiple occasions I’ve recounted the show years later to someone and they’ll light up and say, “I was at that show!” They always agree it was a special one. —Jonathan Teeter
Trax, 1993
I still have the flier from that show. Trax became known as the beginnings of DMB, but they had a pretty stellar run of booking amazing indie bands in the late ’80s and ’90s—Ramones, Sonic Youth, Pixies, Pavement, Replacements, Smithereens, Jesus and Mary Chain, Bob Mould, Superchunk…Dinosaur Jr. and My Bloody Valentine on the same bill. —Rich Tarbell
Starr Hill, 2006
Used…someone else’s ID…and had my first craft beer at a show. One of my favorite memories. —Allison Kirkner
All the dope shows at Mem Gym. Jane’s Addiction…or rap shows put on by UVA in the ’90s. All of James McNew’s Yo La Tengo shows were good, too. —DJ Rob A
The Paramount Theater, 2008
With an amazing band in tow, from the opening romp of “Ophelia” onward, Levon was the happiest guy in the room and it just trickled down. We were all fortunate to have him in good voice that night. —Michael Clem
Live Arts, 2004
The downstairs stage still had scaffolding and platforms up from whatever production, and the band kept pulling people out of the audience until it felt like there were more people on stage than off it. —Phil “dogfuck” Green
Champion Brewing Company, October 2017
Nik Turner [of Hawkwind], free, outside, bit o’ rain, C’ville…Skulls split from grinning so much. A perfect storm in every way, and to be there with a novitiate who was gobbling it up like candy made it that much better for me. And it was with Hedersleben to boot. —Kevin McFadin
The Sprint Pavilion, September 2013
I had lived in Charlottesville from 1999-2002 as a recent college grad. I moved back in 2013, driving from Brooklyn in a U-Haul truck with a 2-year-old and a spouse who had never lived here before. It was very hot out, we were in debt, we missed our friends, and our stuff was in boxes in a too-small apartment. We went out for a walk on the Downtown Mall and saw a poster for Phoenix, playing at the Pavilion that night. I asked some people sitting on a bench “Is that Phoenix, the band from France?” They shrugged yes, and a few hours later I drifted over to the Ninth St. bridge, where I stood and watched. (I had no money for admission, and spouse and child were tired and stayed home.) The band played a set of songs I had gotten to know and love in my old home, and from where I stood I saw a sea of smiling faces. On their way offstage the band gave an amused wave to the bridge crowd, and I walked back to the apartment feeling for the first time in a while that it would be possible to make a life here work. —Jake Mooney
Trax, April 1993
-and-
Tokyo Rose, April 1996
I chose two, which occurred three years and one day apart. Fugazi: The first time I had ever seen them outside of D.C. Brilliant, dynamic and WAY too loud. Turns out it was the first date of a new PA, which left many a fan stone-deaf for a few days. This can be found as part of the Fugazi Live Series. The middle section, tracks 13-21, I would put up against any band, anywhere, ever. Then Sleater-Kinney: One of the very few times I have ever said to a band, “One year from now, you guys are gonna be huge.” I think that creeped out Carrie Brownstein (though I was right). Emotionally overwhelming set, even with the pre- Janet Weiss drummer. —Joe Gross
University Hall
I call this the “phantom concert” because even though I have a pretty reliable memory, I have not been able to find any evidence on Al Gore’s interwebs that this concert happened. But…I keep telling myself that I know it did, because I was there. Just like I “remember” seeing Ike and Tina Turner here in Charlottesville at 2, I’m pretty sure I saw The Spinners at University Hall at 6. Now, there is a record of The Spinners hitting the same stage in 1981, and at that time the two biggest memories from the show I believed I was at wouldn’t have happened:
—Ivan Orr
Gravity Lounge, November 2008
I’ve seen SCOTS a few times, but that was by far the best of the shows—long set list, really intimate environment, superb energy level. —Jeff Uphoff
The Jefferson Theater, May 2014
That month, everything was technicolor. I’d been dumped a few weeks prior and mourned what was really nothing, for too long. The day was warm, the beer was cold, my cat-eye liner was sharp, and my black-and-blush-and-neon-green vintage dress made no sense and perfect sense. (“If you look good, you feel good?”) The band lived up to its name, keeping perfect step while Charles grinned and sang and wailed and wept and spun and sweated buckets in his custom stage suit. Music. What crowd? Music. What ex-boyfriend? Music, music, music. Time to move on. Thank goodness for soul. —Erin O’Hare
The Jefferson Theater, December 2009
It was my birthday, and I told her so in line after the (absolutely incredible!) performance while she signed a record. She stopped the line and serenaded me with the most beautiful and simple “Happy Birthday” rendition, and I was never the same. Maybe it was a combination of the venue or her verve or this sense that time stood still, but it became the benchmark against which I’ve measured performances—did it feel like it was just for me? My pantheon of performances have done exactly that. —Adrienne Oliver
Oh there are so many. Gwar at Trax, had to be early ‘90s…they ended up graffiting a jacket I had graffitied in art class (I still have it). Jane’s Addiction at Mem Gym, had to be ’90 or ’91. Of course, the Tokyo times with The Pitts, The Eldelry, The Councilors, Hillbilly Werewolf. Dread Zeppelin, they were so much fun. Also going to hear The Band and others at Van Riper’s [Lake Music Festival] in the late ‘80s. The Black Crowes, before they really made it, at Trax. —Sena Magill
The Jefferson Theater, 2012? 2011?
He played Chatroulette and it was the funniest, most engaging show I’ve ever seen. So many people I knew were there, it was practically a party. —Marijean Oldham
Starr Hill, 2006
There are three factors that make up the most memorable kind of concert: One, an intimate venue, two, the surprise factor—going to see a band you know little to nothing about and having your socks knocked off, and three, the magical band-audience feedback loop that manifests when you have a band that has lightning in a bottle, but is too green to know it yet— but the audience understands, and you get to watch the band’s wildest dreams come true in real time. The Magic Numbers gave me all three on a Tuesday night. I am a sucker for a bit of indie-pop perfection, and I heard their single “Love Me Like You” on the radio on my way to work, followed by the announcement that they would be at Starr Hill that night. I immediately changed my plans and it was one of the best concert decisions I’ve ever made. —Miranda Watson
Scott Stadium, 2001
The stadium had just been renovated and DMB played with Neil Young. I worked for the stadium event staff and got field passes. Also got to kick field goals with Boyd Tinsley during sound check the day before. —David Morris
The Jefferson Theater, 2015
They have been a favorite band since I was a senior in high school in 2003, and I couldn’t believe I actually got the chance to hear them live since they broke up in 1999 and I never thought they’d get back together. It was a school night, and I was beyond stressed from finals and job searching, but for two hours I forgot all of that and was completely enthralled. —Caroline Heylman
Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar, August 2011
Hats off to Jacob Wolf for booking this show and WJTU for presenting it, but it’s a very special night for me since I put the pieces in motion to make it happen. We got Brooklyn jammers Sloppy Heads and Dump (aka James McNew from Yo La Tengo) from NYC, with Charlottesville’s own mod enthusiasts Girl Choir in between —a Brooklyn/Charlottesville/Brooklyn via Charlottesville sandwich. Tons of great folks came from all over to see a very rare non-NYC set by Dump, which he played with his partner Amy. They covered all the bases and provided a nice mellow-ish counterpoint to the Heads’ shambolic choogling and Girl Choir’s frenetic anthemic. It was quite the magical evening for both music and human interaction. —Dominic DeVito
Trax, February 1993
The P-Funk legend was well into his 50s, but this cosmic slop raged on into the wee hours—I have never seen such a marathon with such relentless energy. George just gave up the funk for hour after hour, until every pair of hips was sore, except his. After four hours or so, I finally had to admit defeat and drag my weary bones home—but George and crew were still going strong onstage. To this day I still don’t know how much longer the show went on. An inspiration to us all. —Rob Sheffield
Charlottesville is really feeling the void left by the lack of live music, and Danny Shea’s got a theory as to why.
Ours is “a remarkable town in regards to support and appetite for live music. We have the luxury of having so much live music per capita, so I think [its absence] is felt more so than in other places,” says Shea, who’s booked music in town for over a decade and currently handles booking, promotion and venue management for The Jefferson Theater and the Southern Café & Music Hall, both owned by Red Light Management.
Local venues have been dark since the second weekend in March, when the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. Everyone is eager to know when we’ll be able to gather again, but the reality is that nobody—not even venue operations folks like Shea—know the date. Though restaurants with outdoor seating will be allowed to reopen with restrictions on Friday, May 15, entertainment venues, including concert halls, must remain closed. And even when they are allowed to open, it may take a while for things to return to normal.
Emily Morrison, executive director of The Front Porch, a nonprofit music school and venue online, says she probably won’t feel comfortable holding classes and performances in the building until 2021 (they’re all online for now). When she does open, Morrison says she won’t fill the space to its 100-person capacity for a while. “If everybody rushes toward each other this summer as restrictions ease in the state, I’m worried we’ll just have this terrible spike, even worse than the one we’ve had in the spring,” she says.
Jeyon Falsini of local booking and management company Magnus Music shares that worry. Falsini books for a number of restaurant-bars in town, including The Whiskey Jar, Moe’s BBQ, Rapture, and Holly’s Diner, and he says that all of these venues will focus on food and drink sales before hosting live music. These spots typically don’t charge a cover, so musicians are paid from the register and/or a tip jar. “You can only have music if the place is packed, to justify paying out of the register,” says Falsini, who, unable to collect booking fees, is currently on unemployment.
And what would shows even be like? Will touring bands want to pile into their vans (even before the pandemic, touring wasn’t the most hygienic thing) riding from city to city where they might be exposed to the virus, and in turn expose their audiences? Will audiences want to go stand in a room with a band that’s been in 10 cities in two weeks? Will fans pay more for a ticket to offset lower capacities? If the venue marks off safe social distancing spaces on the floor with tape, will attendees obey them (especially after a few beers)? Who would enforce mask rules? Can people be trusted to properly wash their hands in the bathrooms?
With safety measures in place, a show just won’t feel the same, says Shea. “The idea of social distancing at a rock show is impossible. It would be so awkward. …Can you imagine being the band on stage? There’d be no energy created at all.”
With so many questions about how to balance entertainment with public health concerns, “we’re just a little bit on our own…and it feels a little scary,” says Morrison.
Shea expects some aspects of what venues have developed—like expertly produced concert streams—will stick with us once the pandemic’s over. “You can’t trick yourself into old ways of pursuing this stuff,” he says. And while he is unsure of whether scheduled shows will actually happen this summer, he’s certain that Charlottesville’s appetite for them will remain.
Year after year, traditions are often what lead us through the holiday season. They mark everything from the place settings—a favorite heirloom tablecloth or a fine china set that has been passed down over the years—to the meal itself, from pie recipes scribbled in old family cookbooks to a particular way of carving the meat. We asked some local chefs, restaurant owners, and producers to share their own holiday memories—and a few cherished recipes.
Scott Smith, co-owner of Bodo’s Bagels
Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, besides the stuff we all do during the holidays, I celebrate six close family birthdays and my anniversary. It’s a gauntlet of occasions run too close together to savor (the whole reason to celebrate), and Christmas is the finish line. I cross it exhausted, grateful, and relieved.
A few years ago, about halfway through, I read a piece about Charles Mingus’ secret and legendary eggnog recipe, which he left to his biographer, Janet Coleman. It’s everything you’d want his recipe to be: prodigious, improvisatory, excessive, and sweetly easy to overindulge in before you know how far in over your head you’re getting.
The article described it as a velvet-gloved gorilla.
It seemed the perfect way to celebrate the crescendo of the year’s celebrations and obligations, and I’ve made it and shared it every Christmas afternoon since.
Matthew Brown, wine director at King Family Vineyards
Being from an Italian-American family, food holds a special place in our lives the whole year, however there is no doubt that we really turn up the heat around the holidays. Inspired by the classic feast of the seven fishes, traditionally enjoyed on Christmas Eve by Italian Catholics, my family gathers every year for a much simpler take on this tradition: shrimp scampi and linguine. Like most good home-cooked meals, there is no recipe.
The ingredients are simple: fresh shrimp, lots of garlic, lots of butter, and lots of lemon. The secret is to share a bottle (or two) of Champagne while cooking the meal. Once finished, the dish is best served with homemade linguine and topped with plenty of freshly grated Pecorino Romano. We always enjoy white Burgundy or aged Virginia chardonnay with our meal and then finish up with a generous splash of old vintage Madeira. The people at our Christmas Eve table change every year, but the meal is always the same!
Jason Becton, co-owner of MarieBette Café & Bakery
My grandmother was an excellent baker and a really solid cook. When I was a kid, she would make all of the food on Thanksgiving start to finish and we kids would help her prep. The centerpiece of the whole shebang was, of course, the turkey. Ours was usually a Butterball with a simple bread stuffing. Every year it was predictably the same.
When my grandmother passed away, my mother, who had always been intimidated by making the turkey, passed the responsibility on to me. I tinkered with the roasting process, the brine, the bird itself, and the gravy, but one thing that was sacrilege was to change the stuffing.
I don’t know very many people who actually cook the stuffing in the bird. There are lots of folks who think it’s not safe, it makes the bird dry, or is just completely a pain in the butt to do. I agree with the last part but the stuffing made with six ingredients—breadcrumbs, butter, eggs, onions, salt, and pepper—is remarkably tasty and never makes the meat dry. In fact, I’m proud to say that my simple roasted turkey has turned many turkey haters into believers.
Tim Gearhart, owner of Gearharts Fine Chocolates
One of my favorite treats as a kid was something amazingly simple. As a lot of food memories can often be, it of course goes deeper than its basic four ingredients: pie crust, cinnamon, butter, and sugar. It evokes childhood, holidays, and family to me. As I look back, it also helped start a lifelong passion.
My mom would set out to make maybe a pecan or pumpkin pie for Christmas dinner, but all I could think about was the buttery and flaky cookies she would make with the leftover dough. They were perfect—just simply rolled out bits and pieces of dough, slathered with butter, and finished with a generous coat of cinnamon sugar. She would then roll it up, slice and bake until a light brown. I waited and waited, watching the sugar bubbling up as it caramelized. Without a doubt, I was more excited about these cookies than whatever the main attraction was going to be!
I think in the end, whether it’s a 15-course gourmet meal or a cookie made with leftovers, it’s about making something special for someone. And sometimes, four ingredients are just enough.
Hunter Smith, owner of Champion Brewing Company
Many years ago, long before I knew of the relaxing and invigorating effects of alcohol, I took notice of a particular seasonal increase in neighborly traffic to my childhood home’s kitchen door. Many came bearing their own holiday treats, such as Pat’s sweet, soft sourdough bread, or the other Pat’s delicious monkey bread that we always ate, through Herculean restraint, before opening presents on Christmas morning. The majority of these seasonal visitors, however, came wide-eyed in pursuit of their Mason jar of The Recipe.
Despite plenty of annual light-hearted—and dead serious—offers to pay for The Recipe, my mom was as stern a gatekeeper as ever. The Recipe is of old Albemarle County origin, passed to my mom by family friend, grandmother figure, and legend in my memory, Marty, whose home we always visit in Earlysville. When I returned from college in Boston one Christmas and we all gathered around the tree, I found myself teary when opening a boxed Pyrex set that included a lined index card detailing the legendary Recipe, written in cursive in my mom’s signature blue ink. My fiancée at the time, Danielle (now my wife of 10 years), and I reveled in the opportunity to take a stab at making our own at home, with no limit on our allocation from mom.
The stuff itself is so rich and intense that you always find yourself amazed by how quickly and smoothly it goes down—and even a stout, seasoned drinker like myself can be taken unawares by the empty glass and light-headed sensation. The Recipe itself? A combination of sugar, eggs, cream, and heaps of dark spirits that aren’t bourbon—and that’s surely as far as I can go without facing excommunication. Served cool in a pewter Jefferson Cup, a traditional gift in our family, it’s a perfect fireside sip or Christmas morning fuel for tolerating all of the new family traditions—like noisy electronic toys, iPads, and Disney Blu-Rays for this era of Smiths. We’ve always joked in our family of booze producers that it would be legendary to take this magic in a bottle to market—but that would defeat the purpose of the special treat we know as The Recipe.
Courtenay Tyler, co-owner of Tilman’s
When I was living in Chicago, I worked at a small mom-and-pop neighborhood butcher and grocery store, a lot like the ones we have here in Virginia, where we made family-style food. Our Thanksgiving dinners were hugely popular, and each year I roasted over 25 turkeys, and made all the traditional sides to go with them. We were open until noon on Thanksgiving day for neighborhood customers to come and pick up their dinners. It made for a very long week, and by the end of it, I hate to say it, I was sick of Thanksgiving and couldn’t even look at turkey.
One year, I had already invited a group of friends over for Thanksgiving, but I couldn’t bring myself to cook another turkey. I had to come up with Plan B. So I took a look at our meat counter, spied a bone-in pork roast, and knew what our dinner would be. I had the butcher tie up a massive crown roast of pork. It was glorious.
As a nod to the Thanksgiving that I knew my friends were expecting, I stuffed it with caramelized onion and apple stuffing. That year, a tradition was born. I’m a huge fan of Friendsgiving, and we never have turkey. But we do a wink and nod to the traditional sides.
Kate Hamilton, co-owner of Hamiltons’ at First & Main
My grandmothers were both of Scandinavian heritage. My mother’s mother, Lila, was Norwegian-American, dad’s mother, Garnett, was Danish-American. Food traditions ran strong with them, and I treasure their recipe boxes and hand-sewn aprons. My grandmothers instilled in me a love of baking that still binds the generations together each Christmas. I may know their recipes by heart, but reading them is half the fun. Smudges and spills. Notes in the margins. “Take butter the size of an egg and cream in small bowl with sugar,” or “Lard is the secret for flaky rolls,” in Lila’s small, loopy writing. “Calls for oleo-—sub. butter when avail,” in Garnett’s spiky script.
Lefse is a Norwegian flatbread made primarily of potatoes, and was a staple in Lila’s Christmas kitchen. Hot from the griddle, slathered with butter and a bit of jam or cinnamon sugar, then rolled up like a crepe, it is among my favorite taste memories from childhood.
Every Norse family swears by its lefse recipe and I’ve tried many of them. I’ve used russet potatoes and the wrong potatoes. I’ve mashed them and I’ve riced them. I’ve even tried instant potato flakes. But when making lefse with Lila, we simply used up the extra mashed potatoes from the previous night’s supper. These were boiled russets, mashed with warm milk and butter, then lightly seasoned with salt. In the morning, we’d knead flour and a little sugar into the chilled leftovers, put the sock on the rolling pin and roll the dough balls into circles. Then we’d cook them on a dry pancake griddle one at a time, using a flat spatula to flip them when the desired brown spots appeared. We had a stack of damp tea towels nearby and layered the lefse and towels on a platter until meal or snack time. A simple but delicious treat and memory.
Angelo Vangelopoulos, chef and owner of The Ivy Inn
My favorite family holiday tradition is my dad’s homemade pita with a coin hidden inside served on New Year’s Day. Some years it’s made with spinach and feta (aka “spanako” pita), and other years it’s made with ground pork and pine nuts and brushed with lard.
We eat it for lunch after we’ve placed it in the middle of the table, spun it around a few times, sang a holiday song or two, and my dad has offered a blessing in Greek. Our savory pita “pie” is then cut into pieces for everyone present, and extra pieces are designated for any missing family members who couldn’t attend. We then dig in, and eat the pita while carefully making sure we don’t swallow the coin inside. There are annual jokes about whether or not my dad remembered to put the coin in (yes, that happened once), and plenty of arguing over which piece is which. I can hear family members saying, “Once it’s on your plate, it’s YOURS!”
The “winner” is the family member whose piece contains the coin. The coin is said to give a year of health and wealth, and it’s considered bad luck to ever spend it. This celebration is rooted in Christianity in celebration of St. Basil, who died on January 1. It’s a similar concept to King Cake, just without the baby inside, because that’s just weird!
from Courtenay Tyler of Tilman’s
Ingredients:
1 loaf of crusty day-old bread. Any will do, but I use a French country loaf, roughly cut into small 1-inch cubes. Note: I like to cube and leave these overnight to stale for best texture, but you can also speed the process by drying them out in a low oven, set to 250 for about 30 minutes, if you did not plan ahead.
2 onions, diced
3 Tbs. olive oil, divided
Salt and pepper to taste
2 apples, peeled and diced
2 ribs of celery, minced
Fresh sage, about ½ bunch or tbsp., chopped
1 large egg, lightly beaten
3 cups chicken broth
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a baking pan. In a large skillet, sauté the onions, salt and pepper in about two tablespoons of olive oil until browned and caramelized. This takes patience, and frequent stirring. Give yourself 15-20 minutes to get to the proper golden brown color. Once golden brown and caramelized, remove the onion to a large mixing bowl. Add one tablespoon of olive oil to your skillet and sauté the celery, diced apple, and fresh sage. Once soft, remove and add to the mixing bowl with the onions. Stir to combine.
Add your cubed bread, beaten egg, and broth. Stir to combine. Bake for 50 minutes to an hour, until the top is lightly browned.
from Kate Hamilton of Hamiltons’ at First & Main
Equipment needed:
Potato ricer or food mill
Flat pancake griddle or electric lefse griddle
Rolling pin or grooved lefse roller
Wooden spatula or lease stick
Damp towels
Ingredients:
6 large russet potatoes of similar size
3/4 cup melted salted butter
1-2 Tbs. cream
2 tsp. salt
3 Tbs. sugar
4-5 cups all-purpose flour
Instructions:
Peel, halve, and gently boil potatoes until centers are fork tender. Drain water and briefly replace pot on the stove to let some steam off. Push the hot potatoes through a ricer into a mixing bowl—you should have about eight cups of riced potatoes. While still hot, stir in the melted butter, salt, and sugar. Spread the mixture on a baking sheet and allow to cool, then shape it into a ball and refrigerate, covered, overnight.
The next day, preheat your griddle to 400-500 degrees. Because you want to add the flour right before baking, you should work with half of the riced potato mixture at a time, keeping the rest chilled in the fridge.
Place half the riced potato mixture in a bowl, add about two cups of flour, and mix in well using a stand mixer or your hands. If dough is sticky, add a bit more flour. If dough is too tough, work in a tablespoon of cream. Divide the dough into golf ball sized balls and keep in the refrigerator, removing one at a time to roll out and bake.
Dust your rolling pin and rolling surface with flour, then roll the lefse dough ball into a circle as thin as you can without it tearing. Using the wooden spatula or lefse stick, transfer to the hot, dry griddle and cook until light brown speckles appear, then flip. Bake until larger brown spots appear, then place on platter and cover with a damp towel. Continue in that way, layering lefse and damp towels until you’ve used up the first half of the dough, then repeat the process with the remainder of the refrigerated riced potato mixture.
A cooking partner will make the work go faster—one of you rolling and one of you baking. This recipe makes about 16 lefse.
Lefse is traditionally eaten rolled up with butter and jam or cinnamon sugar at Christmas. It’s also delicious with savory fillings. Enjoy!
a favorite of Scott Smith of Bodo’s
Separate one egg for one person. Each person gets an egg.
Two sugars for each egg, each person.
One shot of rum, one shot of brandy per person.
Put all the yolks into one big pan, with some milk.
That’s where the 151 proof rum goes. Put it in gradually or it’ll burn the eggs, okay. The whites are separate and the cream is separate.
In another pot—depending on how many people—put in one shot of each, rum and brandy. (This is after you whip your whites and your cream.) Pour it over the top of the milk and yolks.
One teaspoon of sugar. Brandy and rum. Actually you mix it all together.
Yes, a lot of nutmeg. Fresh nutmeg. And stir it up.
You don’t need ice cream unless you’ve got people coming and you need to keep it cold. Vanilla ice cream. You can use eggnog. I use vanilla ice cream.
Right, taste for flavor. Bourbon? I use Jamaica rum in there. Jamaican rums. Or I’ll put rye in it. Scotch. It depends. See, it depends on how drunk I get while I’m tasting it.
Notes from Smith on making the Mingus his own way:
After a year or two, I settled into a process. I beat the egg yolks with the sugar (one teaspoon per egg) in a stand mixer, like Alton Brown. Leaning on his recipe, I put a couple of cups of whole milk and a cup of heavy cream or so (for four people) into a saucepan with a lot of fresh nutmeg and bring it just to a boil, whisking. I take it off the heat and slowly whisk it into the eggs and sugar before putting it all back in the saucepan. Before it goes back on the burner, I clean the mixing bowl and beat the whites into stiff peaks so they’re ready. I set them aside and cook the mixture, whisking over medium heat, until it reaches 160 degrees (thanks Alton). As it’s coming up to temperature, I add the 151. I pull it from the heat and add the brandy and some dark rum (one shot each, per person). Then I put in a pint (I have another on hand in case) of softened Ben & Jerry’s vanilla ice cream. It melts in and cools things down before I fold in the whites. Looking good? If it’s pretty and sweet, no more ice cream. Taste, like Mingus. I’ve never not added bourbon. Sometimes I add some Scotch. I’ve used Irish whiskey too. This is the fun part. I don’t measure these, just use them to adjust the flavor.
It should have a dessert taste with a kick that doesn’t begin to telegraph the absurd amount of alcohol in each glass. Use small glasses. Settle in. Mingus, the article said, also used to fire his shotgun in his apartment, so go easy.
The unlikely pairing of beer and ballet—under an outdoor tent, no less—drew a standing-room-only crowd last Saturday at Champion Brewing Company, beside the railroad tracks downtown. Attendees, including plenty of kids, were treated to a pas de deux from The Nutcracker by member of the Charlottesville Ballet. The event, which kicked off the ballet’s 2019-20 season, is the brainchild of Champion’s taproom manager Sean Chandler, whose daughter Maeze is a budding ballerina. (She will appear in the troupe’s performance of The Nutcracker, December 19-22, at Piedmont Virginia Community College.) “Connecting with the arts and creating a community space have always been priorities for me,” says Champion founder and owner Hunter Smith. Let’s all raise a frothy glass to delightfully unconventional events like this one.
Turning the tables: What you see is what you get with the Winstons, a Brooklyn-based garage blues duo that is indie without pretense and relies on performances to get its point across. The former Charlottesville residents recently celebrated six years of live gigs and “turning down just about nothing” with a debut LP—giving a nod to simpler times by issuing the eponymously titled album exclusively on vinyl via WarHen Records.
City boosters and brewmasters have come together to blaze the Charlottesville Ale Trail, a two-mile stretch they’re calling the premier urban and pedestrian beer trail in Virginia.
The six stops along the way are Random Row Brewing Co., Brasserie Saison, South Street Brewery, Champion Brewing Company, Three Notch’d Craft Kitchen & Brewery, and Hardywood Pilot Brewery & Taproom.
After downloading a “passport” at charlottesvillealetrail.org, participants are encouraged to visit each stop for a pint or plate, which will earn them a stamp in their passport. Get a stamp from each spot, and you’ll win a prize.
“Cheers,” said Random Row co-owner Bradley Kipp at a September 3 press conference. He says he’s always amazed by the collaborative nature of local brewers, who pitched in with business advice and tips on how to source ingredients when he opened Random Row two years ago. A press release called this phenomenon “united by beer.”
Chris Engel, the city’s director of economic development, said there was only one brewery in town when he moved here in 2005. Then, in 2012, the General Assembly voted to allow breweries to sell full glasses of beer without restaurants on-site, which “lit a fire under microbreweries,” he said.
Tourism has a $600 million impact on the community annually, according to Engel, and he hopes the ale trail will help drive that.
But to drink half a dozen pints and walk the whole trail in a day? Says Engel, “You gotta be committed.”
City Council’s clerk and Chief of Staff Paige Rice is leaving her $98K-a-year job September 21 after eight years. Rice’s job was recently retitled “chief of staff” when it was expanded to include supervision of two new staff positions as well as the assistant clerk, an arrangement that Mike Signer describes as a “parallel government to the city manager.”
Rice’s salary as clerk was $72,842 in 2017, and it was bumped $25K—35 percent—when she became chief of staff.
City councilors honored Suicide Prevention Month (September) with an official declaration at their September 17 meeting. “Let’s take a moment to check on our friends, even the strong ones. Let’s support each other. Let’s love each other,” urged Councilor Wes Bellamy on Instagram.
Bellamy also announced at the council meeting an opening for a Charlottesville representative on the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail board, which has recently been at the center of controversy surrounding voluntary calls to federal immigration agents when undocumented immigrants are released from jail. Interested citizens are urged to apply (though you’ll have to wait till the position gets posted).
UVA’s Board of Visitors voted to expand tuition discounts for out-of-state students who live in the federally defined Appalachia region and attend UVA’s campus at Wise, the Cav Daily reports.
After the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued a stop work order to builders of the controversial $6 billion Atlantic Coast Pipeline earlier this summer because there was concern that it would interrupt federally protected species near the Blue Ridge Parkway, Dominion Energy spokesperson Aaron Ruby said September 17 that the National Park Service and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service have concluded the project is safe, and work will resume.
Charlottesville Police have ruled the death of Thomas Charles “Colonel” Franklin, 65, a suicide, as reported by CBS19. Franklin died June 10 when he left the Cedars Healthcare Center and drowned in a nearby creek.
While some folks in Charlottesville were still hiding from Hurricane Florence on September 17, the delegation visiting its French sister city, Besançon, was celebrating the two towns’ liaison. Mayors Jean-Louis Fousseret and Nikuyah Walker planted a poplar tree to commemorate the dedication of a traffic circle in the French city, named after our town in central Virginia.
“Those in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.” —U.S. Senate candidate Corey Stewart, who accused senators of having their own “secret ‘creep list,’” and advocated the confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court
After band practice on a recent Monday evening, the three members of The Attachments lean back on couches in drummer Jack Richardson’s Belmont living room. As the day falls into dusk outside the window, they drink beers and bottled teas while a record spins punk music at a low volume in the background.
“I came out of punk retirement to start this band with these guys,” says Sam Uriss, singer and guitarist for The Attachments. “I hadn’t played any [punk] for a long time and I felt a hankering. It’s the kind of thing where, once you’re in it you don’t really get away from it. It’s kind of like the mob.”
And while The Attachments isn’t a pure punk band—it’s more 1960s garage rock and straight-up rock ‘n’ roll than anything else—punk is embedded in its backstory and ethos.
Punk music is how Richardson, Uriss and bass player Tyler Abernethy met. They all grew up in the central Virginia area and played in bands together through high school. Uriss and Abernethy were in metal-edged punk and rock ‘n’ roll band Gutter Strutter, and Uriss and Richardson in the punk, garage and hardcore-tinged Slugs.
As they talk about early shows played at DIY venues and the recordings sold from makeshift merch tables, The Attachments say it’s hard to believe it’s been almost a decade since those days, probably because they’ve never stopped playing music. “I can’t not do it,” says Richardson.
“Sanity. To maintain sanity,” Abernethy says of why he plays.
“It’s just what I do,” adds Uriss. “I ain’t never been good at painting.”
Currently, all three members of The Attachments play guitar in other bands—Richardson in hard rock/punk four-piece Wild Rose, Abernethy in Richmond/Charlottesville punk act Fried Egg, and Uriss in country-blues outfit Clay Bones—making this band different. But they think that’s part of what makes this particular combination of musicians in this particular moment so “groovy,” to borrow Abernethy’s description.
While Abernethy discovers himself as a bassist on a black 1970s devil-horned Gibson SG bass gifted to him by Uriss’ dad, Richardson is figuring out who he is as a drummer (he’s new to the instrument) and Uriss gets to write lyrics that dig a bit deeper than the songs of his youth.
“When I think about it, punk music is so much about writing about things that make you angry and piss you off, which gets a little trite to me,” says Uriss. “But you can put more nuance to it when you start to pick specific forces and subjects that you can really talk about why they drive you crazy.”
At WTJU’s Prints, Platters and Pints event at Champion Brewing Company on Sunday, the band will play its entire catalog of originals, including “Switchboard Head,” a song from its 2017 self-titled release that Uriss says is about “the idea of being a conduit for all this programming” coming at him from newspaper, television, radio and internet channels.
Something about that song inspired Abernethy, who splits music-writing duties with Uriss (the band’s singular lyricist) to write the riff and chord progression for “Spoonfed,” a four-minute track about advertising that’s something substantial to chew on, musically and lyrically. “You got what I like you know that I’ll bite and choke it right down / You know that my eyes double in size when you come around / You know that greed burns in my chest when you suggest what could be my own / So please oh please won’t you throw me a bone,” Uriss growls over reverb-drenched guitar and a restrained rhythm section full of attitude before picking up the tempo (and the urgency): “If you’re sellin’ I’m buyin’ / If I believe it ain’t lyin’ / Just show me the dotted line / Just tell me where I gotta sign.”
“Spoonfed” is “about having stuff shoved down your throat,” about taking a look around and realizing that advertising is everywhere, “a totally out-of-control and insane part of society” that we can’t avoid and that we open ourselves up to even when we’re unaware, says Uriss. “It’s so pervasive that I can’t not write songs about it.”
He initially intended to call the band The Consumers, to call attention to “the idea of constantly being sold and buying stuff, consumption,” but an Atlanta-based punk band already had the name. “The Attachments, to me, has a similar vibe,” Uriss says, one of late-night TV infomercials. He notes the direct connection between the brain and the screen.
“And then we have some love songs, too,” Uriss says to laughter from his bandmates. One of them is called “See You There”—and in yet another punk rock tradition, that of filling out your short sets with something that’ll energize the audience, the band covers The Nerves’ “Paper Dolls” and the garage rock classic “I Ain’t No Miracle Worker,” written by Annette Tucker and Nancie Nantz and released as a Brogues single.
The Attachments are committed to keeping the energy up and listeners engaged—it’s music that’s easy to latch on to, with its catchy riffs and whiffs of well-placed attitude. “This music…has [a lot of] kinetic energy” says Uriss.
“Yeah, kinetic,” agrees Abernethy. “That’s the key word.”
On August 12, when hundreds of white supremacists gathered here for the Unite the Right rally, ostensibly to protest the removal of the Robert E. Lee statue, our city suffered terrible loss.
Just a few blocks away from the destruction, Black Lives Matter held an Art in Action event at Champion Brewing Company. Organizer Leslie Scott-Jones says it was “for people who didn’t want to march and stand, but people who wanted to stand in a different way.” The idea was to open the stage and engage residents in the positive experience of creativity. A large sheet of paper covered one table where children could draw. Musician David Tewksbury performed, as well as Keith Morris, among other singers, musicians and poets. Scott-Jones laughs as she remembers the moment two little girls asked to dance on the stage, the improvised sound system consisting of a mic pressed up to their parents’ phone while their chosen song played.
Scott-Jones says that art has a huge role to play in combating white supremacy. “There is nothing that can move people the way that art can. …It is supposed to tell the absolute truth,” she says. “It is supposed to show someone a perspective of life that they could never have, to promote understanding. And that has always been art’s role.” Scott-Jones says, for black artists especially, art can be an avenue for activism.
The problem, then, with the Lee statue is that it does not tell the absolute truth, “because it is ‘art,’” Scott-Jones says, making air quotes with her hands. “I don’t know if it should be destroyed. I think it should be put into some sort of museum that can put it in its proper place in history. Because I think the mistake that we make is putting our Founding Fathers up on a pedestal as if they weren’t fallible human beings.”
We do owe a lot to them, she adds, because “they created this country, they created a series of laws that still governs us today. But they were also slave owners. They also were rapists. They also killed people. And I’m not talking about war. They stole land from indigenous people. They were fallible. They were whole human beings, and to deny all parts of them is the whitewashing of history. And that’s why we have this problem. Because we haven’t been telling the whole truth.”
Scott-Jones is still processing what happened on August 12. She describes the uncertainty of walking among white people without knowing their intentions. “That’s a kind of terror that is indescribable and it’s not something that goes away just because those people left town,” she says. “Because as all of Charlottesville knows now—I don’t think the black community was under any illusions about it—not all of them were from out of town. So, yeah, it has changed the way I think about my home.”
As for moving forward, Scott-Jones says, “If you are righteously appalled at what took place in our town, then use your anger to fight against it. It doesn’t have to be you standing in a protest screaming at a white supremacist. …It can be something as simple as hearing someone make a racist or homophobic or misogynistic remark and not allowing that to happen in front of you, just stopping that person and saying, ‘Whoa, whoa, that’s not okay. We don’t do that here.’”
Scott-Jones also suggests donating your time, or “your talent, your treasure to organizations that are doing this work. …There are things you can do that don’t involve you putting your body on the line. …And I think people get daunted by not knowing, or not knowing who to ask what those things are. But not asking that question and not acting on that is no longer an option.”
It’s the time of year C-VILLE editorial staffers dread most: landing on the final names for our Power Issue, followed by the inevitable complaints that the list contains a bunch of white men. Sure, there are powerful women and people of color in
Charlottesville. But when it comes down to it, it’s still mostly white men who hold the reins—and a lot of them are developers. The good news: that’s changing. (And we welcome feedback about who we missed, sent to editor@c-ville.com.)
If you’re looking for a different take on power, skip over to our Arts section, where local creative-industry leaders share their most powerful moments (grab some Kleenex!) on page 46.
More than 150 years after General Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox, he continues to be a divisive figure—or at least his statue is. The sculpture has roiled Charlottesville since a March 2016 call (see No. 2 Wes Bellamy and Kristin Szakos) to remove the monument from the eponymously named park.
As a result, in the past year we’ve seen out-of-control City Council meetings, a Blue Ribbon Commission on Race, Memorials and Public Spaces, a City Council vote to remove the statue, a lawsuit and injunction to prevent the removal and the renaming of
the park to Emancipation.
The issue has turned Charlottesville into a national flashpoint and drawn Virginia
Flaggers, guv hopeful and former Trump campaign state chair Corey Stewart, and Richard Spencer’s tiki-torch-carrying white nationalists. Coming up next: the Loyal White Knights of the KKK July 8 rally and Jason Kessler’s “Unite the Right” March August 12.
You, General Lee, are Charlottesville’s most powerful symbol for evoking America’s unresolved conflict over its national shame of slavery and the racial inequity still present in the 21st century.
Jason Kessler
Before the statue debate—and election of Donald Trump—Charlottesville was blissfully unaware of its own, homegrown whites-righter Jason Kessler, who unearthed Vice-Mayor Wes Bellamy’s offensive tweets from before he took office and launched an unsuccessful petition drive to remove Bellamy from office, calling him a “black supremacist.” Since then, Kessler has slugged a man, filed a false complaint against his victim and aligned himself with almost every white nationalist group in the country, while denying he’s a white nationalist. The blogger formed Unity and Security in America and plans a “march on Charlottesville.” Most recently, we were treated to video of him getting punched while naming cereals in an initiation into the matching-polo-shirt-wearing Proud Boys.
SURJ
The impetus for the local Showing Up for Racial Justice was the seemingly unrelenting shootings of black men by police—and white people wanting to do something about it. But the Lee statue issue has brought SURJ into its own militant niche. Pam and Joe Starsia, who say they can’t speak for the collective, are its most well-known faces. The group showed up at Lee Park with a bullhorn to shout down GOP gubernatorial candidate Corey Stewart, interrupted U.S. Representative Tom Garrett’s town hall and surrounded Kessler at outdoor café appearances on the Downtown Mall, shouting, “Nazi go home!” and “Fuck white supremacy!”—perhaps unintentionally making some people actually feel sorry for Kessler.
Not all councilors are equally powerful, but together—or in alliances—they’ve kept the city fixated on issues other than the ones citizens normally care about: keeping traffic moving and good schools.
Mike Signer
Mayor Signer took office in January 2016 in what is widely seen as a step to higher office. He immediately riled citizens by changing the public comment procedure at City Council meetings. A judge determined part of the new rules were unconstitutional, but some council regulars say the meetings do move along much better—at least when they’re not out of control with irate citizens expressing their feelings on the Lee statue. Signer called a public rally, sans permit, to proclaim Charlottesville the capital of the resistance. And despite his vote against removing the statue, he’s not shied away from denouncing the white nationalists drawn to Charlottesville like bears to honey.
Wes Bellamy
Most politicians would be undone by the trove of racist, misogynistic and homophobic tweets Bellamy made before he was elected to City Council. As it was, they cost him his job as an Albemarle County teacher (a post from which he resigned after being placed on administrative leave) and a position on the Virginia Board of Education. But he fell on the sword, apologized and acknowledged the “disrespectful and, quite frankly, ignorant” comments he posted on Twitter. Perhaps it helped that Bellamy, at age 30, is a black male leader, has real accomplishments and has dedicated himself to helping young African-Americans. Despite his missteps, he is the voice for a sizable portion of Charlottesville’s population.
Kristin Szakos
Szakos raised the topic of removing the city’s Confederate monuments several years before she teamed up with Bellamy, and she was soundly harassed for her trouble. When she ran for office, she called for town halls in the community and bringing council to the people, and she’s always demonstrated a concern for those who can’t afford to live in the world-class city they call home. She announced in January she won’t be seeking a third term in the fall.
Kathy Galvin
Galvin, an architect, envisions a strategic investment area south of the Downtown Mall, and her job will be to convince residents it’s a good deal for them. Council’s moderate voice, she, along with Signer, were the two votes against removing the Lee statue.
Bob Fenwick
Even before losing the Democratic nomination June 13 with a dismal 20 percent of the vote, Fenwick was always the odd man out on council. His moment in the sun came earlier this year when he abstained from a split vote on removing the Lee statue, lobbied for pet causes among his fellow councilors and then cast his vote in the “aye” side, joining Bellamy and Szakos. That vote did not yield the groundswell of support he might have imagined from the black community. And although he leaves council at the end of the year as a one-termer, there are those who have appreciated Fenwick’s refusal to join in lockstep with the rest of council, and his willingness to call out its penchant for hiring consultants without taking action.
Every year we try to figure out how to do the power list without including Capshaw. But with his fingers in pies like Red Light Management (Dave Matthews, Sam Hunt); venues (the Pavilion, Jefferson, Southern and, most recently, the Brooklyn Bowl); Starr Hill Presents concert promotion and festivals such as Bonnaroo; merchandise—earlier this year, he reacquired Musictoday, which he founded in 2000; restaurants (Mas, Five Guys, Mono Loco, Ten) and of course development, with Riverbend Management, we have to acknowledge this guy’s a mogul. There’s just no escaping it.
In local real estate alone, Capshaw is a major force. Here are just a few Riverbend projects: City Walk, 5th Street Station, C&O Row, the rehabbed Coca-Cola building on Preston and Brookhill.
True, he fell from No. 7 to 11 on this year’s Billboard Power 100, but in Charlottesville, his influence is undiminished. And now he’s getting awards for his philanthropy, including Billboard’s Humanitarian of the Year in 2011, and this year, Nashville’s City of Hope medical center’s Spirit of Life Award.
In January, UVA President Teresa Sullivan announced her summer 2018 retirement, and directed the Board of Visitors to begin the search for a new leader to rule Thomas Jefferson’s roost, the top employer in Virginia with its state-of-the-art medical center, a near-Ivy League education system and a couple of research parks teeming with innovative spirit.
Charlottesville native venture capitalist James B. Murray Jr., a former Columbia Capital partner of Senator Mark Warner, was elected vice rector of the Board of Visitors, and will take the rector-in-waiting position July 1, when Frank M. “Rusty” Connor III begins a two-year term as rector.
And lest we forget, the UVA Foundation recently purchased the university a $9 million 2015 Cessna Citation XLS—an eight-seat, multi-engine jet—to haul around its highest rollers.
As the founder of Quantitative Investment Management, a futures contract and stock trading firm with experience in plataforma trading, Woodriff has landed at No. 28 on Forbes’ list of the 40 highest-earning hedge fund managers in the nation, with total earnings of $90 million. His troupe of about 35 employees manage approximately $3.5 billion in assets through a data science approach to investing.
Woodriff, an angel investor who has funded more than 30 local startups, made headlines this year when he bought the Downtown Mall’s beloved ice skating rink and announced plans to turn Main Street Arena into the Charlottesville Technology Center, which, according to a press release, “will foster talented developers and energized entrepreneurs by creating office space conducive of collaboration, mentorship and the scalability of startups.”
Demolition of the ice rink is scheduled for 2018, so there’s time yet to lace up your skates before you trade them in for a thinking cap.
Some might argue that Woodard’s power stems from the unrelenting complaints of people who are towed from his two downtown parking lots. But it’s the real estate those lots sit on—and more. The owner of Woodard Properties has rentals for all needs, whether residential or commercial. The latter includes part of a Downtown Mall block and McIntire Plaza. He was already rich enough to invest in a Tesla, but Woodard is about to embark on the biggest project of his life—the $50 million West2nd, the former and future site of City Market. Ground will break any time now, and by 2019, the L-shaped, 10-story building with 65 condos, office and retail space (including a restaurant and bakery/café) and a plaza will dominate Water Street.
When you talk about Charlottesville’s ever-growing restaurant scene, one name that seems to be on everyone’s tongue is Will Richey. The restaurateur-turned-farmer (his Red Row Farm supplies much of the produce in the summer for the two Revolutionary Soup locations) owns a fair chunk of where you eat and drink in this town: Rev Soup, The Bebedero, The Whiskey Jar, The Alley Light, The Pie Chest and the newest addition, Brasserie Saison, which he opened in March with Hunter Smith (owner of Champion Brewery, which is also on the expansion train, see. No. 9). Richey’s restaurant empire seems to know no bounds, and we’re excited to see what else he’ll add to his plate—and ours—in the coming years.
The superintendents for city and county schools have a long list of achievements to their names, with each division winning a number of awards under their tenures.
This month, Atkins—the city school system’s leader since 2006—was named to the State Council of Higher Education, but she’s perhaps most notably the School Superintendents Association’s 2017 runner-up for national female superintendent of the year.
Moran, who has ruled county schools since 2005, held a similar title in late 2015, when the Virginia Association of School Superintendents named her State Superintendent of the Year, which placed her in the running for the American Association of School Administrators’ National Superintendent of the Year award, for which she was one of four finalists. This year, she requested the School Board continue to fund enrollment increases for at-risk students, making closing learning opportunity gaps a high priority.
Throw a rock in this area and you’ll hit a brewery. For one thing, the Brew Ridge Trail is continually dotted with more stops. And new breweries in the city just keep popping up: Reason Brewery, founded by Charlottesville natives and set to open next month on Route 29 near Costco, is the latest. Other local additions include Random Row Brewery, which opened last fall on Preston Avenue, and Hardywood, based out of Richmond, which opened a pilot brewery and taproom on West Main Street in April.
And local breweries are not just opening but they’re expanding: Three Notch’d and Champion both opened Richmond satellite locations within the last year (that marks Three Notch’d’s third location, with another in Harrisonburg). And what pairs better with good drinks than good eats? Champion is adding food to its Charlottesville menu, and its brewers are enjoying a Belgian-focused playground at the joint restaurant venture Brasserie Saison.
Another sure sign that craft beer is thriving is the Virginia Craft Brewers Guild’s annual beer competition, the Virginia Craft Beer Cup Awards, which is the largest state competition of its kind; this year, 356 beers in 24 categories were entered. And Charlottesville is the new home of the organization’s annual beer showcase, the Virginia Craft Brewers Fest, which is moving from Devils Backbone Brewing Company to the IX Art Park in August. Host of the event, featuring more than 100 Virginia breweries, will be Three Notch’d Brewing Company, which is expanding its brewing operations from Grady Avenue into a space at IX, set to open in 2018.
With 46 percent of the vote in this month’s City Council Democratic primary and nearly $20,000 in donations, Laufer also had a lengthy list of endorsements, including governor hopeful Tom Perriello and former 5th District congressman L.F. Payne.
Laufer, a current school board member and former chair and vice chair of the board, is also the founder of Virginia’s List, a PAC that supports Democratic women running for state office. If she takes a seat on City Council, keep an eye out for the progress she makes on her top issues: workforce development, affordable housing and the environment.
Khan launched the city into the international spotlight when he, accompanied by his wife, Ghazala, took the stage on the final day of the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia and harshly criticized several of then-Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s policies, including his proposed ban on Muslim immigration.
“Donald Trump, you’re asking Americans to trust you with their future,” Khan said. “Let me ask you, have you even read the United States Constitution? I will gladly lend you my copy. In this document, look for the words ‘liberty’ and ‘equal protection of the law.’”
Khan could be seen shaking a pocket-sized copy of the Constitution at the camera—his face splayed across every major news network for days thereafter. At the convention, he discussed the death of his son, Humayun, a UVA graduate and former U.S. Army captain during the Iraq War, who died in an explosion in Baqubah, Iraq.
Khan also spoke before hundreds at Mayor Mike Signer’s January rally to declare Charlottesville a “capital of the resistance,” and Khan and his wife recently announced a Bicentennial Scholarship in memory of their son, which will award $10,000 annually to a student enrolled in ROTC or majoring in a field that studies the U.S. Constitution.
Even though he doesn’t live around here, he’s from around here, if you stretch here to include Waynesboro. Dewberry continues to hold downtown hostage with the Landmark Hotel, although we have seen some movement since he was on last year’s power list. After buying the property in 2012, he said he’d get to work on the Landmark, the city’s most prominent eyesore since 2009, once he finished his luxury hotel in Charleston, South Carolina. That took a few years longer than anticipated—these things always do—but earlier this year Dewberry wrangled some tax incentives from City Council, which has threatened to condemn the structure, and on June 20, the Board of Architectural Review took a look at his new and improved plans. One of these days, Dewberry promises, Charlottesville will have a five-star hotel on the Downtown Mall.
The Ph.D. in art history, who formerly worked at what’s now UVA’s Fralin Museum of Art, always seemed like the only real choice to head the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center, and since it opened in 2012, she’s made it an integral part of the community. The heritage center is far from self-sustaining, but a $950,000 city grant, a fundraising campaign and Douglas’ steely determination keep the historic school—and its place in the city’s history—firmly in the heart of Charlottesville. And Douglas can get a seat at Bizou anytime she wants—she’s married to co-owner Vincent Derquenne.
Innovation wunderkind Beyer ups the stakes on his Tom Tom Founders Festival every year. The event began six years ago as a music-only festival, but has morphed into a twice-a-year celebration of creativity and entrepreneurism. The fall is dedicated to locals who have founded successful businesses/organizations, while the week-long spring event continues to draw some of the world’s biggest names in the fields of technology, art, music and more. This year’s spring fest, which added a featured Hometown Summit that drew hundreds of civic leaders and innovators from around the country to share their successes and brainstorm solutions to struggles, was the biggest yet: 44,925 program attendees, 334 speakers and 110 events.
We know them as local leaders in the weddings and hospitality industry (Pippin Hill Farm & Vineyards is often the site of well-to-do weddings, with some totaling in
the $200,000s, we hear), but now the Easton Porter Group has its sights set on a much bigger portfolio: Its goal is to secure 15 luxury properties in high-end destinations in the next 10 years. In 2016, the group, owned by husband-and-wife team Dean Porter Andrews and Lynn Easton, landed on Inc. magazine’s list of the 5,000 fastest-growing private companies in the nation.
Their latest project is to our north, with the renovation of the Blackthorne Inn outside of Washington, D.C., in Upperville, Virginia. The historic hunt-country estate, which is being transformed into a boutique inn featuring luxury-rustic accommodations, fine dining and wine, is projected to open in spring 2018.
The Easton Porter Group’s other businesses include Red Pump Kitchen on the Downtown Mall, as well as Cannon Green restaurant and the Zero George Hotel Restaurant + Bar in Charleston, South Carolina.
Equity and Progress in Charlottesville made a poignant debut earlier this year, shortly after the death of former vice-mayor Holly Edwards, who was one of the founders of the group dedicated to involving those who usually aren’t part of the political process. It includes a few Democrats no longer satisfied with the party’s stranglehold on City Council, like former mayor Dave Norris and former councilor Dede Smith. The group has drawn a lot of interest in the post-Trump-election activist era, but its first two endorsements in the June 13 primary, Fenwick and commonwealth’s attorney candidate Jeff Fogel, did not fare well. The group still holds high hopes for Nikuyah Walker as an independent City Council candidate, and despite the primary setback, says Norris, “We may not have won this election, but we certainly influenced the debate.”
UVA’s Focused Ultrasound Center, the flagship center of its kind in the U.S., has had a banner year. The use of magnetic resonance-guided focused ultrasound technology to treat tremors has moved from the research stage to becoming more commercialized for patient treatment. And we can thank Kassell, founder and chairman of the Focused Ultrasound Foundation, for placing our city in the neurological pioneering sphere.
Two months ago, the Clinical Research Forum named the center’s use of focused sound waves to treat essential tremor (the most common movement disorder) instead of requiring invasive incisions, as one of the top 10 clinical research achievements of 2016. And it can’t hurt to have someone as well-known as John Grisham in your corner. He wrote The Tumor, and the foundation, which works as a trusted third party between donors, doctors and research, distributed 800,000 copies.
Kassell is the author of more than 500 scientific papers and book chapters, and his research has been supported by more than $30 million in National Institutes of Health grants. In April 2016, he was named to the Blue Ribbon Panel of former vice president Joe Biden’s Cancer Moonshot Initiative.
Since Kielbasa came to town in 2009, he has continued to steer the Virginia Film Festival toward an ever-expanding arts presence in not only our community, but statewide as well. Last year’s festival featured more than 120 films and attracted big-name stars, including director Werner Herzog and Virginia’s own Shirley MacLaine. And Kielbasa expanded his own presence locally, as he was appointed UVA’s second vice provost for the arts in 2013, which places him squarely in the university’s arts fundraising initiatives. Last year there was talk of a group of arts sector powerhouses forming to lobby the city in an official capacity to gain more funding for local arts initiatives—no surprise that Kielbasa was among those mentioned.
If you’ve made the trip down I-64 recently to check out an REI garage sale or pop in at the General Assembly, you may have noticed a familiar sign or two in the area. Restaurants and breweries that are native to Charlottesville continue to appear all around our eastward neighboring city—and while we love any excuse to remind the world of our uniqueness, it’s important to remember that sharing is caring, right?
Champion Brewing Company owner Hunter Smith is one of the most recent Charlottesville business owners to set his sights on Virginia’s capital, and the downtown Richmond location quietly opened in February. It’s hard to imagine our fair city without the beloved Shower Beer or Missile IPA, and for Smith it only made sense to introduce the brewery, the concept and the beers to a larger and, according to Smith, different market.
“In the Richmond beer scene we see a very savvy customer who’s always into the newest thing,” Smith says. “Charlottesville seems to really take favorites as far as beers they love, staple beers that they want to keep. There are staples in Richmond, but it’s all about what’s new and what’s next.”
Three Notch’d Brewing Company CEO and founder George Kastendike agrees.
“The beer culture there is extremely innovative, with some of the most educated consumers in the country on craft beer,” says Kastendike. “With the greater demographics of Richmond being larger than Charlottesville, it was challenging. In order to do it in an authentic way, we needed to put some real thought into the concept.”
Much like Champion’s Richmond location, the newest Three Notch’d at RVA Collab House will always have its classics like the Minute Man IPA on tap. But it’s a different neighborhood, a different city and a different market, and the team’s mission all along has been to make each taproom consistent in culture and experience while embracing the surrounding community.
“What they’re looking for is a cultural experience,” says Kastendike of both Charlottesville and Richmond beer consumers. “That’s one of inclusion, a place where there’s freedom to express yourself. People are looking for innovative beer styles, definitely beers they can’t get in some of the other locations, and I think if you err toward that characteristic of experimentation, it offers some depth to the taproom and individuality to it.”
And craft beer isn’t the only piece of Charlottesville to make its way to the River City. Should you find yourself hankering for a meal reminiscent of home while you’re in Richmond, keep an eye out for Citizen Burger Bar, Marco and Luca, Zzaam!, Continental Divide and Christian’s Pizza.