Tag: Coffee

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Culture Food & Drink Living

Slinging mud

The sleek new Mudhouse space on 10th Street is a departure from the more rustic approach the owners have taken with their other coffee cafés. Photo by Stephen Barling

Visitors to the new Mudhouse Coffee Roasters shop on 10th Street may find themselves unsure they’re in a Mudhouse location at all. The striking, sleek space is a departure from the more rustic approach proprietors John and Lynelle Lawrence have taken alongside their design team at Formwork Architecture for their previous cafés.

According to John Lawrence, the contemporary approach came about for two reasons. One, the previous Mudhouse locations went into buildings constructed in the 1890s, while the 10th street facility was newer. Two, java is going in some badass new directions.

“Coffee has been around for centuries,” Lawrence says. “But we work with specialty-grade coffee, and what folks are doing with it now is working a lot on the process of fermenting the cherries to amplify and bring out existing inherent flavors—amplify what’s there already. If we think of that as a more modern feel, well, we want to offer a more modern experience for our coffee drinkers.”

The 10th Street Mudhouse design also vibes well with the cutting-edge equipment installed at the location, Lawrence says.

Beyond the obvious modern flourishes, the new Mudhouse space’s design is highly intentional throughout. As patrons enter it, they’re greeted by bright colors intended to call to mind life on the coffee farm—the greens of the fields in wall hanging tapestries, the orange-yellow of the sun in bespoke hanging sculptures designed by local artist Lily Erb.

“John and Lynelle approach coffee and the people that grow that coffee on an individualistic, case-by-case basis,” says Cecilia Nichols of Formwork. “They have an intimate relationship with the beans and the people involved in getting the beans into that coffee. Our work in many ways mirrors that. We care a lot about the details and respond to the assets of each site we work on.”

As customers continue to advance through the new Mudhouse space, the design team introduces them to photographs and text, becoming more specific about the coffee-making process, before they get to the barista and place their order.

Above the main floor of the coffee shop is another unique spot: a rooftop sitting area bedecked by a large faux grass bed. “We were working with Cecilia—she was sketching out the seating and benches,” Lawrence says, “and we had this turf, and we all thought, ‘Let’s just make it a big bed.’ It’s fun.”

For Formwork’s Robert Nichols, the new space was a logical next step for Mudhouse, which grew from a humble coffee cart to its current portfolio of three cafés and a roastery. The location is closer to the University of Virginia than the other Mudhouses and lended itself not only to the modern design, but also to a segmenting of space that allows students and other groups room to spread out.

“[John and Lynelle are] constantly taking steps to keep their business vital and new and educating themselves and their customers,” Nichols says. “When we work with them, we have lengthy conversations, and they usually revolve around new thinking and reassessing just about everything.”
Find Mudhouse’s hours, menu, and more at mudhouse.com.

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Knife & Fork

Cup of mud, meet glass of grape: Local cafes offer coffee and wine side-by-side.

Bright and breezy, the dining room at Belle is perfect for enjoying a light meal and a beverage (caffeine or alcohol, your call). Photo: Stephen Barling

In a town obsessed with coffee and wine, it was only a matter of time before the two beloved beverages started shacking up. Cafes in Europe have long kept both on the menu, and now a host of local java joints and new establishments are following suit.

“I think most people love cafes, even if they don’t know it, and creating a comfortable space where you can get great coffee, great and quick bites to eat, and some wine when ready has been something I’ve wanted to do for a while,” says Andy McClure, who opened Belle Coffee & Wine last spring in the former La Taza space in Belmont. “Having a 2-year-old certainly helps with opening early, too!” (McClure owns The Virginian Restaurant Company, which is best known for Citizen Burger on the Downtown Mall.)

In uniting coffee and wine under one roof, Belle joins local stalwart C’ville Coffee & Wine; Crozet’s Rocket Coffee, which recently added a tasting room for offerings from nearby Lovingston Winery; Charlottesville’s Smallest Wine Shop, whose modest by-the-glass selection enhances the ever-eclectic offerings at Milli Coffee Roasters; and local chain Grit Coffee, which has served wine alongside its house-roasted coffee at its Stonefield location since 2017.

“We’ve been interested in the relationship between coffee and wine for a number of years,” says Grit co-owner Brandon Wooten. “Both coffee and wine can easily be enjoyed by novices but also can be explored in a way that brings other levels of enjoyment.” But Wooten says it’s been tough to add wine to an existing cafe: Once customers think of a place as a coffee shop, “it’s a challenge for them also to view that as a place to drink wine or beer.”

To rectify that, Wooten and partners Brad Uhl and Dan FitzHenry will be combining coffee and wine from the start at The Workshop—part of The Wool Factory, the food-and-drink conglomerate opening later this year in the Woolen Mills development. “The Workshop will primarily be a bottle shop focused on selling interesting small-batch wines,” Wooten says. Those offerings will include international vintages alongside passion projects from area winemakers. As for coffee, “this space will be different from a normal Grit Coffee location in that there will be a much bigger focus on coffee tasting and telling the story about the factors that go into delivering really great coffee,” Wooten says.

McClure also champions a more thoughtful approach to these often-gulped offerings. “I think the European style of coffee drinking is something we can all appreciate,” he says. “Less rushing and more a fundamental part of the eating or drinking part of the day.”

Since Belle opened in late April, McClure and his team have been busy tweaking the menu of locally roasted Trager Brothers coffee, wine by the glass and bottle, light breakfast and lunch items, and happy hour snacks. “I am still not done messing around with the offerings,” McClure says, “but I do see a finish line at this point.” It’s easy for McClure to stay hands-on; he lives two blocks away. “This was designed for Belmont specifically. I am hoping it’s a great fit for years to come.”

For Rocket Coffee’s Scott Link, adding wines was a practical proposition. He’s already brought in pastries, sandwiches, and barbecue to help draw a more varied audience to his converted gas station near downtown Crozet. “Things have been going well for the coffee shop in the mornings,” Link says, “but we were not hitting our daily traffic targets and needed to help stimulate traffic in the afternoons.”

Link had space free to rent and had already been considering adding beer and wine, and Lovingston Winery wanted to open a tasting room in the area. It’s too early to tell how the new offerings will work out, Link says, but “the place feels better, and initial response has been positive.”

Matching coffee, a stimulant, with alcohol, a depressant, might seem odd. But Belle’s McClure says there’s a good reason for this unusual combination. “Every drink should be delicious, but it also serves a purpose. We love wine, and when you love it too much at one time, that’s when it may be time for an espresso.”

Categories
Living

Milli Coffee Roasters founder dies at 34

Nick Leichtentritt was a much loved member of Charlottesville’s food scene. Photo: Martyn Kyle

Nick Leichtentritt, founder of Milli Coffee Roasters and Sicily Rose, died February 17 at the age of 34. Pursuing a passion for food and drink, Leichtentritt left a corporate job in 2012 to open the coffee shop, followed by his cannoli shop, Sicily Rose, in 2018. Both developed loyal followings, and Leichtentritt became a beloved part of the Charlottesville food community. “Nick spent time with so many of the great tastemakers in Charlottesville,” recalls Will Richey of Ten Course Hospitality. “He was one of them after all, and he was open to all types of perspectives and experiences in a way that many are not. So many of us will miss him terribly.”

Despite Leichtentritt’s passing, both Milli Coffee Roasters and Sicily Rose remain in operation. Leichtentritt is survived by his wife, Nicole Kistler Leichtentritt, and a 4-year-old-son, whom the community has rallied to support with a fund for his immediate and long-term needs. To contribute, see the GoFundMe page Jesse’s Bright Future. (As of 11am Friday, March 1, the campaign had raised $19,000 of its $30,000 goal.)

Reservation, please

The dining app Resy, recently launched in Charlottesville, is making it easier to book and manage reservations, area restaurateurs say. Once diners register, they can make and change reservations, receive text reminders, and provide profile information regarding allergies, favorite cocktails, special occasions, and more. “It’s an awesome new platform with great analytics for users on both sides,” says Zocalo owner Ivan Rekosh.

Hardywood lightens up

Anticipating the arrival of spring, Hardywood founders Eric McKay and Patrick Murtaugh are launching a spin-off brand called Suncrush, a fruit-infused sparkling brew. Crisp golden ale with a hint of green tea gets a dose of crushed fruit and natural flavors, like grapefruit, Southern peach, and black cherry. Low in alcohol, calories, and carbohydrates, the drinks target outdoor-sports enthusiasts. “I’m a ginger nut,” McKay says, “and am really looking forward to Ginger Lime Suncrush.”

Categories
Living

Take the cannoli: A New York state of mind leads to Sicily Rose

Sicily Rose, which opens at IX Art Park in September, will feature made-to-order cannoli and a full-scale Italian coffee bar. Photo by Tom McGovern

Milli Joe owner Nick Leichtentritt has always had a special place in his heart for simple Italian cannoli, and he’s planning to bring his favorite dessert to Charlottesville at Sicily Rose, an Italian coffee and cannoli bar opening in September in the Studio IX space.

“Sicily Rose is a project I’ve actually been working on and thinking about for a couple years now,” he says. “I grew up in an Italian family in New York, so cannoli were always a go-to dessert for us, and now every time I find a good one I’m reminded of my childhood. The shop is named in honor of my Sicilian grandmother, Rose, who shared her love of Italian bakeries with all of her grandkids, and whose kitchen in New York was home to some of my earliest and fondest memories. She was in large part responsible for my lifelong love of food and the desire to share it with friends and family.”

 

Sicily Rose will feature a full-scale Italian coffee bar as well as American coffee favorites from Milli Joe. The made-to-order cannoli bar will stick to the traditional favorites.

“We’re not going to do a bunch of crazy flavors,” Leichtentritt says. “Instead we will have one style of fresh-made cannoli shells and a simple, authentic cannoli cream, which we will make in-house and fill to order. The cannoli will be topped with a choice of chocolate, pistachio, almond, or candied orange.”

Leichtentritt says he’ll also carry some unique Italian treats as well as local chocolates, local beer, and Italian wine.

Waffling around

There’s a new waffle kid in town: Good Waffles & Co. food truck has been making inroads over the past several months. The brainchild of newlyweds Steven and Danielle Stitz, Good Waffles combines their passions—he’s been cooking in the Charlottesville area for more than a decade, including a stint at the Clifton Inn, and she’s a graphic designer by training.

“We merged our love of both to start a business that we could do together,” Danielle says. “We love Charlottesville and being a part of this wonderful community. Owning our food trucks has allowed us the chance to meet so many great people here, and we hope to be around for a long time, serving up our waffles.”

The style they serve is the bubble waffle—the circular waffles are pocketed with bubbles to better hold accompanying sauces and ice cream, and they come in sweet and savory forms.

“A bubble waffle is basically a Hong Kong Egg Waffle,” Danielle says. “But we’ve adapted it with our recipe to fit our menu. It has beautiful round bubbles all over it. You can fork it, slice it, or my favorite: pull it apart with your hands.”

Steven recommends the classic chicken and waffles, with a mix of housemade Georgia mustard and North Carolina sauces with a homemade pickle. Danielle favors the lemon berry: a bubble waffle with vanilla ice cream, Meyer lemon curd and plenty of blueberries.

“We make what we love, and we love waffles with soul,” she says. “Add some fried chicken or some ice cream atop—you can’t go wrong. You could say that we picked the food, but really the bubble waffles picked us!”

Oakhart Social keeps growing

Oakhart Social has launched a private dining room above Public Fish & Oyster (in the former home of Opal Yoga, which has moved). The space seats up to 52 people, and boasts polished hardwoods and exposed brick, with wood paneling flanking a fully stocked bar.

Benjamin Clore, co-owner of Oakhart Social, says the private space that opened in April was used for overflow seating for graduation, and is now available for those seeking to host private functions.

Clore says the master plan involves a rooftop restaurant above Oakhart Social, in which the back half of the rooftop will be a building with an open kitchen and bar design similar in concept to that of Mas Tapas, with the kitchen on one side, and bar seating on the other. The front half will be open-air patio seating. Clore said all city approvals have been met but the project is on hold while they finalize the opening of their next venture, Little Star (across the street in the old Threepenny Café site).

“Little Star will feature American food with Spanish and Latin influences, and small plates like at Oakhart, largely wood-fired,” Clore says, adding it should open in October or November.

Get ’em while they’re hot

Wegmans will host its Hatch Chile Festival August 24-26. The festival, held over the next several weeks at select Wegmans locations throughout the country, has become a popular annual event, and originated as a way for the grocery store to promote a unique seasonal item, says the store’s media relations manager, Valerie Fox.

Fox says they’ll have a chile roaster set up near the entrance, and various departments at the grocery store will offer products that creatively incorporate Hatch chilies into their selections.

The chilies, grown in Hatch, New Mexico, the chile capital of the world, are a popular ingredient in Southwestern cooking, Fox says. Harvested four weeks each year, the chiles have a thicker wall than more common ones like the Anaheim, thus holding up nicely in recipes and freezing for year-round use.

Categories
Living

The Pie Chest and Lone Light Coffee open second location

The Pie Chest’s Rachel Pennington says her second retail location, at 1518 E. High St., will offer hand pies, pies by the slice, biscuits and honey chocolate chip cookies. Photo by Eze Amos.

On March 14, 2015, eager pie eaters lined up along Fourth Street NE on The Pie Chest’s opening day. They were ready to satisfy the cravings triggered by Pi Day, an annual celebration of the mathematical constant pi (you know, 3.14159265359), which the new bake shop opted to embrace.

When the door swung open at 9:26am, customers flooded in and gobbled up every s’mores tart and sweet and savory pie in the glass pastry case that two bakers had worked more than 150 hours combined to fill.

By 1pm, they had devoured every last crumb of pie.

After flipping the “open” sign to “closed,” head baker and co-owner Rachel Pennington and her partner, Tina Morrison, sat down inside the shop. Morrison looked at Pennington with glassy eyes and asked, “What have we done?”

A little more than three years later, Pennington echoes that sentiment as she looks around The Pie Chest’s second retail location, which opened last week at 1518 E. High St. It’s an added feature to The Pie Chest’s new baking facility in the same building, which Pennington says is “at least six times” the size of the bakery’s previous kitchen on Dale Avenue.

It was a necessary expansion. In addition to making by hand tens of thousands of pies each year for The Pie Chest, Pennington and her team make desserts and other baked goods for The Whiskey Jar, El Bebedero, Revolutionary Soup, Commonwealth Restaurant & Skybar and Brasserie Saison—all part of restaurateur Will Richey’s Ten Course Hospitality group. Richey co-owned The Pie Chest with Pennington until August 2017, when Pennington became sole owner.

The second location will offer hand pies and Pie Chest favorites by the slice, plus biscuits hot out of the oven, honey chocolate chip cookies (the first thing Pennington ever baked, with her Memaw) and special non-pie items that’ll spotlight the small baking team’s talents. Lone Light Coffee will share the space, offering its full range of coffees and teas at the front counter, and roasting its own coffee  approved by the SCAA certified brewers in the back room. Nothing will change at The Pie Chest on Fourth Street.

Pennington, a self-taught baker who years ago applied for a baking gig at The Whiskey Jar on a whim, says this growing operation isn’t at all what she and Morrison pictured when The Pie Chest was still just an idea.

They imagined a low-key endeavor, Pennington baking as Morrison worked the storefront, pouring coffee from a carafe and chatting with regulars over slices of pie. They’d both be home by 5pm.

What they couldn’t anticipate is how the community would shape what The Pie Chest has become. Within a year, the bakery had a regular clientele, those who take a slice to go, and those who order their pie to eat in the shop, a side dish to an hours-long perusal of Time magazine. They hired more staff to keep up with the demand in the kitchen and at the counter.

The Pie Chest sticks to its three original foundations—everything is fresh, everything is seasonal, everything is made from scratch—but Pennington says she’s learned to be flexible on the menu, interspersing what she thinks is good (blueberry nectarine and honey spiced pear) with what customers want (triple citrus, chocolate cream).

The Pie Chest’s Fourth Street location is just one block from both Emancipation and Justice parks, where the white supremacist Unite the Right and Ku Klux Klan rallies, respectively, took place last summer. Those who were tear-gassed by police after the July 8 KKK rally came into the shop asking for water and to use the bathroom—Pennington remembers the tear gas they washed from their skin and faces stained the bathroom sinks—and on August 12, The Pie Chest opened as a safe space, not so much “as a statement against what was happening, [but] a statement about who we are every day,” Pennington says, a humble place offering up some comfort.

Wes Knopp, who owns and operates Lone Light Coffee, which has subleased space from The Pie Chest since 2016, echoes Pennington’s sentiments. “The shop has become for myself and many others a gathering place for conversation, comfort and many new friendships. So much of who we are is the community around us,” Knopp says.

Before becoming a baker, Pennington studied divinity. On her calf, she has a tattoo of a dandelion and its departing seeds, a metaphor for life presented in the Old Testament book Ecclesiastes. “You’re uprooted, you’re going along, everything’s fine, and then the wind blows…you land where you land, figure out what your surroundings are, and you learn to be planted there,” Pennington explains. Amidst it all, “the three things that ground you are good food and wine, partnership with another human and work—that’s where the phrase ‘eat, drink and be merry’ comes from.” The Pie Chest offers all of that. It’s how she’s made sense of this whole baking thing and her shop’s place in the community.

Now, in addition to asking, “How?” Pennington says, “Of course.”