Tag: Dairy Market

Categories
Knife & Fork Magazines

Hometown hero: Angelic Jenkins breaks new ground on the local food scene

Soul food chef Angelic Jenkins checks on construction progress at the future Dairy Market food hall, where she and her husband, Charles, were the first tenants to sign a lease. Photo: Amy and Jackson Smith

Angelic Jenkins felt worried as she walked into the community meeting. A big development, Dairy Central, was getting started on Preston Avenue, and talk among folks in the adjoining, predominantly African-American neighborhood of 10th and Page had not been good. Charlottesville has a woeful history of displacing black residents, and this new place, they feared, would be just another chapter in that book.

“When the story first came out, there was a lot of backlash, especially on social media,” says Jenkins, 51, co-founder and -owner with her husband, Charles, of Angelic’s Kitchen and Catering. “A lot of my close friends who live there in the neighborhood were very negative. They said, ‘They’re going to come in here and take over the neighborhood, where there’s already nothing for us.’”

With a scheduled opening in early 2020, Dairy Market is poised to join the food hall trend, while also adding to Charlottesville’s growing reputation as a food and drink destination. Photo: Courtesy of Dairy Market

A lifelong Charlottesville resident, Jenkins felt differently, but she was afraid to express her opinion publicly. After years of operating her soul food business out of a truck, she was the first entrepreneur to sign a lease for the initial phase of the project, the Dairy Market food hall, an ambitious concept—and part of the larger Dairy Central development—led by Charlottesville’s Stony Point Design/Build. The Dairy Market is scheduled to open in the spring of 2020, with Starr Hill Brewery as an anchor tenant, according to the developer.

The Jenkins got in on the ground floor—609 square feet of it, to be precise—after hearing from Stony Point president Chris Henry, back in 2018. At the community meeting, Henry said that Dairy Central would be open to all, with a public space offering food from 18 vendors and live entertainment.

“Everyone is welcome—he made that very clear,” Jenkins says. “When I walked into that meeting and saw a lot of individuals who live in that neighborhood, it calmed my soul. When people saw me walk in, an African American woman who had the opportunity to open a restaurant there, I think it calmed their soul also.”

Jenkins has worked for 19 years as the head of HR for the DoubleTree by Hilton, but five years ago she and her husband bought a food truck and launched Angelic’s Kitchen. Her specialty is fried fish, a Southern staple she fell in love with as a child attending festivals with her mother.

“I was intrigued by all the tents and people selling food outdoors,” she says. “When I did my first festival, I got a head rush from it.”

She served some of the food left over from the event at a family gathering. “And they said, ‘Why don’t you sell some of these dinners?’ I did that for a couple of days and realized, oh my gosh, there’s a lot of money to be made. Then I decided, okay, I’m going to do this the legal way,” she says with a laugh.

She entered a program for entrepreneurs at the Community Investment Collaborative, received her catering license, and went on to rent a nearby commercial kitchen, Bread and Roses. At CIC she also found a manufacturer for her fish breading. She had it bagged so she could coat and cook fillets on the spot at festivals.

Those took place in the summer, but Jenkins wanted to extend her selling season, so in October 2018 she and Charles bought a food truck to make the rounds at local wineries and fall events. “Someone approached me at a festival and told me about some kind of building that would be opening on Preston Avenue in 2020,” Angelic says. “She gave me her card, but I thought nothing of it. But I saw the woman again, and she said, ‘We’re having a meeting about that project I mentioned.’”

She was heartened to see Chris Henry at the first meeting she attended. “He said, ‘Everyone in the neighborhood is welcome.’ That made me feel good. They want the local people involved.”

The Jenkins received a call from Henry’s office soon after the community meeting, and after hearing the details of the planned food hall, they signed a five-year lease.

Today, they’re awaiting approval of their architectural plans for their space in the Dairy Market, and Charles is speaking with retailers about selling Angelic’s Kitchen fish breading.

“The business is growing,” she says. “We’re just really excited about the opportunity to have our own place, so people have access to us every day, versus trying to catch us at the food truck.”

Jenkins’ fried fish will be the central menu item at the Dairy Market space, but other soul food—mac ‘n’ cheese, collard greens, barbecue chicken quarters, and more—will be offered.

What I like most about [the Dairy Market] is that they’re focused on local entrepreneurs,” she says. “I never expected to have a restaurant. It’s a chance I can’t resist.”

Categories
C-BIZ

Destination gourmand: The food hall revolution arrives in C’ville

Dairy Market is poised to join the food hall trend when it opens in early 2020, while adding to C'ville's growing reputation as a food and drink destination. / Photo: Courtesy of Dairy Market
As part of his Dairy Market research, Chris Henry, president of Stony Point Design/Build, traveled across the country and around the world to research food halls. Photo: Eze Amos

From long-standing icons like Union Market in Washington, D.C. and Chelsea Market in New York City to relative newcomers like Workshop Charleston, food halls are a mainstay in urban districts across the nation. And Charlottes­ville will be getting one of its own in spring 2020 with the Dairy Market on Grady and Preston avenues, part of Stony Point Design/Build’s $80 million mixed-use, multi-phase revitalization project of the historic Monticello Dairy complex.

The first phase of the overall project is the adaptive reuse and reimagining of the 1930s-era Monticello Dairy building into a “shopping and dining destination”–specifically, an open market hall with restaurant and retail space.

To inform Dairy Market’s vision, Chris Henry, Stony Point Design/Build president, took on the enviable task of researching more than 75 food halls and markets around the world, from Napa Valley’s Oxbow Public Market and Atlanta’s Krog Street Market to Torvehallerne market in Copenhagen and Mercado Central de Santiago in Chile. “I’ve been on a food hall bender,” he says.

Dairy Market will include 18 market stalls—to be filled mostly by artisanal food vendors—two larger retail stores, a 166-seat, 7,245-square-foot common area, and two “endcap” anchors—a new pilot brewery and tap room from Starr Hill and a to-be-announced restaurant. Angelic’s Kitchen, which specializes in soul food and traditional Southern flavors (garlic shrimp, country ham rolls, fried fish, for example) was the first food vendor to sign up for a market stall.

So…why a food and market hall for Charlottesville? The idea originated with John Pritzlaff, senior vice president at Cushman & Wakefield/Thalhimer, who is working with Stony Point Design/Build on the project.

Not long after the idea was discussed, Henry found himself in New York for a conference, “and [we] went to Chelsea Market, Gotham West Market, and a couple of other ones that are up there, and I was just like, ‘Yeah, this concept will work.’ And Charlottesville needs one,” he says.

Visiting Oxbow in Napa Valley cinched it for Henry because of what he considers the similarities between Charlottesville and Napa–population size, proximity to major metro areas, a thriving farm-to-table food scene, and mutual statuses as wine and wedding destinations.

“I think we even have an advantage over Napa and that’s UVA–we have the college town as well,” he adds.

Rotating vendor concepts and shorter- than-average market stall leases will be part and parcel of Dairy Market. “We want new things happening in the market all the time [to give] reasons for people to come back and shop or dine,” says Henry. “And that will happen organically because the leases are structured over a shorter time period [of] three to five years instead of a traditional 10- to 20-year retail lease.”

Ongoing programming in the complex’s event room, patio area, and private street network–think block parties and farmers market days–will encourage repeat visits and maintain excitement levels. “I was meeting with the Tom Tom guys yesterday, and walking them through the site, talking about how we can do Tom Tom programming here next year,” Henry says.

Meanwhile, another food-and-beverage destination just two miles away is in the works at the long-dormant Woolen Mills site, a 12,000-square-foot project dubbed The Wool Factory. It will feature event space, a craft microbrewery, a restaurant, and a coffee and wine shop. (Tech company WillowTree will also relocate to an 85,000-square-foot office space on-site.)

Brandon Wooten, one of The Wool Factory’s partners, says the project–also slated to open by early 2020–will complement the existing community of restaurants, breweries, wineries, and event spaces in the area.

“We’ve looked at successful food hall concepts in larger cities and wanted to offer a similar experience but tailored more to our community. Our aim is to provide the optionality and experience that comes with a food-and-beverage hall, appropriately sized for the traffic we expect,” Wooten says.

Even still, Wooten says he hopes The Wool Factory will become “a destination–and representation of Charlottesville–for people across the commonwealth and beyond.”

While C’ville will soon be spoiled by choices with even more food and drink hot spots, Henry says he believes there is room for everyone. “It’s enhancing and building on a lot of the great things that already happen in Charlottesville… I mean, you can’t beat the Downtown Mall. This is just enhancing that and creating another destination, a second option for people,” he says.

Categories
Living Uncategorized

Eat, drink, repeat: A new chapter for Starr Hill, and other tasty news

Starr Hill Brewery plans to return to its Charlottesville roots next year, anchoring the multi-vendor food hall at Dairy Market, now being built on Preston Avenue. Rendering: Stony Point Design/Build

We thought summer was a time to relax. Not afraid to admit it—we were wrong. Restaurant openings, the arrival of a hot new chef, a unique Parisian-style wine-and-food event, and the return of a familiar player on the Charlottesville scene show that there’s no time like the present to charge ahead. Never mind the heat. A little sweat is good for the heart and soul. And the appetite, too,

A Starr is reborn

Starr Hill Brewery will celebrate a homecoming of sorts when it opens in 2020 at Dairy Market, now under construction on Preston Avenue. Although the brewery’s flagship is in Crozet, Starr Hill first operated as a music venue on West Main in Charlottesville, and featured acts like My Morning Jacket and the Avett Brothers from 1999 to 2007. Starr Hill’s departure from the city coincided with its incarnation in Crozet—in the former Conagra frozen food plant—where the emphasis shifted to beer, but music also remained on the menu. At the Dairy location, says Duke Hill, Starr Hill’s VP of sales, the music “will be local singer/songwriter focused” and “complement the overall feel of the room.”

It’ll be nice to have Starr Hill back in town—occupying 4,200 square feet inside and a 1,000-square-foot patio, no less. A five-barrel brewing system will allow the brewer to experiment with small-batch beers, as it joins 14 other Virginia food-and-drink purveyors, and artisans, following the food hall model found in other cities.

Before moving to Crozet, Starr Hill operated as a music venue on West Main Street from 1999 to 2007. Photo: Courtesy Starr Hill

Wining and dining

Will and Priscilla Martin Curley promised ambitious offerings when they became owners of the Charlottesville Wine Guild earlier this year, and they are about to deliver. Their debut event, Bar Naturel, is a pop-up wine bar with a Parisian-style menu by chef John Shanesy of Commonwealth Restaurant & Skybar, and baked goods by the chef’s brother, Scott Shanesy, of She Wolf Bakery in New York City. Will Curley will serve wine by the glass and bottle from a list hewing to the “naturel” theme: wines made with native yeasts and grapes that are organic, biodynamic, and sustainably grown, including a super-trendy orange wine too. The menu, with small to large plates priced at about $8-20, will feature French cheeses, housemade charcuterie like boudin noir and paté champignon, oysters on the half shell, sardines with goose fat and apricots, and the traditional delicacy lièvre à la royale, made with wild hare, foie gras, and polenta. Intrigued? You can satisfy your curiosity from 6-11pm, July 12, 19, and 26, at Citizen Bowl, 223 W. Main St., on the Downtown Mall. 202-4223, wine guildcville.com

Special sauce

A top food destination in Staunton is The Shack, domain of Ian Boden, twice a semifinalist in the James Beard Best Chef Mid-Atlantic category. Boden’s inventive use of Southern ingredients shines in dishes like grilled pork loin with fermented sweet potato grits, guinea hen with Carolina gold rice and butter beans—and also in The Shack’s sorghum yellow mustard barbecue sauce. Bloomberg Businessweek magazine recently chose the sweet-but-zippy stuff as one of the nation’s five best BBQ sauces in a taste test by 30 editors, declaring, “It’s equally at home on duck breast or baby back ribs.” Pick some up at The Shack (and use the 80-mile round-trip drive as an excuse to stay for dinner), or order online at theshackva.com/shop.

Open-and-shut cases

The Shops at Stonefield’s Midici: The Neapolitan Pizza Company has disappeared from the websites of both the restaurant chain and the shopping center, and no one is answering calls at the upscale joint. Evidently, the Charlottesville shop has gone dark, and we hear it will be replaced by an outpost of Matchbox, the Washington, D.C.-based wood-fired pizza conglomerate. Meanwhile, in the Pantops Shopping Center, Mi Casita has opened, offering “Latin American breakfast, burritos, tacos, pupusas, and much more,” according to its website. A fan of the new restaurant called C-VILLE Weekly to rave about Mi Casita’s food, which is centered on the cuisines of El Salvador and Honduras (hence, the pupusas). Finally, Madison’s Early Mountain Vineyards welcomes a new executive chef, Tim Moore. A sous chef for the past seven years at the renowned Inn at Little Washington, Moore steps into the kitchen at Early Mountain on the heels of Ryan Collins, now of Little Star on West Main Street.