While some business welcome the new office building under construction, others have raised concerns about parking, the less-historic design, and the costs of a two-year construction plan. Submitted rendering
The Center of Developing Entrepreneurs, now under construction on the west end of the Downtown Mall, will provide office space for more than 600 workers. But it will include only 74 parking spaces.
That drew the ire of a couple members of the Downtown Business Association of Charlottesville, who grilled builders about a potential parking shortage at their January 31 meeting in Old Metropolitan Hall.
At the meeting, representatives from CSH Development and the Wolf Ackerman architecture firm unveiled detailed plans for CODE, the latest project from hedge fund CEO Jaffray Woodriff, which will take the place of the now-demolished Main Street Arena and Escafé, and rent space to a variety of start-ups and other businesses.
“The goal of the building is to provide a healthy work environment for individuals, fledgling businesses, and established companies,” CSH president Andrew Boninti told the crowded room. “It’s designed for the collision of people, which allows for networking.”
For the most part, the crowd was receptive, sipping rosé and eagerly asking questions about new business opportunities. But midway through the meeting, Jacie Dunkle and another business owner pressed the builders on how they plan to accommodate the parking needs of hundreds of new tenants.
“Many businesses coming to this space are already downtown and already have parking,” Boninti replied. “The parking we have now is being underused.”
Later, Dunkle, owner of Tin Whistle Irish Pub and The Salad Maker, elaborated on her concerns over the phone. “There will be 670 new people looking to park,” she says, “but they’re only adding 74 spaces underground and offering some spots in the Staples parking lot.”
“I don’t blame Woodriff,” she adds. “I blame the city. It never required him to have more spaces, even though people are struggling to find parking in the city as it is.”
Boninti says parking is a concern for anything downtown. “We have secured two offsite areas four to five minutes away, which should add 50 to 75 spaces,” he says, though he declined to specify the locations.
And while the 167,000-square foot space will hold a maximum of 700 people, Boninti predicts no more than 400 will occupy it at once.
The building will have bicycle racks and showers, which could encourage employees to run or bike to work. Other Silicon Valley-inspired elements include rooftop courtyards, open staircases, and a publicly accessible ground floor with retail and food for employees working long hours.
All told, CODE could usher in a new era for downtown businesses.
“There’s been a sea shift in the historic Downtown Mall,” said Roy van Doorn, treasurer of DBAC, at the January meeting. “We’re ending the historic side of the mall and going toward the experiential side, with music, restaurants, shopping, and working.”
Like Woodriff’s record-breaking $120 million donation to the University of Virginia to build a school for data science, that statement has polarized local residents. In addition to parking concerns, Dunkle resents the shift towards “high-tech” architecture. “The ‘historic’ Downtown Mall is losing its value as being a historic venue,” she says.
Others are cautiously optimistic. “It’s always welcome to have more spaces for people who will bring business,” says José Giron, owner of Consignment House Unlimited. But he’s worried he’ll lose customers who frequented Escafé and the ice skating rink, as well as some foot traffic during the years-long building phase.
Escafé’s Water Street location has been a popular nightlife spot for everyone from the LGBTQ community to bachelorette parties. Photo by Melody Robbins
On the evening of Friday, February 5, artist Bob Anderson stands in the middle of Escafé, identifying the many people in the Escafé Opera murals that his wife, Dominique, painted for the restaurant in 1997 and added to in 2015.
There’s the Andersons’ daughter, Adriana, a former server at the restaurant, and the Andersons’ two sons. Also included are artist and socialite Beatrix Ost, pianist Bob Bennetta, photographer Brian Schornberg, the forearm of Doug Smith, or maybe Sean Concannon, the restaurant owners who’d commissioned the paintings but were hesitant to be represented themselves. Playing the lute in one scene is a man named Ned, whose granddaughter had come into the restaurant a few years after his death wanting to see her grandfather immortalized in paint.
Warm, dim light bounces off the restaurant’s orange walls, and Bob turns around and gestures to a man behind him. “Do you recognize him?” he asks, pointing to Stuart “Stu” Zellmer, who’s sitting near the back of the restaurant, sipping a drink with friends. Zellmer is in the mural panel over the kitchen, painted next to his partner of 36 years, Gary Sibbald, who died from emphysema a few years ago, Anderson explains.
People push tables together to talk closely about their memories of Escafé and its predecessor, Eastern Standard. Spirits are high, but there’s a trace of melancholy in the air. Escafé, a longtime hub of Charlottesville’s LGBTQ community and a popular nightlife spot, will close its doors after service on Saturday, February 17.
The building, along with the Main Street Arena that houses the ice rink and The Ante Room music venue, will be demolished later this year; an office building/tech incubator from Taliaferro Junction will be built in its place.
The Eastern Standard/Escafé story begins on the Downtown Mall, at 227 W. Main St., where The Whiskey Jar is today. Concannon and Smith took over Eastern Standard in June 1992, and after renovations, reopened it in December 1992. The restaurant had the reputation of switching from bistro to gay bar at 10pm, Concannon says, and it suited his and Smith’s vision for the place—they wanted to welcome all people.
Talking by phone from Maine, Concannon says that although they opened Eastern Standard to everyone, not everyone was open to Eastern Standard. Getting a liquor license for what had become known as a gay bar was a challenge in the 1990s, particularly because then-governor George Allen was a vocal opponent of gay rights (a Washington Post article from 2015 says that Allen’s views have since evolved).
Eastern Standard was all about “the philosophy of the people involved. It wasn’t a scene thing, it was just how we felt; we parlayed ourselves into good service and other people embraced it,” Concannon says.
Zellmer, who moved to Charlottesville from Rochester, New York, in the mid-1980s, says he and Sibbald went to dinner often at the gay-friendly Eastern Standard, where they met other regulars who quickly became friends. Remembering those Friday nights brings a smile to Zellmer’s face. “It was something we looked forward to every week,” he says.
It seems to Zellmer that the necessity for a gay bar in Charlottesville has faded over time, as prejudice against LGBTQ folks “has lessened.” But it’s still an important spot for people in that community, he says.
Sonja Weber Gilkey, an artist and white tantric kundalini yoga counselor who met Zellmer and Sibbald at the restaurant “at least 15 years ago,” says Escafé has long been a place where a “very bohemian” crowd gathered to discuss everything from politics to moonstones to tarot cards. “I’ve loved it. And I’m really sad that it’s over. On Friday, you could really look forward to being there,” she says.
Concannon and Smith left Charlottesville for Portland, Oregon (where they owned a spot called West Café for 11 years), in 2005 and sold the Eastern Standard space to Mark Brown and Todd Howard. Howard took over as sole owner of Escafé (i.e., Eastern Standard Café) in October 2008, intending to keep the inclusive environment, but on a slightly different tangent.
One of Howard’s more controversial choices was to open the place to the under-21 crowd, with the intention to “mother hen” them and ensure they had a safe place to discover themselves, Howard says. Escafé moved from the Downtown Mall to 215 Water St. in January 2012, and the demographic has changed a bit over time. Visit on a weekend and you’d be hard-pressed not to find a bachelorette party or a group of sorority girls on the dance floor.
Howard is particularly proud of how the place has served not just the LGBTQ community, but the Charlottesville nonprofit community and, most recently, the clergy, who used Escafé as a safe space during the Unite the Right white supremacist rally on August 12.
“It’s not just a rainbow flag in front,” says Charles Casavant, a longtime patron and investor who first visited Escafé in the 1990s after reading about it in the Damron (a gay- and lesbian-friendly travel resource) when he moved to town. He once asked Howard: “Are you running a business or a mission?” Howard replied, “both.”
Howard invited songwriter Brady Earnhart to host Uncovered, a monthly songwriters showcase and open mic, at Escafé starting in 2015. Earnhart says that Howard “has always looked for ways to bring top-notch Charlottesville music and audiences together,” and when the series relocates to Tin Whistle Irish Pub come April, it won’t be the same.
“The obvious thing Escafé added to Charlottesville was an openly gay bar, though that liberality spread to include a range of people who felt more at home there than anywhere else,” Earnhart says. “It was striking to sit on the patio on a Friday night and hear one group of people speaking Arabic, another Spanish, another talking about what it was like to come out of the closet, another about politics, another just about who’s wearing what…it was a broadly and effortlessly diverse crowd.
“I can’t imagine downtown without Escafé,” he says. “Unfortunately, I won’t have to for long.”
Nobody in the room on this Friday night can give a single favorite memory of Escafé; ask them for one, and three or four stories tumble out.
Schornberg, the young photographer in the Escafé Opera 2015 mural, has many fond memories, from visiting the bar with four of his five sisters (the youngest isn’t yet 21 and will miss out on what’s become a Schornberg sibling 21st birthday tradition) to buying rounds of drinks for friends, having “some of the strangest nights of [his] life” and running, along with his fiancée, from their Belmont home to Escafé on New Year’s Eve because it’s where Schornberg “has always been” at the stroke of midnight on a new year.
“This place is so much more than a bar,” says Schornberg. “It’s friendship. I’m just one of hundreds of people” that Escafé has been a home for, he says.
Casavant agrees. “Home is the best word [for the place],” he says, his voice catching before he adds, “I will miss it a great deal.”
Todd Howard, who has owned Escafé since 2008, is proud that the bar/restaurant has served as a safe space for a variety of people, including the LGBTQ community, the under-21 crowd and the clergy during the Unite the Right rally. Photo by Eze Amos
Howard says when he first heard of the impending demolition, he hoped to move Escafé to a new location, root it, then pass it on to someone who could nurture it for another 10 years. But he couldn’t find the right spot; he believes it’s “the universe’s way of telling me to move on.”
As the evening winds down, Casavant, sitting at a two-top table, twists the stem of his martini glass between his thumb and forefinger. “There’s something about a bar that’s awfully close to an altar,” he says. “It may be blessed or not, but it still has that feeling of, ‘I met you here, and I appreciate that. You blessed my life because you were here, if only for a moment.’”
On the last day of May, Blue Moon Diner will close until early 2018. While a four-story mixed-use apartment complex is under construction behind and adjacent to Blue Moon this summer, the diner will undergo a few renovations itself. Rendering courtesy of Neighborhood Development Services
On a recent Sunday morning, a crowd of Blue Moon Diner patrons could be seen hovering outside the side door of the self-proclaimed “best little breakfast, sandwich, burger, dinner, live music, arm wrestling, vinyl record-playing, family-friendly neighborhood bar and activist spot” with menus in hand. Lovers of the eatery, a Charlottesville institution, are shoveling in their last bites before it closes—briefly.
Owner Laura Galgano says the diner will shut down for some renovations, or “more of a reboot,” at the end of May. And because the 31st is a Wednesday, she said her crew thought it would be fitting “to go out with Jim Waive to serenade us into a break.”
Blue Moon, built in 1951 at 512 W. Main St. and originally operated as the Waffle Shop, is an addition on the facade of a two-story duplex called the Hartnagle-Witt House, which was built in 1884. A six-story mixed-use apartment complex called 600 West Main, proposed by developer Jeff Levien and designed by architect Jeff Dreyfus is set for construction at that address, which includes Blue Moon, this summer.
Galgano says the diner will get a few “very unsexy updates,” to the HVAC and electrical systems and the bathrooms, and “just enough renovation to set Blue Moon up to grow with Charlottesville’s ever-expanding restaurant scene.”
The diner’s hiatus will last until early 2018. For the staff of about 15 people (including Galgano) that will find other work around town and the customers, she says “change is hard,” but she’s focusing on the positives—that this isn’t a goodbye.
“We’re just going to go out into the world for a bit to get some new stories to share,” she says.
“We will be back, and still very much Blue Moony,” Galgano adds.
Bye bye, buildings
Blue Moon isn’t the only downtown historic building facing changes. The Board of Architectural Review voted April 18 to allow for the demolition of the Escafé and Main Street Arena structures, but not without some hesitation.
“About the only thing the [Main Street Arena] building has going for itself is that it’s still structurally sound,” says BAR member Carl Schwarz. “The Escafé building is much older.”
The Escafé building was built in the 1920s, when it served as a warehouse for a department store on Main Street. He says it’s a small remnant of when Water Street had similar industrial and warehouse buildings, and every time one is demolished, the collection that remains becomes less significant.
“Additionally, while overall pretty simple in form, the building does have some interesting features with a stepped parapet and brick pilasters in the front,” he adds.
Though the BAR voted unanimously to allow demolition of the arena, the same vote for Escafé passed 5-2. Schwarz was part of the majority.
“My reasoning was that while old, the building is not significant enough to enforce preservation,” he says. “Even without it, Water Street will still maintain its defining warehouse character due to better examples along the street. To be clear, though, this was not an easy vote.”
Escafé owner Todd Howard says “there’s still a great deal of uncertainty” surrounding the future of his restaurant, but he hopes to open it in another location.
Corrected April 26 at 11:22am to reflect the correct number of floors at 600 West Main.
UVA men’s hockey president Raffi Keuroglian says he was surprised by how many people were interested in club-level hockey in Charlottesville. The team practices Monday nights at Main Street Arena and will host playoffs there this month. Photo by Ron Paris
he Main Street Arena first opened as an ice rink in 1996. During its 20-year history it has hosted hockey, curling, conventions, roller derby, concerts and parties. It was also sometimes the subject of controversy because it often struggled to make a profit while sitting on some of Charlottesville’s most valuable real estate. Now, it is slated for demolition, and some members of Charlottesville’s quirkiest and most dedicated subcultures are worried.
In July 2010, local real estate investor Mark Brown purchased the building (then called The Charlottesville Ice Park) for $3 million. The business had been losing about $70,000 a year for the previous owners, Bruce Williamson and Roberta Williamson, and for several months there seemed to be a strong chance that Charlottesville’s ice sports would end entirely—including the UVA men’s hockey club. Brown immediately began exploring options for cutting costs and adding revenue.
One of the first things he did was add a bar by the entrance, which seems like a no-brainer today, but in ice rinks of this size bars are unusual. The upstairs event space, which had been briefly used for retail as the home of the Eloise clothing store, was converted into a night club and restaurant now known as The Ante Room. Brown also invested in special flooring that could be laid over the ice, so the rink could be used for conventions, large parties and even roller derby.
The rink became profitable, but Brown decided it was time to sell the building and listed it for $6.5 million in September. Jaffray Woodriff, a 1991 UVA alumnus who is the founder and CEO of Quantitative Investment Management, which manages a $3 billion hedge fund, made a $7 million offer on the arena in December. A press release issued December 29 from Payne, Ross and Associates said the land and building at 230 W. Main St. (the arena address) and the land and building at 215 W. Water St., the location of Escafé, were under contract by Taliaferro Junction LLC. A spokesperson confirmed plans to demolish the arena and erect an office building, rumored to become a tech incubator space.
Through his PR firm, Payne, Ross and Associates, Woodriff declined to be interviewed. But owner Susan Payne says, “The contract is being negotiated and there are some open issues.”
It is not clear whether Woodriff will allow the Main Street Arena, Escafé or The Ante Room to operate during any period while he is waiting for architectural plans to be completed and permits to be finalized.
Gathering place
Katie McCartney sat with a beer at the rink’s bar on a recent Monday night. Behind her, dozens of warmly dressed people walked—not skated—across the ice. McCartney is the president of the Blue Ridge Curling Club, and Monday nights are theirs at the rink.
Charlottesville seems like a strange place for a curling league. The sport, which involves pushing heavy granite stones across the ice, was invented in medieval Scotland and has grown in popularity around the world in places with cold winters and thick ice, especially Canada. But a curling community has grown here out of a mixture of Northern transplants and curious locals who watched Olympic curling on television and wanted to give it a try.
“I was looking for something to do on a Monday night,” McCartney says. “I came out of curiosity and got hooked and I’ve been playing the sport now for going on seven years.”
The Blue Ridge Curling Club currently has about 120 players who compete against other East Coast teams. Photo by Ron Paris
The club has about 120 players and competes against other organizations along the East Coast. As the players’ trips to the rink’s bar suggest, the club is as much about having fun as it is about competition.
“We have a very diverse skill level,” McCartney says, “which led us to host this social league where people can come out and have a beer and curl but also work on their game and get some coaching, and we’re able to do all those different things.”
It is hard to imagine how a curling club can exist without an ice rink, but McCartney is hopeful. In fact, everyone interviewed for this article expressed hope.
“When I first heard about [the sale], I was super stressed out. We’re a very new organization that’s trying to grow and establish ourselves,” she says. “…On the other hand, I love curling and the people that I curl with love it so we’re going to continue to do our sport and continue to take advantage of the space when we have it.”
McCartney believes there is enough interest in ice sports in the region that someone will build a new rink nearby. Meanwhile, if they have to they will make a deal with a rink in another city hours away. “Things can still go on in less-than-ideal circumstances,” she says, adding that the club is still actively recruiting new members. “I’m not super concerned about it disappearing from Virginia.
“I think it’s a big process that takes a lot of time and we are not a part of that decision,” she says. “As a result, we are super happy for the time we have to curl here and at some point we’ll start making plans for where we get to curl next. For me, the important thing is welcoming people who are curious about the sport and introducing it to them in a way that’s fun and interesting.”
Ante up
The same kitchen that produces food for the bar where McCartney sipped her beer and watched curlers also serves The Ante Room upstairs, whose entrance faces Water Street. Previously called The Annex, The Ante Room is the only music venue in Charlottesville that regularly features metal acts for the balkanized local metal community.
Black metal, grind core, speed metal and various other subgenres may sound the same to outsiders. To connoisseurs of metal, though, these varieties have very different styles and techniques. All depend heavily on advanced technical skill and speed by guitarists, bassists and drummers—and The Ante Room is open to all of them.
Bartender and metal musician Luke Smith spoke to C-VILLE hours before the doors opened for a three-act bill of black metal bands. [Editor’s note: We are saddened to report that Smith died suddenly, days after he was interviewed for this article; the cause of death is still being investigated. A tribute concert/celebration for Smith was held January 24 at The Ante Room.] Smith was the frontman for two metal bands, Salvaticus and Blooddrunk Trolls. When he first arrived in Charlottesville around 2012, there was no place for a metal band to play. The now-defunct Outback Lodge used to host metal but has since been demolished and redeveloped into the building that houses Sticks Kebob Shop.
“I started up Blooddrunk Trolls and The Annex popped up and I started talking to Jeyon Falsini [founder and manager of The Ante Room], and he said if you want to do something we’ll try it,” Smith said. “Jeyon’s open to booking anything. We did a series of shows together and it just started ramping up.”
The Ante Room hosts at least one metal night a month, sometimes with up to eight bands on a single bill.
“The thing about The Ante Room, being that there’s a built-in PA [system] and a full bar, it’s easier for a band to get paid and make money,” said Smith. “You can charge an $8 cover.” He said the Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar has been friendly to metal bands, but the logistics are awkward.
“I’ve played there with three metal bands and there’s just too much gear [to fit on Twisted Branch’s stage and bring up the stairs],” Smith said. “I don’t know what we’d do [if The Ante Room closed], unless another establishment decided to start doing metal. The Ante Room is also big with the hip-hop community. …Jeyon has been necessary with cultivating the scene here, but I don’t really know where we’d go.”
Luke Smith’s death metal band Blooddrunk Trolls played a quadruple bill with grindcore bands Drugs of Faith and Antigama and heavy metal band Earthling in May 2015 at The Ante Room. Photo by Sallah Baloch
Smith said Charlottesville’s larger, mainstream performance spaces have been unwilling to book metal. “They kind of want to bank on sure things versus taking a risk on a kind of niche scene that could possibly not draw as many people out,” he said.
A small, alternative space in the basement of the Jefferson Theater has recently been used for a weekly Goth Night run by Gopal and Angel Metro. Could that experimental space also be used for metal? Manager Danny Shea isn’t sure.
“Gopal has done a remarkable job transforming that area and in a small unconventional space,” Shea says by e-mail. “I’m not sure the hallway is the solution, but [I’m] certainly open to look into ways to cultivate music communities as I can in our venues and in town.”
Falsini has a philosophy of giving bands and genres a chance, even if there isn’t an obvious or immediate payoff. They get second chances. And even eighth chances.
“I think you should always try things,” Falsini says. “Always keep an open mind. The different rooms I’ve booked in the 10-plus years I’ve done this, I’ve always seen every room as a fresh [opportunity] for every band I’ve ever worked with. …I’ve noticed that frequency is the key. It takes about seven shows of a particular genre in order for the room to be known for that genre. So your first seven country shows might not knock it out of the park, but the eighth probably will.”
The Ante Room also hosts Latin dance nights that appeal to groups like The Charlottesville Salsa Club. No other music venue in Charlottesville regularly hosts events geared towards Charlottesville’s large Latino immigrant community and the Anglos who love their music and dance traditions.
Home base
Down the block from The Ante Room’s Water Street entrance is Escafé. Formerly located on the Downtown Mall where The Whiskey Jar is today, Escafé has been a gathering spot for Charlottesville’s gay community for decades. Private gay clubs with membership requirements have come and gone, but Escafé has remained as a public establishment with food, drinks and dancing for queer and straight communities.
The owners of the restaurant rent the building from owners who have reached an agreement with Taliaferro Junction to sell the building for demolition. Because Escafé was penalized twice last year by the ABC for not selling enough food in proportion to the drinks customers bought (55 percent of sales must come from food), the loss of its lease may be the final straw.
Longtime patron Jason Elliot stood in the courtyard under a drizzling rain in front of Escafé and pondered what it has meant to him.
“Escafé was actually the very first gay bar I ever went to, about 10 years ago,” Elliot says. “That was my first exposure to ‘gay after dark,’ if you will. And pretty quickly it became a home base. Any time I was in Charlottesville I had to go there to see friends who became family.”
Elliot, a UVA graduate, now works for the Virginia Department of Health as a counselor specializing in HIV prevention and treatment. Later, sitting out of the rain at a coffee shop a few blocks away, he opened up about what Escafé meant to him.
“It very quickly did become a place where I would come when I was feeling happy, when I was feeling sad,” Elliot says. “It really did become my second home here in Charlottesville.”
Jason Elliot says Escafé, the first gay bar he ever went to, became a second home for him when he moved here 10 years ago to attend UVA. Photo by Amy Jackson
Compared to other small Virginia cities, Charlottesville has a high number of businesses that display a rainbow flag as a show of support, or where employees wear a discreet safety pin on their shirts.
“I think the great thing with Charlottesville, with society as a whole, there are a lot of places where we can gather, there are a lot of places where we are safe, where we like to go,” Elliot says. “But there’s a difference between a safe place, between a gathering place, and home. For a lot of people they have the same feeling about Escafé that I do, that this place is home.”
The Impulse Gay Social Club, located above an Asian grocery store on Route 29, is not within walking distance of homes or other establishments. And Impulse is a private club that requires membership and enforces a dress code.
Open to all, Escafé is embraced by people across generational lines.
“You’ve got your Friday night and your Saturday night crew, which is dancing,” Elliot says. “All night long we’re going to be there. …You also have a lot of the older gay community that’s going to head out for brunch or early dinner on Friday afternoon before it gets wild and loud. And with UVA, a lot of the people are really transient.”
Elliot looks beyond the gay community at all of the other groups that will be affected by the pending demolitions.
“Really what spoke loudly is that now it’s not just Escafé, it’s all the other businesses, the organizations, the other homes on the block, so to speak. The arena, the rink, The Ante Room,” he says. “…This is bigger than just one business, affecting more than just the gay community or the youth community or the night community…the Derby Dames, the metal community or even Latin night for salsa dancing, they’re all groups that are going to suffer from Escafé, The Ante Room, the arena closing. It’s a wide range of people who are missing out and losing out.”
Inside Escafé last Saturday afternoon, owner Todd Howard had the wooden top of the restaurant’s greeting stand turned upside down as he reshaped it and worked with a power drill as he talked.
“I would certainly leave [relocation] open as an option,” Howard says.“I know that things like this deal take time. …If it should happen that the stars align and we do some hard work and maybe get some further backing we could probably relocate. Escafé would probably be different because this space has defined Escafé in its current iteration.”
Howard puts the drill down and checks a measurement on his inverted tabletop.
“It doesn’t mean that we actually stop working, stop caring, stop developing,” Howard says. “I just repaired the plumbing today. The work still goes on no matter how long we’re here, whether it is two weeks or two years. …And people should be aware that we’ll be giving notice so there can be a long goodbye.”
Long shot
Late at night, people can often be seen dragging enormous bags of hockey equipment past the merrymakers at Escafé on their way from the closest parking lot to the ice rink. It is a long haul with heavy equipment, especially for a goalie. For both the UVA and JMU men’s hockey teams, this trek is a mandatory part of the ritual of practice.
“We’re currently undefeated in the league,” says Raffi Keuroglian, who is both a player and the president of the UVA men’s hockey club. “We’re a strong team and we’re going to be competitive. We’re actually hosting the playoffs at the Main Street Arena in February.
“I’m a fourth-year at UVA. I played hockey for most of my life,” Keuroglian says. “One of the things I was surprised by is how many people were interested in hockey at the club level. It didn’t hurt that we were just a mile away from Grounds. In the Charlottesville community we have a lot of support as well.”
Keuroglian and his teammates had been hearing rumors of the building’s sale so they were prepared for the bad news. “I wasn’t exactly blindsided by it,” he says. “It’s obviously disappointing. It definitely is a blow to the team. But it is what it is.”
The team doesn’t intend to give up on its sport.
“The closest rink is in Richmond so it would be tough to have the same kind of program but we would obviously have to schedule more games on the road,” Keuroglian says. “The interest level is still there to continue the program. I still think it’s possible that another rink could be constructed in Charlottesville.”
It isn’t only UVA’s hockey team that is at risk of losing its home in Charlottesville. The Main Street Arena also hosts youth hockey programs that don’t currently have a local alternative.
“Silversauce” Annie D., a silversmith and former bar manager at the arena and The Ante Room, has two children in her life who spend a lot of time on the ice.
“My nephew Joey Davis plays hockey in the youth league and my daughter, Liala Finer, is a figure skater taking lessons in the learn-to-skate.”
Joey lives in Culpeper and drives to Charlottesville to play and practice. Annie figures that both kids will keep trying but may find themselves at a disadvantage.
“For Joey, he’s going to keep it up and probably move more toward Northern Virginia competition,” Annie says. “He’s also 17 so the competition is getting stronger. It’s nice to have a rink to practice on in Charlottesville. In Culpeper there isn’t a rink. They travel here and they travel to Richmond. But they’re not going to drive to Lynchburg [where there is also a rink]—that’s even farther.”
Annie thinks she will probably have to take her daughter to a rink in Richmond, “and that might make it more of a hobby than a sport because it’s not going to be as convenient for her to learn how right here where it’s an everyday thing.”
“During the time that I managed the bar at the rink it was an opportunity to have a bar in a hockey rink,” Annie says. “Who has ever heard of such a thing? For being on the Downtown Mall, it’s a community area where now the parents have something to do and there’s a social life around it. We added music to it. Now you have kids skating and adults enjoying the atmosphere of music and late-night parties even, and the bar, which is just beer and wine, but when your kids are on the ice it’s nice to have a beer and a snack while watching six HD TVs.”
Natalie Raab, 14, a competitive figure skater, trains at Main Street Arena five days a week. She will be competing in the world championships in April with the Virginia Ice Theatre of Fairfax team. Photo by Ron Paris
The Raab family has already glimpsed what the future without a local ice rink holds, as the rink at Main Street Arena is normally closed from April to August. Natalie Raab, 14, is a competitive figure skater who trains locally and in Richmond (her sister, Leah, 8, also skates). When the rink is not in operation, the family is up at 4:30am to make skating practice in Short Pump by 6:30 and be back in Charlottesville for school at 9am. Currently, Natalie trains five days a week in Charlottesville, and she and her sister practice one day a week in Richmond with their Virginia Ice Box Ensemble team.
Natalie hopes to reach the national level one day, and currently competes in both singles skating and theater on ice teams. In April, she’ll join the Virginia Ice Theatre of Fairfax team in the world championships, and in June she’ll compete in the national championships with the Virginia Ice Box Ensemble. Natalie’s mom, Janice, says the convenience of having a local rink helps her daughter balance the demands of school and skating, and that they will have to continue driving to SkateNation Plus in Short Pump several times a week if no other option is available.
What’s next
Four blocks from the arena, Whitney Richardson rolls up on a pair of roller skates at the Carver Recreation Center for a Charlottesville Derby Dames practice. She serves as president of the team,and skates under the name Crashiopeia.
“I started in March 2010,” Richardson says. “I did the very stereotypical thing, which is I watched the movie Whip It, and I wondered if there was a team here, because I moved to Charlottesville six months earlier. I’m not the going-to-the-bar type and I was looking to get exercise, make friends, and I walked into derby and someone threw skates at me and said, ‘Welcome home,’ and that was it. And that’s where I’ve been ever since.”
The Derby Dames have often held roller derby bouts at the Main Street Arena, where they have attracted crowds of more than 1,000 spectators.
“Every different type of person you can find on the roller derby team,” Richardson says. “We have teachers, we have scientists, we have stay-at-home moms, we have stay-at-home dads. And we have one goal and that is to skate and to knock each other down. With love.”
The Charlottesville Derby Dames have 40 skaters on the team and about another 40 referees, non-skating officials and volunteers who have helped make roller derby happen in Charlottesville for the last decade. They have a contingency plan if the artificial floor laid over the ice in the rink disappears. In addition to a practice space in Ruckersville, they have a space in Fishersville in a building called Expoland that fits the bill.
“One time we went and they had a chicken sale in the parking lot,” Richardson says. “It’s a multipurpose space. …If anyone wants to donate space, it’s tax deductible.”
The Derby Dames are currently ranked number 48 out of 320 leagues in the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association. They are still actively recruiting new skaters, volunteers and kids to join their Junior Derby league, for children between 7 and 17.
Investor Mark Brown has mostly good memories of his time at the Main Street Arena. He tried curling for a while, learned to ice skate and attended UVA hockey games with his children.
“It was a project that I really enjoyed doing,” Brown says. “It was something that my kids enjoyed. It was different from anything I’ve done before.
“Probably the strongest memory that I have of the rink is the very first event we had there was a Best Of C-VILLE party, and we had the rink ready for the party about two minutes before the doors opened,” Brown says. “We were still screwing down the bar top! …If there was anything I will remember about the place it was that, just trying to get the place fixed. We converted it from an ice rink to a multipurpose building.”
Completing a $7 million real estate deal takes time. Brown doesn’t know exactly when the transaction will be finalized. But he believes that the broad coalition of communities that used the Main Street Arena will be able to convince someone to build a new rink on less expensive real estate.
“There’s already groups working on that,” Brown says. “I don’t anticipate any problems with them making that work in Charlottesville. Most rinks work in rural or industrial centers…lugging hockey stuff from one of the parking garages is not ideal. I would be shocked if there was not in the future skating in Charlottesville.”
Roger Voisinet, a local investor and real estate agent who helped start the UVA men’s hockey club, is exploring options for creating a new ice facility. Voisinet is among a group of investors in the Main Street Arena who would retain the hardware and property at the rink that could be used elsewhere. Voisinet says an announcement may come this spring.
All of the communities affected by the potential ice rink demolition have hope of surviving.
“I don’t think The Ante Room will be gone,” Annie D. says. “The Ante Room will live on. …There has to be another space. The Ante Room has built something really good. It is unfortunate to lose that space because it’s a great club. It took a long time to build it. And Jeyon Falsini has built it to be something of an extreme in town, and not just the other music that we are seeing at other [venues]. We’ve got hip-hop shows and metal shows. Nobody else is doing that and the community wants it. …Jeyon will find some way to find somewhere to put that.”
Jeyon Falsini, manager of The Ante Room, says he’d look for other spaces to house the music venue known for booking diverse genres, but says rent would be a big factor. Photo by Eze Amos
Falsini wants to try.
“I would start with looking to move it somewhere else,” he says. “It’s gotta make sense. The rent’s gotta make sense. The cost has to make sense. …I also have another business, a booking and promotion company, Magnus Management. I help book the bands at the Tom Tom Festival. If I didn’t do The Ante Room I would go back to just that business and expand on that. I do see that it is necessary, in order for a music scene to survive, for a place to exist.”
Jason Elliot sips his latte and considers the situation philosophically.
“I just think the take-home of it is we’re all in a very unstable climate right now,” Elliot says. “We don’t know what the future for a lot of things holds. Locally, statewide and nationally. There’s a lot of question marks. I think places like the arena, Escafé and this block, they helped take away some of those question marks. And even though we’re wondering what the future holds, I’ll always think of that block as being an exclamation point in my life and not a question mark.”
Todd Howard awaits a decision from the ABC about whether he’ll face more penalties for selling too many drinks.
RAMMELKAMP FOTO
Earlier this year, the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control suspended popular watering hole Escafé’s license to sell mixed drinks for the seemingly oxymoronic problem of selling too much booze. In Virginia, where bars are prohibited by Prohibition-era regulations, licensees have to have 45 percent of their sales in food, and if customers prefer drinking over dining, well, that’s just too bad and restaurants face prohibitive fines.
Ask Escafé owner Todd Howard, who couldn’t sell mixed drinks for 15 days in February and had to pony up a $1,000 fine as well, reduced from what was originally a 30-day suspension and $2,500 fine. That was for 2014-2015, and when he filed his receipts for 2015-2016 in March, he found himself in the same boat.
“It’s difficult to be in this business in this town with the ratio the way it is,” he says.
A bill that would lower the food ratio to 25 percent of sales was introduced in the General Assembly this year by Virginia Beach Republican Delegate Scott Taylor, but it was carried over to 2017.
Restaurateurs have long complained about the state’s ABC regulations that seem written by Carrie Nation, with moral disapproval of drinking in general and bars in particular.
Howard had an administrative hearing with the ABC August 22, and he’s awaiting the ruling.
“The only thing that keeps me holding on is hope they change the ratio,” he says. “It would be a shame to have a law-abiding and code-abiding licensee to go by the wayside if the code changes.”
Todd Howard awaits a decision from the ABC about whether he’ll face more penalties for selling too many drinks.
RAMMELKAMP FOTO
Escafé owner Todd Howard knew he was in trouble with the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, which requires at least 45 percent of his sales be in food. Unfortunately for Howard, Escafé is popular in Charlottesville as a bar, and last week he learned the penalty: For 15 days, he can’t sell cocktails, and he has to pay the ABC a $1,000 fine.
It could have been worse.
Originally he was looking at a 60-day suspension that was reduced to a still-devastating 30-day suspension if he paid a $2,500 fine. Howard appealed to the ABC Board in January and told it the impact such a penalty would have on his business.
The board considers statements from the licensee about why he disagrees with the initial decision, and when determining penalties, takes into account the licensee’s history, as well as penalty guidelines, says ABC spokesperson Kathleen Shaw in an e-mail.
Howard calls the board’s decision “quite generous, quite thoughtful.”
Escafé’s predicament is an example of how Virginia grapples in the 21st century with Prohibition-era regulations that don’t allow bars. “Obviously there are some flaws in the code,” says Howard. “Reform is necessary for two reasons.”
Since Virginia last amended its food/alcohol ratio in 1980, there are a lot more restaurants and choices, and Charlottesville is a very competitive market, says Howard. “It’s hard to make that ratio,” he says, with so many places selling food.
And for those who fear the presence of bars in the commonwealth, says Howard, “The news is that we already have them based on the choice of the public, and I think that’s appropriate.” He objects to the definition of a bar that’s from the temperance era. “We’re not a roadhouse. We’re a very clean operation. And you can’t justify calling a bar a nuisance just because it doesn’t sell enough food.”
A bill in the General Assembly attempts to reduce the food/alcohol ratio to 25 percent of sales. That bill, HB219, made it past its first hurdle, the subcommittee, before the General Laws committee continued it to 2017 on February 11.
When customers at Escafé have asked why they can’t get a cocktail during the ban, Howard explains Virginia’s food-alcohol ratio, and he says they respond, “In 2016? Really?”
Howard can still sell wine and beer, and he hopes customers will be in the mood for bubbly over the Valentine’s Day weekend. Escafé will be serving mixed drinks again February 23.
Todd Howard awaits a decision from the ABC about whether he’ll face more penalties for selling too many drinks.
RAMMELKAMP FOTO
Escafé is a popular place to get a drink, a place a group of people out on the town might choose for a nightcap later in the evening. “It’s an end-up place,” says owner Todd Howard. And that has the restaurant in trouble with the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control.
That’s because to get a license to sell mixed drinks in Virginia, a restaurant must have no more than 55 percent of its sales from booze and at least 45 percent from food. Restaurants can sell all the beer and wine they want because those alcoholic beverages don’t figure into the ratio.
As for bars, forget about it. Virginia has been steadfastly anti-saloon since, well, Prohibition. It wasn’t legal to order a mixed drink in the state until 1968.
“By definition, you can’t have bars in the commonwealth,” says Howard. “You have to fight very hard to get those food dollars anyway you can.” At the same time, restaurant owners don’t want to overprice their food or underprice drinks. Some, says Howard, go so far as to manipulate their sales numbers to comply with the ratio.
Because Escafé did not meet the food minimum last year, it’s facing a 30-day suspension of its license and a $2,500 fine. “You can imagine what it would do,” says Howard. “I don’t know how patient my creditors would be. And coming up with $2,500 would be tough.”
A bill in the General Assembly could save establishments like Escafé or The Box, the popular watering hole on Second Street Southeast that closed in 2014 because its alcohol sales were too high. Delegate Scott Taylor’s HB219 would reduce the food ratio to 25 percent. The Virginia Beach Republican has called the ratio “antiquated” and “anti-competitive.”
Yet as common sense as the bill might sound to those not from the teetotaling Bible Belt, House Minority Leader David Toscano says, “I doubt this will pass.”
Nor does he think Virginia is moving toward allowing bars. “I think that decision was made a long time ago. I think people like the idea that if you go somewhere and have a drink, there should be some element of food available.”
He says the rationale behind not having bars is there’s less “disorder” than what’s found in other states.
However, Toscano says, “I’m sad Escafé is being threatened with that suspension. I will look into that.”
Restaurants can’t force their customers to order eats with their drinks, says Howard. When the Supreme Court ruled on gay marriage June 26, people flocked to Escafé. “Where else are you going to celebrate but at the gay bar?” asks Howard. “It’s not like I can say, ‘I hope you’ll buy food.’ That night was an incredible bar-heavy night that sort of blew my ratio that month.”
Rapture owner Mike Rodi sees HB219as part of an overall attempt to put Virginia’s alcohol laws into something “resembling, not the 21st century, but the second half to the 20th century. The laws are rooted in Prohibition values. I do think it needs an overhaul.”
Rodi says he has no problem meeting the ratio, but he understands the problem it presents for some restaurant owners. “How do you force someone to eat or say, ‘I can’t sell you a drink because it will put me over my ratio?’”
Rapture had its own skirmish with the ABC in 2014 when an agent cited it with “ceases to qualify as a restaurant.” Rodi says he doesn’t know where that came from because even if the dining room is closed, food is still available. He had to pay $500, and sees such enforcement as “a way to harass businesses.”
He notes the investment he’s made in a quality kitchen staff, equipment and ingredients. “It’s insulting for the ABC to come in and say, ‘You’re not a restaurant,’” he says. “Why? Because my hood isn’t working one day?”
Rodi thinks the entire ABC regulation book needs an overhaul. He points to a law that regulates “how much of a nipple can be exposed.” Says Rodi, “Obviously the code is caught up in moral issues. There are safety issues, there are business issues. Let’s get down to what are actual issues instead of weird moral issues from the 1930s.”
Howard finds it ironic that the ABC boasted record profits in 2015—and yet wants to penalize a business that sells too much alcohol. The food/alcohol ratio was last changed in 1980. “The 35-year marker is important to note,” he says. “Many things have changed since then in public attitudes and social attitudes.”
Howard recounts what one person said when he described his current travails with the ABC: “You tell that board Governor McAuliffe is pro-business and Virginia is pro-business. Suspending your license is anti-business.”
On January 12, Howard appealed the suspension to the ABC Board, which has 30 days to decide what to do.
