Blenheim Vineyards recently released a limited edition wine with proceeds going to Frontline Foods Charlottesville and World Central Kitchen, organizations that are providing meals to people in need.
Business not as usual
In recent weeks, many local restaurants that decided to take a pandemic pause have started to phase back into action, including well-loved spots like Al Carbon, Bizou, Brazos Tacos, Little Star, Luce, Tavola, and Tilman’s. These restaurants are reaching customers through online ordering with delivery, curbside pickup, or no-contact handoff of food and drinks. Some, like Citizen Burger Bar and Red Pump Kitchen, are also making use of available outdoor space to bring guests back on site, at a distance. The returns are a glimmer of hope for many after months of closure announcements—both temporary and permanent—due to coronavirus. Check out C-VILLE’s online restaurant guide or establishments’ websites for more info.
Hello, Tonic
Speaking of Tilman’s, reopening the wine and gourmet food spot on the Downtown Mall isn’t the only thing that owners Derek Mansfield and Courtenay Tyler have been working on. The pair is opening a new restaurant, Tonic, in the space formerly occupied by Tin Whistle Irish Pub (which closed at the end of last year after a landlord dispute). Tonic promises build-your-own snack boards and small plates with items like pickled shrimp and marinated mushrooms, and a focus on healthy local fare. Keep an eye out for a summer opening.
Drink with a purpose: Dubbel 151
Spirit Lab Distilling and Champion Brewing partnered on a collaboration to support Charlottesville-area restaurant workers who were laid off due to the pandemic, and the results are good enough to drink. Released in May and produced from over 8,000 cans of beer, Dubbel 151 is made of Champion Brewing’s Brasserie Saison Dubbel and Saison beers distilled to 75.5 percent alcohol or 151 proof. Bottles can be purchased on the Spirit Lab Distilling website with curbside pickup and shipping throughout Virginia and Washington, D.C.
Coffee care
Snowing in Space Coffee Co. released a new whole-bean coffee blend, Frontline Fuel, aimed at caffeinating Sentara Martha Jefferson Hospital health care workers. For every bag of Frontline Fuel purchased at snowinginspace.com, the company will donate a bag to the hospital. The medium-roast blend is made of certified Fair Trade organic beans and is available for one-time and subscription purchases, as well as wholesale for retailers and offices.
Wine relief
Blenheim Vineyards recently released a limited-edition red wine blend called On The Line, with proceedsgoing to Frontline Foods Charlottesville and World Central Kitchen, organizations that are providing meals to people in need. The label, which can also be seen on other merchandise including stickers and posters, is designed by vineyard owner Dave Matthews. And there’s more to come—a white blend is set to release later this summer.
Elizabeth Raymond, co-founder of the plant-based NoBull Burger, has seen her share of ups and downs amid the COVID-19 crisis. Jontell Vanessa Photography
If you don’t have hope, what do you have?
That’s the mindset Elizabeth Raymond recently adopted for NoBull, the vegetarian burger and brand she launched almost a decade ago with her mother, Crissanne, and her sister, Heather.
Crissanne, a “wickedly talented” chef and caterer, raised her children to be cautious about what they were consuming, and created homemade veggie burgers based on her own mother’s lentil soup recipe. “It was a big treat when mom made a batch [of veggie burgers] for us,” says Raymond, who was one of six children.“People wouldn’t remember her name, but they did remember her as the veggie burger lady.”
Fast forward to 2011: Raymond was finishing graduate school at UVA and bartending at the now-defunct Blue Light Grill downtown, her sister owned a massage therapy practice, and Raymond’s mother was enjoying her new role as grandmother. But Raymond and her family had always wondered about marketing their mother’s veggie burger, and the timing seemed right, so they pitched NoBull to Raymond’s food industry connections.
“Veggie burgers were just starting to come to the market and just did not compare to mom’s recipe,” Raymond says.
Her chef friends began putting the burgers on their menus, and Raymond landed a spot at City Market, which introduced her to key connections at Bodo’s Bagels and Charlottesville’s Whole Foods Market. Little by little, the brand grew—the burger was picked up by dozens of Whole Foods stores in the mid-Atlantic, 60 Krogers in Virginia, and half of Wegmans 100-plus stores on the East Coast.
Raymond thought 2020 was going to be her year. The nationwide brand was about to enter into its seed-funding stage to raise capital from investors. Her team—a “family unit,” she calls them—was expanding, working on semi-automated production processes, and seeking to scale the company.
“We had great projections for the year,” says Raymond. But as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold, Raymond watched her business “totally halt.” The company lost 90 percent of its food service revenue, as restaurants, breweries, and universities shuttered.
“I felt a sheer panic toward what was going to happen. …Mom and I were looking at each other and saying, ‘What are we going to do?’”
So Raymond did what many entrepreneurs are forced to do at some point, global pandemic or not: She pivoted. Her employees began following strict social-distancing guidelines, wearing personal protective equipment, and performing increased cleaning procedures. The company started providing meals to the Boys & Girls Club, The Haven, and Feed the Frontline.
“For us, food is love,” says Raymond. “We have to take care of our community because they’re taking care of us.”
For nearly two years, Raymond has worked with Tara Eavey of 4P Foods and the Local Food Hub to increase NoBull’s distribution and customer base.
“I have seen local small businesses and farms go from thriving and fruitful, to an entity that is struggling to make it from week to week with non-existent sales,” Eavey says of the pandemic’s impact. When the COVID-19 crisis first began, 4P Foods realized it could serve farmers and small business owners like Raymond by continuing to order as much product as possible. Because of that shift, Eavey recently coordinated one of the organization’s largest orders of NoBull Burgers for its CSA members.
For now, Raymond can breathe a little easier. Her production team has better access to PPE, for example. And NoBull just expanded into two new markets—a natural foods store in Michigan, and Whole Foods in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. It’s a region Raymond had been trying to break into for years.
“Our retail sales are spiking, especially in the frozen foods category, since everyone is staying home and packing their freezer. Through all of this, we’re still producing,” Raymond says.
And it’s Raymond’s method of safe, organic food production that the COVID-19 crisis has brought to the forefront of many shoppers’ minds. In April, over 100 poultry and meat processing plants owned by corporations like Smithfield Foods, Tyson Foods, and Perdue Farms reported nearly 5,000 coronavirus cases. By the end of April, prices for meat and other animal-based food products had jumped by at least 8 percent.
Those numbers didn’t surprise Raymond; she hopes the crisis will remind consumers that what they put in their bodies matters. “I hope these events will guide people’s shopping behaviors towards ingredients they can pronounce, farmers or owners they know, and putting a face to a name and how all those things matter,” she says.
Raymond believes nourishment is about finding a balance and eating intuitively. That’s always been her story, and it isn’t over yet. She feels confident that NoBull will be back on menus when restaurants are ready to reopen, and she takes pride in NoBull’s growth and grit in spite of the fragility and fear affecting consumer’s decisions. Pandemic or not, she still has big plans.
Bowerbird Bakeshop’s Earl Vallery and Maria Niechwiadowicz feel fortunate that they’ve been able to move out of a rented kitchen and into their new space at the Tenth Street Warehouses. Photo by John Robinson
Bowerbird Bakeshop debuted at Charlottesville City Market’s annual holiday market in late 2017, at a shared table on a side row that got little foot traffic.
Pastry chef Earl Vallery had just moved to town after helping launch Whisk bakery in Richmond, and before that, teaching at Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Austin, Texas. He had about $300 and the desire to have a bakery of his very own.
That cold Saturday morning, Vallery put up a homemade cardboard sign and covered his half of the booth with signature treats: matcha mint cookies, chocolate vortex cookies, and imaginatively flavored French macarons. He hoped that, eventually, Bowerbird might have enough of a following to warrant a bricks-and-mortar shop, complete with a kitchen, small eat-in area, and pastry cases packed with all sorts of delights.
It didn’t take long. After finding investors and raising money via a GoFundMe earlier this year, Bowerbird—now a team of three—is moving from its rented kitchen at Trinity Episcopal Church’s Bread & Roses space to the Tenth Street Warehouses.
It’s an odd time to open a bakery, acknowledges Vallery as he sits in the nearly finished space, light bouncing off of the metal appliances and the pristine glass pastry case. But the ball was already rolling when the pandemic hit: the lease was signed, the equipment ordered, and Vallery, who also received a small Paycheck Protection Program loan, couldn’t back out.
Instead, he adjusted. Bowerbird currently participates in the contactless Saturday market and delivers online orders direct to customers’ doors on Saturday mornings. With sales down and the bakery not opening to eat-in customers right away, Vallery couldn’t hire the staff he’d planned for, so he and his business partner and pastry assistant Maria Niechwiadowicz are tackling all the bakes and sales…in addition to finishing the bakery build-out.
“It’s tiring, figuring out all these ways to reinvent yourself,” says Vallery, who knows other small business owners share that fatigue. But he hesitates to complain, expressing his gratitude for his customers (and his understanding landlord). “I’m grateful we have something.”
Niechwiadowicz shares those feelings. But “sometimes it feels a little unfair that restaurants and long-standing businesses in Charlottesville are closing [and] we are opening,” she says. She is optimistic, though, about what Bowerbird can offer by maintaining ties with the Bread & Roses food ministry (Niechwiadowicz served as the program’s kitchen manager until recently), donating to other nonprofits like City of Promise, and partnering with local farms and food makers.
Even when the shop opens, Bowerbird will continue to participate in the City Market. “That’s our bread and butter,” says Vallery.
In addition to the macarons, cookies, galettes, and savory nest egg muffins that marketgoers have come to love, there will be cakes, custards, Danishes, and more. Vallery also promises breakfast items like smoked salmon on an everything croissant.
He may struggle sometimes to celebrate the occasion because “what we make, it could be considered a luxury,” but when Vallery talks about the feeling he gets from baking, his voice brightens, and he repeats, “I’m just so grateful.”
Papaya salad is just one of the dishes you can learn when Chimm goes online with its next cooking class installment on Friday. Getty images
Kitchen craft: In the home kitchen, mastering the complexities of authentic Thai cooking can lead to lots of questions: How thin do I slice the thinly sliced kaffir lime leaves? What if I can’t find fresh nutmeg? Can I make my own roasted rice powder? Chimm Cookin’ Class has launched to provide answers. The authentic Thai and Southeast Asian favorite offers meal kits in tandem with a live cooking class that walks you through the process. Next up: laab and papaya salad, dishes from the Isan region, near Laos. The kit makes two portions, and the dishes are spiced according to your preference, and meant to be eaten with your hands, says Chimm co-owner Jay Pun, who will guide the lesson along with Chad Prior.
The Becerras are trying to make up for the loss of City Market business by serving Mexican tacos in their own neighborhood, and at IX Art Park on Saturdays. Photo by Sanjay Suchak
April in Charlottesville is when the food truck business kicks into high gear. For Ignacio and Maria Becerra, the warm weather typically signals the return of long lines of customers snaking around the perimeter of the Charlottesville City Market, waiting for their Mexican Tacos. But there’s nothing typical for the local food industry this spring. Mexican Tacos now operates Thursday evenings in the Becerra’s neighborhood, as well as at IX Art Park on Saturday mornings, says truck manager Luis Becerra.
Food truck proprietors have had to be inventive to keep serving customers who crave anything but another home-cooked meal while honoring Virginia’s distancing guidelines. Whitney Matthews runs the seafood truck SpiceSea Gourmet, and says the timing couldn’t be worse. “Spring is when wineries and breweries start to host events with food trucks and music,” she says. “All events have been canceled or postponed…and corporate lunch spots have also stopped food truck visits because workers are home.”
The Angelic’s Kitchen truck parks at the high-profile Freebridge area of Pantops, where 250 meets High Street, and it’s still bringing in customers. But owner Angelic Jenkins is scrambling to make up for other losses by adding new delivery options and increasing her marketing. “I had to sign up for DoorDash, GrubHub, and Uber Eats,” says the soul food chef. “I also put together a family meal plan special to pick up from the food truck, and did lots of advertising on social media.”
Sussex Farm food truck owner Jen Naylor ensures her customers can access her mobile food by sending regular emails to let everyone know about availability. All Sussex Farm items are preordered and paid for in advance to ensure less contact at pick-up.
Kelsey Naylor (Jen’s daughter) and Anna Gardner opened the Pye Dog pizza truck last fall. “We’ve switched our business model from wood-fired pizzas to take-home Chicago deep-dish pizzas for now,” says Naylor. “And we’ve been donating all our profits from our sales to the Charlottesville Restaurant Community Fund to try to help out where we can.”
Despite food truck owners’ best efforts, sales have taken a huge hit, and coronavirus fears have transformed how business is conducted.
“My business has been cut by 80 percent,” Matthews says. “I’m also trying to be cautious about my own exposure to the virus. I’m working alone in my truck doing everything. If I get sick, the business stops completely. So I try to limit my time and exposure to being around others.”
Farmacy food truck’s Jessica Hogan and her husband have lost their day jobs and are now solely reliant upon Farmacy’s income. They’ve adapted quickly to the new reality, creating family-sized meals and using the truck to deliver to people’s homes. Hogan looks at the ability to continue connecting with the community as a silver lining.
“We are having to adapt and flow with what the universe is telling us to do,” she says. “We have been wanting to do the food truck full-time for a while now and just couldn’t because of our other jobs. Now we are forced to, but in a way that’s kinda cool. I respect the change. And embrace it. Nothing wrong with getting creative.”
The City Market To-Go offers access to the bounty of products produced at local farms including Caramont Farms popular goat cheeses.
Market upswing: Typically at this time of year we’d be emerging from our winter respite, and strolling with reusable grocery bags in hand to the Charlottesville City Market to sample food and stock up on fresh greens, sustainably raised meats, and plant starts for home gardens. While that may be out of reach for now, a new drive-through market, City Market To-Go, means we can still get ahold of locally produced staples, plus indulgences like Planet Earth Diversified’s milk thistle pesto, Caromont Farm’s truffled chevre, and Carpe Diem donuts. Order online by Thursday at 10am.
Pizza has long been a favorite carry-out food, and that hasn't changed during quarantine. Lampo Neapolitan Pizzeria recently posted this photo of a dizzying pizza box tower and asked followers to guess how many. Photo courtesy Lampo Neapolitan Pizzeria
Stepping up to serve free meals
In these trying times for the restaurant industry, chef Harrison Keevil of Keevil & Keevil Grocery and Kitchen is using his talents to serve others. What originally started as a free lunch (about 20 meals each weekday), has expanded to include breakfast and dinner, and by April 13, Keevil is planning to offer 500 meals a day out of his kitchen. He’s currently funding it himself and taking donations at @keevil-kitchen. He’s also keeping it local by using as many area sources as possible—think Caromont cheese, Albemarle Baking Company pastry, and locally grown vegetables. If you know of someone in need, email keevilkitchen@gmail.com for delivery coordination.
Local bartenders get creative
With no bar to tend to at the moment, Tavola’s cicchetti bar team recently launched a Cocktail Quarantine video series. Episode one featured “quarantinis:” Husband and wife duo Rebecca Edwards and Steve Yang, both recently recognized as top 100 bartenders in the U.S., shook up their favorite variations on the martini. The best part? They’re taking requests. Go to @cocktailcoupleva on Instagram or tavola cicchetti bar on Facebook, and send a direct message or leave a comment with your cocktail of choice. Don’t forget to leave a virtual tip!
In the same spirit, The Local’s beverage director Alec Spidalieri developed a cocktail recipe book, which is available on a pay-what-you-can basis as a downloadable PDF. Visit his website for payment information and to download the content.
It’s five o’clock…on Zoom?
What would we do without Zoom and Facebook Live? In the time of social distancing, these platforms are allowing friends to connect and businesses to creatively reach their customers. The Wine Guild of Charlottesville and King Family Vineyards are hosting happy hours and virtual tastings, which allow people to come together while keeping their distance. Want to join the fun? Follow the Wine Guild and King Family on social media for upcoming virtual events.
Survival by takeout
Quarantine is for pizza lovers, or at least that’s the way it seems. Both Crozet Pizza and North Garden’s Dr. Ho’s Humble Pie have added additional phone lines to keep up with ordering demand. And a recent Instagram post from Lampo showed to-go pizza boxes piled high, and asked followers to guess the number of boxes shown. Those feeling fancy have takeout options too, with restaurants including The Farmhouse at Veritas and C&O now offering multi-course meals for pickup. Bet you never thought you’d enjoy steak chinoise in your pajamas, did you?
Lee O’Neill of Radical Roots Community Farm is one of many local farmers who has had to get creative with her business and distribution plans this year. Photo by John Robinson
At this point in the season, farmers have planted potatoes and strawberries. They’ve sown radishes, carrots, beets, and kohlrabi. They’ve transplanted broccoli and onions from interior pots to outdoor beds, and any day now, they’ll put in the warmer-weather crops like corn and peppers.
But as the COVID-19 pandemic spreads throughout Virginia, Governor Ralph Northam’s stay-at-home order has shut down farmers’ markets and restaurants, and local farmers have had to rethink how to get food to their customers…and how to maintain their income to ensure there’s a harvest next year.
“At this time of year, we have a lot invested in the ground and not a lot of cash on hand,” says Jim Marzluff of Sweet Greens Farm in Scottsville. “Those first few markets are really important to us.”
More than half of Sweet Greens’ revenue comes from local farmers’ markets. “It’s such a good way to sell produce in this area,” says Marzluff.
That number’s even higher—95 percent—for Whisper Hill Farm, also in Scottsville. “We’re going to have tons of produce,” says farmer Holly Hammond.
Hammond and Marzluff plan to put what they’d normally sell at the market into community supported agriculture shares. Both farms had moved away from the CSA model in recent years, but right now, it seems like the best option to feed customers and financially sustain the farms.
Though they understand the dire importance of practicing social distancing, farmers, who already adhere to very strict food safety standards, are frustrated by the new rules. Lee O’Neill of Radical Roots Farm says that markets could likely observe even stricter measures than grocery stores—limiting how many people are in the space at once, allowing only farmers to touch the goods—and so she wonders why the markets are not also considered essential.
To help fill the gap, Local Food Hub is offering a drive-up, no-contact micro-market. Customers can go to the organization’s website to order locally produced fruits and veggies, milk, eggs, cheese, meats, and more. At the pickup location, LFH employees and farmers place the bagged order in the customer’s trunk.
And starting Saturday, April 11, the City Market will switch to a “City Market To-Go” model, operating from 8am to noon on Saturdays until further notice. Customers can sign up for an account, place an order online, and choose a 30-minute pickup window. During that time, they’ll be able to pick up their bag from Pen Park.
Farmers say there’s also been increased interest in CSA programs from customers over the past two weeks, particularly from those who are anxious that there might eventually be a food shortage.
Bellair Farm, located just outside of Charlottesville, is perhaps unique in that its business model is based almost entirely around a CSA program, which farm manager Michelle McKenzie says could provide enough produce for 700 families for its 22-week duration. (A half share, enough for the average-size family, costs $390 for the season, about $17 per week.) While Bellair won’t have to adapt its business much, it will stop its market-style CSA pickup and switch to pre-packaged bags that customers can retrieve quickly.
Radical Roots will also offer a few CSA shares this year to make up for its lost market business, and it’s participating in Local Food Hub’s micro-market, but O’Neill expects her farm’s “saving grace” will be its wholesale business with area groceries like Feast!, Integral Yoga, and Whole Foods. There’s no guarantee, though, that customers on tight pandemic budgets will opt for the slightly more expensive, locally grown organic tomato, rather than the cheaper, corporate farm-grown one. “Usually we can’t produce enough” for the stores, says O’Neill, but she imagines this year could be different.
Since fall 2019, when this photo was taken, the Urban Agriculture Collective of Charlottesville, which grows and distributes produce to public and subsidized housing communities, has lost more than 80 percent of its planting-bed space. Photo by Zack Wajsgras
While most area farms work out how to distribute their bounties, one farm located in the heart of Charlottesville worries it won’t have enough food for its consumers’ needs.
The Urban Agriculture Collective of Charlottesville offers city residents the opportunity to collaboratively grow and harvest organic produce that is then distributed at no cost to public and subsidized housing communities, “people who might not otherwise have access to fresh produce,” says Richard Morris, farm and foodroots program director at UACC.
During the 2019 season, UACC’s three gardens, located at the Friendship Court, South First Street, and Sixth Street housing developments, had a combined 25,000 square feet of vegetable-bed space. But with the Friendship Court and South First Street spots slated for redevelopment, UACC was only able to plant at Sixth Street—4,400 square feet of bed space—for the 2020 season.
“We’re down, but not out,” says Morris. With less than one-fifth of its previous planting area to work with, he says they’ve employed some intensive growing techniques, such as vertical planting.
As unemployment rates soar, Morris expects that those members of our community who are already food insecure (about 17 percent of the city’s population) will have greater demand for produce…and that more of our neighbors will become food insecure in the coming months.
He hopes that other, larger farms and distributors with excess produce might donate it to the UACC’s new Harvest a Bushel for the Community program.
Overall, farmers say they want this moment to help the community understand the reliability, and thus the importance, of local food. It’s part of their mission, after all, to feed their neighbors.
“For me, having this very clear, outlined mission of what my role is in this crisis has brought me more peace than anything else in this time,” says McKenzie. “Knowing that I’ve got a job to do, and my job is to grow food, safely. That’s what I keep returning to.”
Dining decline
Farms that supply to area restaurants, and not just individual customers, face enormous challenges, too. As restaurants have either closed completely or switched to carry-out and delivery models, they’re not cooking as much, which means placing fewer, if any, orders with small farms.
Around half of Free Union Grass Farm’s business comes from local restaurants. This year, farmer Joel Slezak planned to raise 2,500 ducks and sell 90 percent of them to local restaurants. But a few weeks ago, orders from restaurants “disappeared overnight,” and Slezak canceled his duckling order. Instead, he’ll raise chickens and laying hens, whose meat and eggs, respectively, are easier to sell to home cooks via the farm’s website. Slezak says he’s had increased interest from individual customers, and despite the loss of his restaurant clientele, business is booming. He does worry that at some point, individual customers will run out of money and not be able to afford local food prices, which tend to be higher than those at grocery stores.
Ara Avagyan of Double H Farm has some worries, too. From December through May, his farm relies entirely on restaurants for its income. “That’s just enough” for the Avagyan family to pay the bills and keep the lights on. He continues providing to restaurants throughout the spring, summer, and fall, but he relies on farmers market sales of leafy greens, eggs, pork, and more, for the money to feed his livestock: dozens of cows, hundreds of pigs and chickens. Double H has pivoted to direct-to-customer sales through its website, and is selling to small groceries like Integral Yoga, but Avagyan says only time will tell if that model will be successful.
This article was updated Wednesday, April 8 to include information about the City Market To-Go, announced April 7.
Kate Ellwood, the former general manager at Citizen Burger Bar, has launched the Charlottesville Restaurant Community Fund to help raise money for area food service workers in need. Photo by Zack Wajsgras
As restaurants nationwide are forced to limit service in response to the coronavirus epidemic, workers and owners face economic as well as emotional uncertainty. Our gem of a food town is no exception.
By the time Charlottesville announced its first case of COVID-19 on March 16, restaurants all over town were shutting down or moving to take-out only. At the City Council meeting that evening, several restaurant owners asked council to temporarily delay collection of the meals tax that came due on March 20. Councilors denied the request, but penalties for late payment have been suspended through May 31.
While the city searches for other ways to support businesses in the months ahead, Charlottesville community members have already responded, swooping in to help provide some financial assistance and morale boosters, with the hope of spurring others to do the same.
“I have a cousin who is a restaurateur in Boston, and seeing restaurants in these big cities shutting down, I figured it was only a matter of time before it happened to our community,” she says. “I reached out to [Citizen owner] Andy McClure, and ran it past him and he liked the idea, so I ran with it.
Ellwood set an initial goal of $10,000, and at press time the fund was well over $20,000. She plans to keep running it, and either continue to donate to other restaurant workers or offer money to other area organizations, such as the food bank. She’ll distribute funds to workers with crucial needs—those who have chronic illnesses or children who need emergency food, or people who could use help paying for their medication or housing. “Any bit of money will help right now in their situation,” she says. The grants will top out at $200 per person, and Ellwood reached out to restaurant owners to determine the recipients. “I’ve had owners and managers contact me to nominate staff who they think could most use it, so that’s been really helpful,” she says.
Beyond the financial support, Ellwood is also helping workers navigate daunting tasks like filing for unemployment. And, with the help of her training from the Community Investment Collaborative, she’s connecting other local businesses and organizations to create a large network that can help. Her efforts have earned her some national press attention, with Eater, Food & Wine, Imbibe, and Cherry Bombe magazines all spreading the word online.
Restaurants have scrambled to redefine themselves quickly in order to survive, many offering take-out and delivery services. And almost all eateries have expressed that the purchase of gift certificates is a great way to help them immediately.
Lampo Neapolitan Pizzeria has carryout service through online ordering. The Local and Junction are offering online orders with a Ten for Ten menu of comfort food items costing $10 (all proceeds go to The Local’s staff and the community). Tavola (co-owned by C-VILLE’s Culture editor Tami Keaveny) has shifted to retail wine sales and delivery, which wine director Seth Maynard says, “allows me to make the world-class wines on our list more affordable.” Seeing it as an opportunity to be creative, Maynard is offering several different themes for curated, mixed cases, including: Italian antiques (from classic Italian wine regions); What your parents drank (recognizable varietals and blends like Bordeaux); Wine that your kids drink (modern “hipster” wines from lesser known regions); and a dealer’s choice matched to a customer’s flavor profile.
Others have reluctantly shuttered their doors for now. Angelo Vangelopoulous, owner of The Ivy Inn, closed on March 15, and started a relief fund for his staff. “It became clear to me that people weren’t getting the message that social distancing is what we need right now, so I thought it best that The Ivy Inn family did its part to get the word out and show how important this is to our community and everyone worldwide,” he says.
Ellwood, meanwhile, hopes to launch a nonprofit to support the restaurant community in a more sustained way. “Doing something like this makes other people want to help,” she says. “It has a ripple effect.”
Paying it forward
Kathryn Matthews
While our local restaurant community is struggling, it is also pitching in to help others. Kathryn Matthews, owner of Iron Paffles & Coffee (and who is herself recovering from a major car accident that left her unable to work until recently), is helping to organize essential donations to those in need through the community website supportcville.com.
“Since the outbreak of COVID-19, businesses across Charlottesville have taken a hit, especially the restaurant industry,” says Matthews. “The result has been an abundance of surplus food from canceled catering orders and lower-than-usual sales, which I couldn’t bear to waste. When I heard of other restaurants in a similar situation, I rallied the restaurant community together to donate their leftovers to low-income families.”
She says SupportCville is also looking for donations from the public of kid-friendly non-perishables, including canned fruit, granola bars, cereal, rice, pasta, peanut butter, and juice boxes, as well as financial donations.
Modern Nosh’s menu features popular deli standards like Reuben sandwiches (above), matzo ball soup, and latkes. “When I came back to town, I said I would really love to do this but who knows if they’ll support it, and it’s been a really positive experience" says owner Stephanie Levin. Photo by John Robinson
Has it already been a year since we touted the arrival of an authentic Jewish deli to the local food scene? At the time, Modern Nosh owner Stephanie Levin said her goal was to launch her new eatery with a philanthropic twist, by sharing profits with local charities.
“Our tagline is ‘you dine, we donate’,” she says. And donate, they did. After enlisting suggestions from customers about prospective recipients, Modern Nosh recently cut checks for $2,500 each to both The Women’s Initiative, which provides mental health services for women in the area regardless of their ability to pay, and the Companion Animal Fund, an organization that gives financial grants to various local pet rescue organizations.
That Levin had profits to donate bodes well for the deli, considering how hard it is to get a restaurant up and running. She says her first year in business was relatively painless.
“It’s been fun,” she says. “Some things were harder than I expected, some easier. I’d heard horror stories, and I don’t really have any horror stories, so that was really good.”
Levin, a UVA grad whose parents owned a restaurant in Norfolk, says that helping out locally was important to her.
“When I came back to town, I said I would really love to do this, but who knows if they’ll support it, and it’s been a really positive experience,” she says. “I was keeping my fingers crossed at the end of the year that there would be money to donate because there are so many expenses.”
Levin enjoys working in the food business, even when the hard part of owning a restaurant rears its ugly head.
“The paperwork has taken a lot of time—there are not enough hours in the day to work the behind-the-scenes bookkeeping…and other office stuff,” she says. “But the hardest part has been exposure. I’m still surprised that to this day people walk in and ask ‘Did you just open?’”
While the Modern Nosh menu features popular lunchtime deli standards like Reuben sandwiches, matzo ball soup, and latkes, the shop now serves breakfast fare as well. Favorites include the innovative latke Benedict—two latkes (potato pancakes) with eggs on top and hollandaise sauce (you can add meats such as pastrami bacon)—and challah French toast, which comes three ways: with powdered sugar, chocolate chips, or golden raisins.
“The restaurant makes its corned beef and brisket in-house,” Levin says. “All ethnic things and salads and soups are also homemade,” and even though people in Charlottesville seem unaccustomed to toasted bagels, it’s how they’re served at Modern Nosh.
She’s also added a lunch special for the cost-conscious diner. “Lunchtime we have a couple of hours where it’s a special lunch menu in addition to the regular menu,” Levin says. “Nosh for Nine,” which changes every few months, features nine menu items for $9 from a set menu served between 11am and 1:30pm.
Even with menu additions, Levin says it’s the customers’ word-of-mouth that makes Modern Nosh a success. “There’s no amount of money I could put into marketing to get [that level of] exposure and name recognition,” she says.
