Tag: Mudhouse

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C-BIZ

Have caffeine, will work: The best C’ville coffee shops for working remotely

Photos: Stephen Barling, Jack Looney, Eze Amos, Tom McGovern

What could be better than getting out of your home office or work site for a few hours, sipping a macchiato, and getting sh*t done in a buzzy coffee shop? Luckily for us, options abound in Charlottesville. Here are our top five picks for the local java spots most conducive to that sweet #teleworklife. (Note: All locations listed offer free Wi-Fi plus outlets to plug in.)

Shenandoah Joe (945 Preston Ave.)

Vibe: Restoration Hardware-meets-“Friends’” Central Perk. Think industrial concrete floors, black, white and beige tones—a super-chill, meditative space to get some work done. That’s Shenandoah Joe’s on Preston Avenue. Take a seat at one of the communal tables, comfy sofas, or oversized armchairs. The cozy yet minimalist-modern space always seems to be teeming with coffee- imbibers, but you can still likely find a place to perch with your laptop. Noise levels are moderate at its busiest. Plus, you are right across the street from what is destined to be another future tele-working hotspot, Dairy Market, so when you’ve worn out your welcome here, you’ll be able to hop across the street.

Mudhouse (213 W. Main St., Downtown Mall)

Vibe: Like walking into a friend’s moody yet welcoming den. The Downtown Mall is where all the action happens, and the Mudhouse is often the center of the buzz. Walk inside and you’ll find a certain gravitas, with well-worn wooden floors and a long, tufted black leather sofa with tables and chairs buttressing one side of the wall. A pillow-strewn window banquette and solitary leather chairs offer additional seating, as does a mallside patio. While the downtown Mudhouse likely sees more of a “who’s who” of C’ville for those remote workers looking to make an impromptu connection, it can also be too crowded for comfort. The local chain’s newest location on 10th Street, just off West Main, is light and airy–ideal for those of us who need a little more space.

Belle Coffee & Wine (407 Monticello Rd.)

Vibe: European-style café meets neighborhood hang space. One of the newest coffee shops on the block, Belle, is just that—a beautiful space. The name, of course, is a play on the neighborhood where it resides, Belmont. Chill out and get some work done amidst Belle’s cool Euro vibes—white and blue tones, blonde wood tables, and a giant map of Belmont on the far wall above a cushy brown leather sofa. Music selections run to adult contempo for the millennial generation with some throwbacks for the rest of us–everything from Bread and Hall & Oates to Haley Reinhart and Lord Huron. Can’t find room inside? Stake out a picnic table on the banana tree-curtained patio or a seat in one of the bistro-style chairs under the yellow awning.

Grit Coffee (2035 Bond St., Ste. #185)

Vibe: Do work, drink coffee, then reward yourself with shopping. While you may think the Downtown Mall location of Grit Coffee would be the best tele-work option out of its multiple local cafes, its stylish outpost at The Shops at Stonefield is even better. The café is outfitted with giant white orb-shaped pendant lights, lots of tables to spread out (but don’t—share that space with your fellow itinerant workers!), a wide, sunny yellow banquette, and stools and bar tables. The buzz is low-key and contemplative—overhead music plays at a gentle decibel. And if the weather is nice, you can grab a seat at one of the purple sidewalk chairs outside. Side note: Grit is ever- expanding—a new café opened recently at the bottom of Pantops and another from the Grit Coffee team is coming to the under-construction Wool Factory.

Snowing in Space (705 W. Main St.)

Vibe: Bold, bright, and colorful West Main Street café filled with murals. Let the artfully disembodied head of Bill Murray (whose film Groundhog Day inspired the coffee shop’s name) spark some work creativity. The Murray mural and frenetic color scheme are the first things that capture your attention when you walk in. Ample seating is available (try to score one of the booths, upholstered in sparkly fuchsia fabric), while the likes of Nirvana, Foo Fighters, and Incubus play on the overhead speakers. The café’s undertone of coolness tempers the loudness of the wall graphics–and the music. Snowing in Space may be best for the kind of work that requires free-flowing idea generation and creative thinking, maybe less so for hammering out that tedious RFP proposal or white paper. Grab a can of nitro cold brew coffee on the way out for the all-nighter or early morning work sesh at home.

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Living

Out and about: Living, food & drink events

Baloo is the name of this classic panel truck, which is also a kegerator—now serving at Old Trail Golf Club in Crozet. Photo: Aaron Watson

Get your goat

Next Tuesday Caromont Farm, the craft goat-cheese haven, invites you to stop by, take a tour, and enjoy a nosh with your fall weather. While you’re sure to see some of the crazy-eyed critters who make the cheese possible, the real attraction is the chance to meet owner and culinary sage Gail Hobbs-Page and sample some of her creamy creations paired with charcuterie and homemade jams and spreads. October 29, $44, 11am-3pm, Esmont, see facebook.com/caromontfarm for tickets

Foam fight!

Mudhouse Coffee Roasters in Crozet is inviting amateur and professional baristas to show off their latte skills in a benefit for the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank. Contestants buy in for $5 each, and the most artful topping takes all. DJ Thomas Dean will be spinning, and a raffle for prizes from local businesses will benefit the food bank. October 24, registration deadline 6pm; first pour 6:30pm, Crozet, 823-2240, mudhouse.com

Salt and smoke

The wood-fired cooking wizards at Little Star are teaming up with the briny bunch from Public Fish & Oyster for a fall feast of smoked pork ribs, pork sandwiches, grilled corn, vegetarian chili, raw oysters, and—okay, we have to stop now, we’re hungry! October 27, pay as you graze, 11am-7pm, 420 W. Main St., 252-2502, littlestarrestaurant.com

Pints on the green

Crozet’s Restoration restaurant at Old Trail Golf Club is pouring pints from a 1942 Ford F3 panel truck outfitted as a mobile kegerator with six taps. Gaze at the mountains, get a burger and a beer, cozy up to the fire pit after dark—and be sure to practice your Caddyshack jokes, so you’ll have that going for you, which is nice. Through November 1, 11am-9pm Tuesday-Saturday; 10am-2pm Sunday, 823-1841, restorationcrozet.com

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Living

Mudhouse to open third stand-alone location

Mudhouse will open its third standalone location in the former Cville Classic cars space on 10th Street. Rendering courtesy Wolf Ackerman Architecture + Design

By Sam Padgett and Erin O’Hare
eatdrink@c-ville.com

A third full-size Mudhouse will soon open on 10th Street NW, in the former Cville Classic Cars space. The local roastery and coffee shop’s new location will offer the usual Mudhouse coffee and atmosphere, plus an extended array of bakery items. Mudhouse co-owner Lynelle Lawrence is excited to add yet another java option to the already robust caffeine community in Charlottesville. For Lawrence, community is most important to the archetypal coffee shop environment where people can bring their laptops and business partners to a welcoming (and fragrant) place.

Lawrence plans to extend the community aspect of the new Mudhouse by making the brewing and roasting process more transparent.

“The thing about coffee is, we can’t grow it in our backyard,” says Lawrence. “This means we have to connect to other communities in Central America and Africa.”

There are plenty of quality coffee joints all over town, and Mudhouse’s new building of brew is intended to be accessible to a new group of people. “We want to serve that part of the community who knows about us, but can’t get to us as easily,” says Lawrence.

Smokehouse closed

According to a message posted to the restaurant’s website, The Local Smokehouse closed its doors at 816 Hinton Ave. in Belmont on March 30. Fans of Matthew Hart’s barbecue can still get it via The Local Catering.

Common vision

Matt Greene, the chef who consulted on Common House’s food and beverage program before the membership-driven social club at 206 W. Market St. opened last May, is back in the club’s kitchen as executive chef and culinary director. Greene, who worked at Marlow & Sons in New York, takes over for executive chef Antwon Brinson, who left to work with the City of Charlottesville to start a program teaching life skills through what can be learned in the kitchen (see our most recent issue of Knife & Fork magazine for more on that).

In advance of its first birthday, Common House has launched two new food initiatives that open the club’s ground floor to the public. One of those is Street Food Sundays, where local chefs cook street food-inspired menus served out of the social club’s chef’s counter on the ground floor Vinegar Hall room. Frank Paris of Heirloom at the Graduate Charlottesville hotel (and formerly of Miso Sweet) cooked ramen for the first Street Food Sunday last month. Ryan Collins is up next, on Sunday, April 15.

Collins, who previously cooked at Early Mountain Vineyards and some of José Andrés’ Washington, D.C., establishments, will offer a menu of Mexican-inspired cuisine similar to the food that will be served at Little Star, his forthcoming restaurant that will open sometime this year in the former Threepenny Café space at 420 W. Main St.

Proceeds from this week’s Street Food Sundays will benefit Andrés’ World Central Kitchen, which aims to create solutions for ending hunger and poverty around the world. Service starts at 4pm, and will go until they run out.

Also on April 15, Common House begins a community brunch series open to the public, each meal benefiting a different local community organization. The Virginia Institute of Autism is the beneficiary of the first brunch’s proceeds.

Winning whiskies

Virginia Distillery Co.’s whiskies continue to rack up the accolades. Its Cider Cask Finished Virginia-Highland Whisky was named best of class in the certified blended spirits category at this year’s American Distilling Institute Judging of Craft Spirits, where craft spirits from small, independently owned distillers are tasted blind and evaluated by a panel of dozens of spirits experts. Additionally, the Lovingston-based distillery’s Port Cask Finished Virginia-Highland Whisky was named America’s Best Blended Malt at Whisky Magazine’s 2018 World Whiskies Awards.

Dining royalty

The Castle, UVA’s former late-night snack bar nestled deep within the old dorms, is making a comeback (and getting a facelift in preparation) as part of the Bonnycastle dormitory remodeling project. Since the spot is primarily frequented by students (it’s literally attached to a dorm), student input directed the remodel. The most significant change to The Castle is that it will no longer serve any meat, pushing UVA’s food provider Aramark to figure out a customizable series of bowls, salads and sandwiches. Additionally, The Castle’s new seating arrangement is described as “mindful,” focusing on soft chairs and open spaces, surely a welcome upgrade from cafeteria tables and bean bags. The Castle is expected to open in time for classes in the fall.

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Living

Fan favorites: Charlottesville’s signature dishes and drinks

Bodo's Deli-Egg. Photo by Morgan Salyer

By Nathan Alderman, Shea Gibbs, Jackson Landers and Caite White

Much in the way that giving directions to a newcomer will never not be thrilling (or is that just us?), recommending an essential dining experience is also a rite of passage: It ups your townie cred and, if you’ve steered the novice correctly, shows off our local culinary aptitude. The food scene here continues to change and grow, but what follows is an abbreviated list of dependable recommendables—those classic Charlottesville foods that make us excited to keep eating here indefinitely. They’re just as good now as they were the day we found them (once someone steered us in the right direction).

All in one

Deli-Egg at Bodo’s

Bodo’s Deli-Egg isn’t just delicious. It also solves a problem.

“You get to a point where you’re slicing deli meat, and you have an undersized heel you don’t want to use for a sandwich,” says Scott Smith, co-owner of the venerable bagel vendor.

Bodo’s didn’t come up with the idea—it’s an old New York Jewish deli trick—but Smith and his team have taken it a step further. Because they’re not kosher, they’ve added ham, capicola, salami and Swiss, muenster and provolone cheese to the traditional deli egg mixture of pastrami and corned beef.

The result is one of Bodo’s most popular items. Indeed, the sandwich shop sells so much deli egg, they end up using far more cured meat than just the stuff that comes from the unused ends.

Smith says most folks are straight down the middle with their egg sandwich orders—Deli-Egg on an everything bagel is most popular. But some add more meat and cheese, usually bacon and cheddar, or balance out the richness with some punchy pepper spread.

Smith’s pro tip? Try the Deli-Egg a couple times before you make up your mind about it. The meat and cheese contents can vary depending on what’s available to chop on any given day.

Caff up

Cup of coffee at Mudhouse

Panama, Ethiopia, Colombia, Nicaragua—wherever there are good beans, there’s John and Lynelle Lawrence, the brains of Mudhouse’s successful operation for more than two decades. They get coffee from all over the world, bring it back to Charlottesville and roast it downtown, just up the street from their flagship mall shop. And their hard work continues to pay off, with plenty of buzz from locals and national press, too, like a recent Roaster of the Year award from Roast Magazine.

That’s so cheesy

Stumble Down Mac ‘N’ Cheese at The Virginian

“My chefs don’t need a gym membership,” says Bo Stockton, general manager at The Virginian. “They just carry the mac prep upstairs all day.” He’s joking—probably—but the beloved Corner appetizer does require between 35 and 50 pounds of pasta, roughly 15 pounds of potatoes and more cheese than Stockton cares to guess at, every single day.

Fourteen years ago, owner Andy McClure wanted to create a distinctive twist on macaroni and cheese, combining ultra-twisty cavatappi pasta with spicy pepper jack. Head chef Ernesto Salazar added a cheddar potato cake on top for extra crunch, and diners have been demanding it ever since.

“We get told about how people shared their first date over a mac app,” Stockton says, “while there is a photographer taking their picture eating a mac app because they are getting married that weekend.” Just don’t ask him to explain the Stumble Down name. “People have created their own meaning for the name,” he says, “and we like to think that is special!”

Hungry for more? Read the full list of our favorite iconic Charlottesville eats in the current issue of Knife & Fork!

Categories
Living

Meet Blue Ridge Pizza Co.’s new owners

Former Clifton Inn chef Yannick Fayolle and restaurant veteran Nikki Benedikt plan to revamp the Blue Ridge Pizza Co. menu but keep the name. Photo by Rammelkamp Foto

With its portable wood oven hitched to a pickup truck and fired-on-the-spot pizzas generously topped with local ingredients, Blue Ridge Pizza Co. has been dishing out personal-sized pies at Lockn’, the Heritage Harvest Festival and other social gatherings in town and around the county since spring 2013.

Yannick Fayolle, former Clifton Inn executive chef, and Nikki Benedikt, who’s worked in the restaurant industry for years, first as a server and later behind the bar and in management, have recently taken over the company.

Fayolle, a classically trained chef who went to school in Switzerland, owned a restaurant in his native Mauritius and cooked at a few eateries in Dubai before coming to the U.S. and cooking at Farmington Country Club and the Clifton Inn, where he served first as executive sous chef and in October 2015 rose to executive chef.

Fayolle left the Clifton Inn this past August, after he and Benedikt decided to pursue a private, in-home chef and catering business, Fayolle’s Table. Then, the Blue Ridge Pizza Co. opportunity “just fell into our laps, really,” Fayolle says, adding that taking ownership of the pizza company quickly facilitated the move and immediately gave Fayolle a working commercial kitchen for both businesses. The duo plans to keep the Blue Ridge Pizza Co. logo and the wood oven, but that’s about it.

They’ll change up the menu and the look of the truck and trailer. Fayolle says he’s having fun using the wood oven and learning the science of making dough. His pie-of-the-moment? The Fall Foliage, topped with wood-fire-roasted pumpkin, crispy kale, goat cheese and balsamic drizzle. “Very simple, but very fall,” he says.

Roast of the town

In 2012, after years of serving coffee—beginning from a City Market cart in 1993 and later at the flagship café on the Downtown Mall—Mudhouse Coffee founders Lynelle and John Lawrence decided to get into the coffee roasting game for themselves. They wanted to learn the craft and expand their company, so “it was an obvious next step for growth…and way too much fun,” Lynelle says. Their work has paid off: Mudhouse was recently named Micro Roaster of the Year for 2017 in Roast magazine’s 14th annual Roaster of the Year competition. According to Roast’s website, the awards are meant to “help inspire further excellence and success in the roasting industry.”

“This is the tippy top, the third Michelin star. This is the highest preeminent award for all coffee roasters in the U.S. and abroad,” Lynelle says. “We’re standing on the shoulders of giants, of course, and now we sit in the company of the top coffee roasters in the world. It is an incredible honor, and it belongs to the whole crew at Mudhouse.”

Good weird

Yearbook Taco will close its doors by the end of the year. “One gets the sense that the Yearbook Taco concept has almost run its course at this location,” says owner Hamooda Shami. “But rather than be dramatic and somber about it, we’re keeping things light and closing things out the right way…with tacos and booze,” Shami says. Every day from now until Yearbook closes, the restaurant is offering one of its top-shelf tequilas for half price until the bottle is empty. The space won’t be empty for long, though. Shami plans to introduce a new concept that “will be a better fit for the space and the neighborhood. Things are going to get weird (in a good way), and hopefully it’ll capture the imagination of the city.”

Contact Erin O’Hare at eatdrink@c-ville.com.

Categories
Living

Cold-brew coffee isn’t a watered down version of the original

Snowing in Space Coffee Co. co-owner Paul Dierkes, left, says adding nitrogen results in smooth, thick and creamy coffee, similar to a Guinness.

It’s been really hot. We’re all sweaty and sluggish, and most of us could use a good jolt to get through the dog days of summer.

Enter iced coffee, which, on a steamy day, can taste like the ambrosia of the gods…as long as it’s done right.

Brew a regular cup of coffee, let it cool and drop in a few ice cubes and you’ll be left with a bland, weak, watered-down brew. It might cool you down, but it won’t taste very good. There’s an art to brewing a flavorful glass of iced coffee, and coffee shops and markets all over town are mastering it with different techniques.

None of them are necessarily better than others, it’s just “a matter of preference,” says Milli Coffee Roasters owner Nick Leichtentritt.

Here are some of the methods local coffee shops are using right now.

Cold brew

A few years ago, almost nobody was cold-brewing coffee, says Shark Mountain owner and head coffee roaster Jonny Nuckols. Now, it’s all the rage, probably because the cold-brew method yields a smooth, flavorful, non-acidic beverage ideal for adding some cream and sipping slowly, he says.

Cold-brew coffee is a distinct way of brewing. As its name implies, it never touches heat. To create a batch of Shark Mountain cold brew, Nuckols finely grinds a light-roast coffee and adds the grounds to a filter bag within a nylon bag inside a five-gallon bucket. He pours about three gallons of cool water onto the grounds and lets the mixture soak for 20 to 24 hours. Then, he pours the filtered, concentrated brew into a five-gallon keg and adds water to bring the brew to a normal, but still fairly strong, strength. It’s dispensed from the keg and poured over ice as customers order.

This method extracts good flavors from the bean while leaving out the bitterness found in hot coffees, says Nuckols. Depending on the bean used, you’ll taste more chocolate, nut and berry flavors than you might with a hot cup of coffee, but you won’t get as robust a flavor profile, because high temperature is what ultimately draws out all of those notes. But still, “cold brew is definitely a good thing for the coffee industry,” he says. You can try Shark Mountain cold brew at Studio IX or at the iLab at Darden.

Shenandoah Joe’s Brain Freeze is also a cold-brew iced coffee. Owner Dave Fafara says his shops use a blend of coffees created specifically for iced coffee. Their 16-hour, triple-strained cold brew is popular: Fafara estimates that, during the summer, Shenandoah Joe moves between 100 and 125 gallons in Charlottesville each week. And JM Stock Provisions also sells cold brew—you can take home a growler of it—which they brew in-house.

Japanese style

Over at Milli Coffee Roasters on the corner of Preston Avenue and McIntire Road, Leichtentritt uses the Japanese-style iced coffee method. The resulting brew is “a little more well-balanced,” he says. “One of the big selling points of cold-brew coffee is that people say it’s very low-acid.” But, to him, “that little bit of acid is what helps make a good, balanced cup of coffee.”

Like cold brew, the Japanese-style method begins with finely ground coffee and a filter, but this method uses hot water. “It’s essentially like brewing really strong coffee” that is immediately poured—and thus cooled and diluted—over ice, Leichtentritt says. The cooled coffee is then stored in a carafe and poured over ice once again upon serving.

Cooling the coffee right away is the key. High temperatures bring out a coffee’s flavor, but the longer a brew is exposed to air as it cools, the more those flavor-packed compounds break down. Cooling the coffee quickly, with ice, helps trap and preserve those compounds.

Other shops around town, including Atlas Coffee and Mudhouse, make their iced coffee using a similar process. It’s the easiest way to make a lot of iced coffee quickly, says one Mudhouse barista.

Nitro

Nitro coffee, one of the latest coffee trends, is more like a craft beer than a brewed coffee, says Snowing in Space Coffee Co. co-owner Paul Dierkes. Nitro isn’t served on ice, but it is cold brewed and served cold from a keg. It tastes great black, but if cream and sugar is your thing, pour ’em in.

To brew nitro, Snowing in Space cold brews coffee on a large scale, kegs it, then pumps nitrogen gas into the keg at a high pressure for a long time to essentially agitate the brew. It’s served directly from the keg’s tap. Dierkes likens the resulting brew to a Guinness (a nitrogenated beer); it’s smooth, thick and creamy, with a foamy head.

Snowing in Space sources its beans from Shenandoah Joe and offers three single-origin brews, including the straightforward, nutty Brazilian Gimme-Dat and the unusual blueberry Lil Blue, and plans on introducing more varieties, including a cocoa mole flavor, soon. “The goal is experimentation,” Dierkes says while admitting he’s not a coffee connoisseur. “Let’s get experimental with styles and flavors and get interesting coffees to people.”

You can try Snowing in Space’s nitro coffee at Paradox Pastry, Keevil & Keevil Grocery and Champion Brewery. But it isn’t the only nitro in town—Shenandoah Joe and Mudhouse offer it as well.