Piedmont Place – C-VILLE Weekly

Piedmont Place becomes area’s newest food destination

Crozet’s Piedmont Place has just about everything under its roof: multiple restaurants, an ice cream shop, a yoga studio, a bookstore and apartments. It also has a restaurant and bar on top of its roof. Located at 2025 Library Way in downtown Crozet, the building boasts spectacular views of the Blue Ridge Mountains from every room. The views are nice and all, but we’re all about the food, so here’s a quick guide to what’s available to eat and drink at Piedmont Place.

The Rooftop

Ride the Piedmont Place elevator all the way to the top for small plates, craft cocktails and wood-fired pizzas from the Smoked BBQ Co. team.

The details: The Rooftop opened Friday, March 10. Open 5pm-midnight Thursday through Saturday; 5-9pm Sunday.

Pro tip: With lounge furniture, outdoor heaters and blankets, this will be a hangout spot for every season.

Don’t miss: The views of the Blue Ridge Mountains, of course!

Smoked Kitchen & Tap

You know exactly what you’re getting into here—slow-cooked, hickory-smoked barbecue, with secret dry rubs and sauces made from scratch. You’ll get all of the sandwiches—pulled pork and brisket—cole slaw and potato salad the Smoked BBQ Co. food cart is known for. And in addition to the robust barbecue offerings, the expanded menu includes appetizers, house milkshakes, burgers and vegetarian options.

The details: Eat in or take out 11am-9pm Tuesday through Thursday; 11am-10pm Friday and Saturday; and 11am-8pm Sunday. Closed Monday.

Pro tip: Try all five of the sauces: Spicy Red, Honey Red, Carolina Fire, Sweet Virginia Blue and the Low-Country Mustard. Each one comes out of a slightly different barbecue tradition and gives a different flavor to the ’cue.

Don’t miss: The pulled pork with a few sides (we suggest the potato salad and the creamed corn with smoked jalapeño) and the key lime pie for dessert.

Morsel Compass

One of Charlottesville’s favorite food trucks is serving more than tacos at its first stationary location, but it’s still the same homemade food the truck is known for.

The details: Take out or eat in 11am-7pm Tuesday through Saturday; 11am-2pm Sunday. Closed Monday.

Pro tip: Small space, small menu. Check Facebook or morselcompass.com for daily specials.

Don’t miss: The grilled Brie, fig jam, apple and arugula sandwich on Tuscan bread. Oh yeah, and the tacos, which come in pairs.

Blue Ridge Bottle Shop

Blue Ridge Bottle Shop is a bit like Charlottesville’s beloved Beer Run, but on a smaller scale and with much better views. Stocked with a nice variety of domestic and imported canned and bottled beers, wines, ciders and a few goodies such as beef jerky, popcorn, Mad Hatter hot sauces, Gearharts chocolates and Hubs Virginia Peanuts, it’s a good spot to hit on the way home from work or en route to a party. And you can sample a variety of beer and cider from kegs on tap before you make your final selections.

The details: Mix a six-pack or fill your growler from 11am-8pm Tuesday through Saturday; noon-5pm Sunday. Closed Monday.

Pro tip: Ask the expert staff for their opinions on the brews and vintages.

Don’t miss: The shelf near the door stocked with six-packs of cans from Virginia breweries—Starr Hill, Three Notch’d, Hardywood, Pale Fire and others.

Smojo

Smoothies, juices and salads, oh my! Stop in to Smojo for a quick meal or snack. For those who need a little extra boost, they sell organic coffee, too.

The details: Snag your treat to-go 7:30am-6:30pm Monday through Friday; 9am-5pm Saturday. Closed Sunday.

Pro tip: Owner Beth Hartley is a trained chef who interned at The Inn at Little Washington, so you can expect these blends to be as tasty as they are good for you. Six ounces of a blended juice costs $3.50; smoothies cost around $6. Add a scoop of granola, protein powder, chia seed or turmeric to any smoothie for a little extra dough.

Don’t miss: The heart beet juice, made of pomegranate, pear, beet, lemon and ginger; or the sweet green smoothie, a blend of kiwi, cashew milk, kale, banana, pineapple and apple.

Crozet Creamery

“Eighteen luscious, scrumptious flavors—chocolate, lime and cherry. Coffee, pumpkin, fudge-banana, caramel cream and boysenberry,” begins Shel Silverstein’s “Eighteen Flavors” poem about the delights (and disappointments) of ice cream. Crozet Creamery’s ice cream case boasts a different combo of 18 luscious, scrumptious homemade flavors each day, all of which can be scooped solo or made into a sundae.

The details: Get the scoop noon-9pm Tuesday through Sunday. Closed Monday.

Pro tip: No dairy? No problem. There are always some non-dairy flavors like raspberry, lemon and coconut chip ready for the scooping.

Don’t miss: The fun flavors like Rice Krispie treat, glazed Krispy Kreme, cinnamon bun and crazy vanilla, and the wide variety of peanut butter and chocolate flavors—on a recent day, they had peanut butter cup, peanut butter swirl (with Reese’s pieces) and chocolate peanut butter in the case.

Smoked food cart returns to downtown

Remember how sad you were in August, when the Smoked BBQ Co. food cart ran out of ’cue on its last day on the mall, and how you had to wait until December to eat it again, after a drive to Smoked Kitchen and Tap in Crozet?

Well, you can forget all about that, because Smoked is returning to the Downtown Mall. I repeat: Smoked is returning to the Downtown Mall.

Starting the first week in April, the Smoked cart will settle back into its usual spot near the glass elevator on the far end of the mall and again dish up its beloved sandwiches, pulled pork and other barbecue specials on weekdays, says Smoked owner Justin van der Linde.

Pitmaster van der Linde and his sous chef, Kent Morris, have spent the past few months “getting things stabilized” at Smoked Kitchen and Tap, located at 2025 Library Way in Crozet’s Piedmont Place building.

Once the restaurant was up and running, the decision to return the Smoked cart to the mall was an easy one for van der Linde. He says customers kept requesting they bring the cart back, and the Smoked crew wanted to keep a presence in the city.

Food hall fantasy

The Yard—a 10,000-square-foot food hall and meeting area with patios, benches, Wi-Fi and restaurants aplenty—is being planned for 5th Street Station. “Charlottesville has such a foodie culture—a great sense of place, good food and places for people to gather,” and The Yard will embrace that, says Jeff Garrison, a partner in the 5th Street Station property who is spearheading the project. He notes it’ll be similar to Atlanta’s Krog Street Market, one of the country’s best-known food halls. Garrison says they’re considering some Charlottesville-based food truck-type concepts, plus concepts from Richmond’s Carytown and elsewhere, but nothing is official. Garrison says The Yard will be the “finishing touch” to the 5th Street Station complex, and will open next to Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in late summer.

So long, Nude Fude

Nude Fude, the restaurant that served fast farm-to-table food at 2800 Hydraulic Rd., closed its doors following service on Saturday, March 4, after a little less than two years of service. Owners Ken and Dani Notari used sustainable, locally sourced ingredients to create their dishes. “We are tremendously proud of the effort we put into providing real, sustainable, nourishing and tasty food to a broader audience at reasonable prices and expand it beyond the domain of the white tablecloth [farm-to-table] restaurants,” says Ken. “It takes incredible effort and commitment and we were fortunate to have such awesome partners in local farmers, suppliers and artisan providers—that made the challenge fun!,” he continued, adding that while Nude Fude “developed a considerable following, slower than expected growth forced us to focus on our higher priorities. As much as we’ve enjoyed being a part of the shift in food culture, our family is the most important thing to us.”

But the Notaris aren’t saying goodbye to local food forever—they’ll reengage at some point, says Ken. “We do believe more people are realizing the benefits to eating (and operating a restaurant) this way to human health, the natural world and our communities. Eventually as more people continue to champion the move to clean food, the demand will tip and drive it mainstream. It is coming!”

Green machine

For the second year in a row, Wild Wolf Brewing Company has been named the Virginia Green Brewery of the Year by the Virginia Green Travel Alliance. The brewery’s practices include sending its spent grain to a local beef farm to be used as cattle feed and using cans rather than bottles. Cans are made of about 90 percent recycled materials and weigh less than bottles, which saves on shipping fuel, and they require less cardboard packing material.

The past and future collide in Crozet