Tag: Shenandoah Joe

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Culture Food & Drink Living

Students grab healthier options, and the Downtown Mall faces French paradox

Smoke in our eyes

A new Q joint started smoking last Friday. Vision Barbecue is pioneered by co-owners Mike Blevins and Gabi Barghachie, who came up with their “vision” for the restaurant while working together at Maya. These barbecue boys are on a mission to add their own take on authentic smoked meats and sides to the downtown restaurant scene. “We are using local wood and a match,” Barghachie says. “No chemical starters, no gas, no electric. Everything done the way it’s supposed to be done.” The menu offers meats by the pound, traditional sides with a spicy variation on pimento cheese, and Little Pig- and Big Hen-sized sandwiches for all appetites. Be sure to grab the wet naps when you pick up VB’s signature sammie, The Hot Mess, loaded with 10 ounces of brisket, pork, and chicken, and topped with pickled onions and jalapeño plus housemade cheese and pepper sauces. Vision Barbecue is located next to The Shebeen at 249 Ridge McIntire Rd., and is open Thursday through Monday.

Crammin’ the good stuff

While we can’t imagine students completely ditching Gusburgers, donuts, and Chinese food delivery, it’s exciting to see UVA’s commitment to healthy, sustainable eating through a new partner­ship with Harvest Table. A subsidiary of Aramark, Harvest Table specializes in bringing locally sourced, high-quality food to institutional dining. Throughout the fall semester, the company tested its “immersive culinary movement” with pop-ups inside Runk dining hall, before fully integrating to bring Hoos a fresh, eco-friendly alternative.

All Runk food now comes from within a 150-mile radius of Charlottesville and is prepared entirely in-house—no premade hamburger patties, no packaged desserts. Through the initiative, students can choose non-GMO, antibiotic-free, and grass-fed as well as plant-based proteins, and there are options for those with food allergies and sensitivities.

Peter Bizon, executive chef for Harvest Table at Runk, says that university dining halls provide an excellent opportunity to bring local businesses together. He’s teamed up with Shenandoah Joe’s for coffee and Blue Ridge Bucha for on-tap kombucha.

“Some farms have the necessary licensing to do business with us and some don’t,” says Bizon. “We specialize in connecting the ones who don’t with the ones who do in order to foster cooperation among local producers. It means a lot when you can work with local farmers. You can get others involved and create a strong community.”

Harvest Table is also partnering with Babylon Micro-Farms, an organization founded by UVA alumni that helps restaurants grow produce in-house with systems that are remotely climate controlled and can support a wide
variety of plants, from lettuces to herbs, and even some edible flowers.

The university hopes to extend Harvest Table’s services to its other two dining halls in the future.

Frites on hold

While many local restos have pivoted creatively to stay open safely, using igloos, outdoor heaters, blankets, and stepped-up takeout offerings, Brasserie Saison has opted to close temporarily for the winter. The official statement from the popular Euro-pub says, “The health and safety of our restaurant family and community come first and we feel that the risk is too great for indoor dining during these winter months.” Owners say they plan to reopen in the spring, after the majority of the restaurant staff is able to receive vaccines. Then we can finally get back to enjoying the moules frites.

Frites on the go

Meanwhile, just up the mall, there’s another new restaurant from Ten Course Hospitality (the group behind Brasserie Saison, Revolutionary Soup, The Alley Light, The Pie Chest, The Bebedero, and most recently The Milkman’s Bar at Dairy Market): Café Frank, with an original menu from Chef Jose De Brito, whose resume includes Fleurie, The Alley Light, and The Inn at Little Washington. The new café is located in the former home of Splendora’s Gelato (we miss you!), and promises casual, French dining on the Downtown Mall (plus a robust daily to-go menu). The café’s bar program is by Mike Stewart, and Will Richey will curate the bistro-style wine list. We are excited to try the Royal Paella-for-Two with lobster, mussels, shrimp, and chorizo, but the hidden gem of this new foodie magnet might be the 4pm aperitif hour, when De Brito creates unique bites to pair with a prosecco bar-style sparkling wine list and cocktails. Café Frank is accepting takeout orders, and will be open for in-house dining Monday through Saturday beginning in March. —Will Ham

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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.

Categories
Living

Show some love for Virginia-made libations

Alec Spidalieri at Junction is shaking things up for Virginia Spirits Month with the Chai Tai, made with dark chai spice rum from Culpeper’s Belmont Farm’s Kopper Kettle, and the Other Woman, featuring rose-infused Belle Isle premium moonshine. Photo by Amy Jackson

Bottoms up, y’all. It’s Virginia Spirits Month here in the commonwealth, sponsored by the Virginia Distillers Association and meant to spotlight Virginia-made spirits. Many local bartenders do so all year ’round, but there are a few special cocktails this month that are worth sidling up to the bar for.

Junction’s Alec Spidalieri is shaking things up with the Rum Communion, the Stablemate, the Chai Tai and the Other Woman. The Rum Communion is “an upscale, seasonal daiquiri for fall,” says Spidalieri, and is made with Charlottesville’s own Vitae Spirits golden rum. Spidalieri washes each bottle of golden rum with one pound of brown butter—he whisks the rum and butter together, then freezes the mixture overnight, skims off the butter, strains and rebottles the rum—then combines the butter-washed rum with a cordial made from grilled pineapple and fresh lime juice, aggressively shaken, strained and served up.

“It’s a rich but balanced cocktail that packs a lot of flavor with butter and caramel notes,” says Spidalieri.

The Chai Tai’s components, dark chai spice rum from Culpeper’s Belmont Farm’s Kopper Kettle combined with Pierre Ferrand Dry Curaçao, lime and orgeat (“a sort of floral almond milk syrup,” Spidalieri explains), give this take on a classic mai tai “a new dimension of spice character that makes it perfect for late summer/early fall,” says Spidalieri.

Over at The Alley Light, in addition to the popular Rose Hill Ruby with Vitae Spirits platinum rum, Micah LeMon’s making a Virginia Alexander, made with Bowman Brothers bourbon, Vitae Spirits golden rum, P.Boo’s salted rum caramel (which LeMon makes himself), cream, egg white and black salt, and the Ugly Stick, concocted with Copper Fox rye, Virginia black birch (another LeMon creation), smoked maple, Zucca and black walnut bitters. LeMon says he’s also hitting a lot of folks with the Ugly Stick, perhaps due in no small part to the Copper Fox rye, made in Sperryville, which LeMon says “is an anomalous and interesting distillate” that tastes more Scotch-y than most whiskeys because of its high barley content.

Tavola, Whiskey Jar, Rapture and The Local are participating in Virginia Spirits Month, too, as are Charlottesville ABC stores, where you can taste some local spirits during in-store events.

Bowled over

Charlottesville’s super into bowls, with spots like Roots Natural Kitchen, Chopt, Poke Sushi Bowl and The Salad Maker, which all rolled into town over the last couple of years. Now we have two more: Citizen Bowl and b.good.

Citizen Bowl is open from 11am-3pm Monday through Friday in the Penny Heart private event space on the Downtown Mall (it’s the spot previously occupied by Eleven Months Presents: Sorry It’s Over and, before that, Yearbook Taco). Citizen Bowl offers eight different specialty bowls, all of which are gluten-free, such as the Fall Harvest (quinoa, power greens, beets, sweet potato, toasted pumpkin seeds, apple, chevre, balsamic) and the #umami (brown rice, power greens, local mushrooms, toasted sesame seeds, jalapeno, cilantro, edamame, arctic char, cilantro lime dressing), and make-your-own custom bowls.

Our bowls runneth over as casual farm-to-fork chain b.good is scheduled to open this week in the north wing of the Barracks Road Shopping Center, between Pink Palm and Penelope, with an array of grains and greens salads. The menu also promises burgers—beef, turkey, veggie—and chicken sandwiches made a few different ways, such as the Cousin Oliver (lettuce, tomato, onions, homemade pickles) or the El Guapo (bacon, homemade jalapeno slaw, jalapeno ranch), plus sides like sweet potato fries, avocado toast and eggplant meatballs, as well as smoothies, milkshakes and kids’ meals.

Hurricane relief

A few local food-and-drink spots are contributing to relief efforts for the damage caused by hurricanes Harvey and Irma, which together killed more than 150 people and caused billions of dollars in damage in Texas, Florida and the Caribbean.

For an entire week in late August/early September, Jack Brown’s Beer & Burger Joint, which has 10 locations throughout the southern United States, including one on Second Street SE off the Downtown Mall, donated 100 percent of its profits—totaling $34,236.61—to the American Red Cross to assist with Harvey relief.

This past weekend, Shenandoah Joe and Three Notch’d Brewing Company combined efforts to gather supplies for those affected. They’d hoped to fill a 48-foot trailer to send down to the people in southern Florida whose lives were “turned upside down” by Hurricane Irma, says Shenandoah Joe owner Dave Fafara. Although they collected quite a bit, including boxes of nonperishable canned and boxed food, clothes, diapers, cleaning supplies and more than 100 cases of water, plus $600 in cash donated by City Market vendors on Saturday, they didn’t get enough to fill a trailer on their own, so they’re combining with a similar Greene County effort to send a truck of supplies down this week. Someone even donated a car seat, says Fafara, adding that “it was good to see the community do something for people they don’t know.”

Categories
Living

Get your fix at new mobile cake bar

Rock and Megan Watson started their by-the-slice cake business after seeing a similar operation in Dallas. Photo courtesy of Lora Kelley.

Have your cake and eat it, too: The newly launched Sliced. Cake Bar offers homemade cake by the slice, buttercream shots and cake flights (like a beer flight, but with cake).

Co-owners Megan and Rock Watson got the idea after visiting a popular Dallas cake bar. Only Rock thought the sweet treats couldn’t hold a candle to his wife’s (she’s been making cakes for various events for 15 years). With use of a bakery space from a friend with Craft Cville, they were able to bring Sliced. to life.

Six flavors are on the Sliced. menu: lemon, strawberry, confetti, chocolate with chocolate icing, chocolate salted caramel and carrot cake, all made with organic ingredients. For a cake flight, customers can choose three sample-sized flavors. The Watsons plan to experiment with local booze in their buttercream shots, too.

Sliced. debuted at Early Mountain Vineyards on July 29. The lemon and chocolate salted caramel cakes were fan favorites—Rock says they sold out of both.

The Watsons hope to bring their concept to local markets and will post upcoming dates and locations on Sliced.’s Facebook and Instagram pages.

Eventually they hope to open a brick-and-mortar store and hire teenagers who are in the foster-care system or are at-risk as part of an internship program that teaches them about the bakery business. The couple has fostered and adopted children themselves.

“This is an opportunity for us to take something that we love doing and teach it and show it to others,” Megan says. Icing on the cake.

Not so sweet

According to a post published on Miso Sweet Ramen + Donut Shop’s Facebook page Thursday, August 3, the restaurant will close its doors for good on Friday, August 11, after two years in business. The post also mentions that Miso Sweet chef and owner Frank D. Paris III will soon work at Graduate Charlottesville.

Shenandoah Joe buzz

The Shenandoah Joe roastery and coffee shop on Preston Avenue is expanding, not only in terms of space but what it has to offer. The shop will nearly double in size and have more seating indoors and out, as well as a community cupping room, where Shenandoah Joe coffee experts will teach C’ville java enthusiasts how to taste (really taste!) their coffee and make a damn fine cup o’ Joe at home, among other things.

And good news for coffee-cravers: The coffeehouse will remain open throughout remodeling, which will incorporate the former CASPCA retail store next door.

“We’ll try not to close the doors and stop C’ville from being caffeinated,” Shenandoah Joe owner Dave Fafara says.

The coffee shop will top out at right under 6,000 square feet once the expansion is complete in late September, and there will be “a little more parking than before,” Fafara says.

“It’s gonna be pretty cool,” he adds. “It’s kind of like a wedding: something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.”

Neighborhood lunch

Serving a comforting plate of homemade casserole has a way of bringing people together, and The Haven is doing just that with some help from Downtown Mall denizens who sometimes go unseen. The Haven will serve homestyle meals to the public on Wednesdays beginning in mid-September, and café staff (servers and hosts) will be guests of the day shelter.

Diana Boeke, director of community engagement at The Haven, says the inspiration to serve lunch once a week to the public came from Our Community Place in Harrisonburg, a homeless and in-need shelter like The Haven. The Haven offers breakfast to the shelter’s guests daily, but Boeke says there is more need for community interaction.

“For those people who are sort of in a state where they can’t engage with society very regularly, [these meals] create a sense of purpose and community in their life,” Boeke says.

Eight Haven guests have signed up as waitstaff to gain job experience. There will be two invitation-only soft launches for the lunch program in August.

The meal—a choice of salad or soup, a meat or vegetarian entrée and a dessert—will cost $10, all of which will go to The Haven.

“All of our guests are your neighbors, too, whether you see them here, or you see them on the street or you don’t see them at all,” Boeke says. “They’re a part of the Charlottesville community.”

Categories
Living

Seasonal drinks to keep you jolly

The Whiskey Jar’s Christmas cocktail menu includes drinks such as O the Weather Outside is Weather, Made in China and the Cotton-Headed Ninny Muggins, made with butter, bourbon and salted caramel whipped cream. Photo by Tom McGovern

Watering holes all over town are getting into the Christmas spirits—er, spirit—this week, decking the halls and pouring festive drinks galore.

The Whiskey Jar’s Christmas pop-up bar will feature an all-Christmas cocktail list created by bar director Leah Peeks and assistant bar manager Reid Dougherty. “We’re going to tacky the place up, play Christmas music, have Christmas food and go nuts,” Peeks says. Look for the Dancin’ In Your Head (moonshine punch, starfruit and sugar plum); I Don’t Give A Fig About All This (fig jelly, scotch, lemon and ginger); Cotton-Headed Ninny Muggins (butter, bourbon and salted caramel whipped cream); All I Want for Christmas is Booze (Tröegs Mad Elf Belgian-style strong dark ale and a shot of Angel’s Envy bourbon); and plenty of other heart- and belly-warmers.

Lost Saint, the bar below Tavern & Grocery on West Main, is also serving winter warmers such as an old-fashioned garnished with a cinnamon stick, homemade eggnog and mulled wine amidst snowflake and icicle lights hanging from the low ceiling.

The Alley Light will serve Micah Le-Mon’s homemade eggnog (sometimes with Virginia apple brandy); Tavola’s winter menu includes drinks such as the Pompeii, a savory/smoky sipper that includes single-malt whiskey, Oloroso sherry, tayberry and vegetable ash; and Three Notch’d Brewing Company has its Stocking Stuffer peppermint stout on tap.

If you need a bit of a caffeine kick to make it through last-minute shopping trips, Shenandoah Joe’s We 3 Beans holiday blend is back, this time with Costa Rica El Cidral, Guatemala Altos del Volcan and Ethiopia Sidamo ARDI, creating notes of chocolate, nougat, citrus and berry.

Bye, bye, Brookville

Brookville Restaurant served its final meal—brunch—last Sunday, December 18.

“Every restaurant has a lifetime and Brookville has come to the end of its,” chef Harrison Keevil wrote in an e-mail shortly after making the announcement. He and his wife, Jennifer Keevil, opened Brookville, known for its farm-to-table comfort food—egg dishes, biscuits, chicken and waffles, chocolate chip cookies, bacon, bacon and more bacon—on the Downtown Mall in July 2010.

The Keevils will continue to serve local food at Keevil & Keevil Grocery and Kitchen at 703 Hinton Ave. in Belmont. They opened the shop in July of this year.

Going forward, Keevil says they’ll expand sandwich offerings at the shop and offer take-away hot dinners beginning in January.

A return to Duner’s

Laura Fonner is back in the kitchen at Duner’s Restaurant on Ivy Road. Fonner worked there for eight years—four as executive chef—before leaving after the birth of her second child in 2012. During that time, she did some catering and occasionally worked the front of the house at Duner’s. About a month ago, she accepted an offer to return to the kitchen after chef Doug McLeod’s departure.

Fonner enjoys the flexibility of Duner’s menu and the creative control it affords her. “I’m not restricted to one ethnicity or one cut of meat,” she says, noting that on Duner’s menu, Korean barbecued grilled tuna with handmade local mushroom and bok choy dumplings can be found right next to a classic gnocchi dish. “There’s no boundary!” she says.