Tag: The Flat

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C-BIZ

Recipe for success: Vu Noodles’ survival story

Julie Vu Whitaker of Vu Noodles. Photo: John Robinson

Those who work in business can tell you that success requires hard work, adaptation, and some smiles from fate. Julie Vu Whitaker, founder and driving force behind Vu Noodles, can attest to all three.

In 2013, after 20 years as a social worker, Whitaker decided on a career shift. “[While] I still loved it, I was ready for a change,” she says.

From childhood, she enjoyed cooking and sharing foods from her Vietnamese heritage, and she credits her immigrant family (they arrived in Waynesboro when Whitaker was 8) with instilling a strong work ethic: “My family has always been in their own business.” She began selling Vu Noodles, her “to-go” take on traditional Vietnamese vegetable bowls, at The Farm corner grocery in Belmont. “It really opened my eyes,” she says. “People liked my food.”

Vu Noodles’ popularity led Whitaker to get her home kitchen commercially certified so she could supply vendors around town, from Whole Foods Market to Rebecca’s Natural Food and Martha Jefferson Hospital’s café. After three years working long hours—her bowls are prepared fresh every day—Whitaker says she needed some help. “I was thinking, ‘I can’t keep doing this alone.’” She jumped at the opportunity to take over The Spot on Second Street in partnership with Kathy Zentgraf of Greenie’s.

Demand soon meant the business had outgrown Whitaker’s home kitchen, so she struck a deal with Pearl Island Catering to rent the kitchen at the Jefferson School City Center and supply the café there. “Now I had a sit-down space, and could interact more with the customers, which I loved,” she recalls. But sharing the kitchen with Pearl Island’s growing business began to bind. By late 2019, Whitaker was considering the new Dairy Market, which would have meant taking on significant debt. “I’d always been able to fund my business myself,” she says.

One of Vu Noodles’ offerings. Photo: John Robinson

Enter another opportunity: Early this year Whitaker got an offer to take over The Flat Creperie’s space—right off the Downtown Mall, with its own kitchen, and small enough for Whitaker to handle with help from her husband and two sons, now in high school.

In another smile from fate, in May the United Way of Greater Charlottesville and the city’s Minority Business Alliance announced the first grants under a new partnership to help support local minority- and women-owned small businesses. One of the $5,000 grants went to Vu Noodles, although Whitaker had to be convinced by a friend to even apply. “I always feel that someone else needs the money more,” she says.

The timing was perfect. The grant (and the pandemic shutdown) enabled Whitaker to renovate the kitchen and install a microphone for contactless ordering before opening in July.

Starting up at a new location while downtown foot traffic is just recovering is a challenge, but over the years Vu Noodles has developed a sizable and devoted following. Whitaker’s offerings now include pho and banh mi sandwiches as well as her noodle bowls, and are all completely vegan—except for one important holdout. “I had to keep the fish sauce,” she says with a smile. “It’s so much a part of our food tradition.”

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Living

Thirst ’n howl: Wild Wolf opens second location downtown

Nelson County's Wild Wolf Brewing Company will hold the grand opening of its downtown Charlottesville location on June 2. Photo: courtesy Wild Wolf Brewing Company.

The door, kitchen, and taps are open at Wild Wolf Brewing Company’s downtown location, hard by the railroad tracks on Second Street. The brewery and restaurant’s soft opening in the former Augustiner Hall and Garden space precedes an “official” debut on June 2.

But there’s a hitch: Due to federal regulatory snags, the Wolf can’t yet serve its own beer, a lingering mess caused by the government shutdown (remember that?). One manager said he’d been informed that the ban would be lifted on Independence Day. Oh, the irony. In the meantime, while shiny nano-brewing vats stand idle in the dining room, patrons will have to settle for frothy beverages by Deschutes, Champion, and Three Notch’d, among others.

Chef Chris Jack, formerly of Staunton’s Zynodoa Restaurant, says the Wolf’s Charlottesville menu—as opposed to the one at its flagship, in Nellysford—has been “upscaled” to fit in the mix of culinary offerings nearby on the Downtown Mall. “Out in Nellysford, we do a lot of wood-smoking, but we wanted to try something different here,” he says.

So, while you can still get a corn dog ($6) for your kid, you may also tuck into a Candy Bar Steak ($28), with creamy risotto, carrot and roasted beet purée, heirloom carrots, and orange crème fraiche. A good ol’ cheddar burger will set you back $13.50.

Patrons may sit at outdoor tables shaded by bright red umbrellas (the patio shakes a bit when trains roll by), or duck inside, where the interior is dark, sleek, and industrial, with corrugated steel walls, exposed ductwork and ceiling trusses, and lots of wood surfaces. Four big-screen TVs hang above the U-shaped bar, so this will be a haven for sports fans—and eventually, fans of Wild Wolf’s own beer.

Take two

The smallest restaurant in Charlottesville, The Flat Creperie, has re-opened. Soon after it was offered for sale in a March 22 tweet, Elise Stewart became the third owner since the popular spot first opened in 2005. The menu is suitably short at the charming ivy-covered brick box on Water Street, with four sweet and four savory offerings. We tried the Summer Veggies crepe, a thin doughy wrap stuffed with chopped red pepper, mushrooms, zucchini, olives, tomato, feta, and caramelized onions—a tasty, two-handed meal for $8.

Nibbles

Just in time for the heat wave, Greenberry’s Coffee Co. is offering a line of canned cold-brew coffees. Root 29 is open for business at the DoubleTree by Hilton Charlottesville, with small and large plates served in a glass-walled room with a long bar and a trippy fake fireplace. Early Mountain Vineyards will soon announce the arrival of a new chef to fill the role once held by Ryan Collins, now of Charlottesville’s Little Star. Patisserie Torres, the sublime pastry shop of Serge Torres, formerly of Fleurie, is shuttering after less than a year in business. The boutique Oakhurst Inn (owned by C-VILLE Weekly co-founder Bill Chapman) has revealed the imminent arrival of Oakhurst Hall, an annex with eight guest rooms and—most importantly—the Chateau Lobby Bar, where craft cocktails, light fare, and live music will be on the menu.

Categories
Living

Small eateries are full of flavor

With just one three-seat table and 10 chairs at the bar, Atlas Coffee can accommodate more caffeine addicts when the weather’s nice—there are 31 additional spots on the patio out front. Photo by John Robinson

Yeah, yeah, you’ve heard it before: For a city its size, Charlottesville has a lot of restaurants. Like, a lot. In 2013, the Huffington Post ranked our city among the top 15 U.S. metro areas with the most eateries per capita, with 460 restaurants for 201,400 residents.

With so many chow options at our fingertips, it’s easy to overlook some of the smaller ones.

Here’s a roundup of some of the tiniest places to nosh in town—the limited number of seats at each spot makes eating (or caffeinating) there a little more special, like you’re privy to some great secret. We’ll keep this list just between us.

Atlas Coffee

2206 B Fontaine Ave., Fry’s Spring

Pop into Atlas Coffee for a cup of joe and a freshly baked Nutella cookie or raspberry triangle and you’ll be lucky to find a seat in this 751-square-foot neighborhood coffee shop tucked beneath the wing of the Fry’s Spring Guadalajara. With just one three-seat table and 10 chairs at the bar, Atlas can accommodate more caffeine addicts when the weather’s nice—there are 31 additional spots at the umbrella-covered tables on the patio out front.

The Spot

110 Second St. NW, downtown

At less than 50 square feet, The Spot is literally a hole in the wall. Actually, it’s a door and window in the wall, but you get the idea. Sidle up to the window to order vegetarian and vegan cuisine from Vu Noodles and Greenie’s. Unless you’re lucky enough to snag one of two seats at the window’s tiny counter, you’ll have to eat your delicious noms elsewhere. It’s a tight squeeze for The Spot workers, too—with only 35 square feet of walkable space, “we’re pretty cozy in here,” says Vu Noodles’ Julie Vu.

Blue Ridge Country Store

518 E. Main St., Downtown Mall

Stop by the Blue Ridge Country Store for a sandwich, or put together a monster salad for your lunch. Expect to take your food to go, but there are two pause-worthy rocking chairs in this oh-so-cozy shop.

The Flat

111 E. Water St. #A, downtown

Technically, The Flat is, as its full name suggests, a takeaway crêperie, but the itty-bitty two-story brick building covered in ivy is so darn cute customers hang around in hopes of eating their sweet and savory crêpes under the twinkly lights hanging above the small outdoor patio. There’s one table, one small counter with a couple of wire chairs and a little bench. The Flat is light on the hours but heavy on the charm, so when the two little windows in front are glowing, you know there’s something tasty happening inside.

Barbie's Burrito Barn. Photo by Amy Jackson

Barbie’s Burrito Barn

201 Avon St., Belmont

A woman named Barbie Brannock serves simple and super fresh CaliMex cuisine from this 721-square-foot rock barn near the Belmont Bridge. Barbie’s Burrito Barn has but two small square tables and eight chairs inside, plus a picnic table and four brightly colored plastic Adirondack-style chairs outside. Brannock is planning to add a community table inside, too, so that more burrito-lovers can chow down together on colder days.

The White Spot

1407 University Ave., The Corner

This late-night Corner haunt serves up its famous Gus burgers in what is more or less a wide hallway with two counters and just 16 stools.

This isn’t a definitive list, by any means—Mel’s Café, La Michoacana, Wayside Deli at Durty Nelly’s, Thai Fresh and Keevil & Keevil Grocery and Kitchen are pretty cozy places, too.