Spring is coming, and so is the Tom Tom Summit & Festival. [UPDATE: Originally slated for April, Tom Tom has been rescheduled for September 21-27, 2020.] Every year, the event mixes music, community art projects, and a plethora of innovative business ideas. We caught up with Tom Tom’s executive director, Paul Beyer, for a look […]
Spring is coming, and so is the Tom Tom Summit & Festival. [UPDATE: Originally slated for April, Tom Tom has been rescheduled for September 21-27, 2020.] Every year, the event mixes music, community art projects, and a plethora of innovative business ideas. We caught up with Tom Tom’s executive director, Paul Beyer, for a look […]
Libby Edwards-Allbaugh, co-founder and co-owner of The Tax Ladies, thinks being a woman in a male-dominated industry is a strength. “This is such a traditional, conservative field,” she says. “The people in accountancy often lack people skills; I felt I could set a more personable tone.” The Tax Ladies, which she and partner Treat Jackson […]
Set in a field in the countryside far from the town’s population center, Barracks Road Shopping Center opened a handful of stores in 1959, anchored by a Kroger supermarket. Sixty years later, the center is the crown jewel of Charlottesville retail, hosting over 80 shops, restaurants, and experiences that attract customers from well beyond the […]
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: […]
THEN: Leggett’s, opened in 1939 // NOW: Violet Crown, opened in 2015 “Quality merchandise. Popular prices.” So went a 1954 ad slogan for Leggett’s, a department store well-known in Charlottesville—and throughout the Mid-Atlantic—for its mid-priced fashions and homewares. Leggett’s, then a privately-owned retail business, opened its first store in downtown Lynchburg in 1927. It arrived […]
Riki Tanabe opened Mochiko, a restaurant devoted to the Hawaiian food of his youth, two years ago. And while the business has grown from a farmers market stall to a food truck to a brick and mortar location, Tanabe is not resting on his laurels. “You have to be humble,” he says. “You have to […]
Valeria McFarren and Lily West met five years ago when both moved to Charlottesville, bonding as they learned their way around town and raised young children as professional women with busy husbands. Even as they prospered, McFarren, founder and principal of communications firm Chaski Global, and West, chief operating officer of the UVA Alumni Association, […]
When Erin James was pregnant with her first child, she and her husband Seth Herman were amazed by the amount of hand-me-down baby stuff that came their way. In local secondhand stores, too, the used baby gear abounded. At the time, they were looking to start a business that would set a positive example for […]
For small business, money is manure– it fosters growth. Charlottesville’s Office of Economic Development has launched an innovative program to provide financial fertilizer for budding businesses, encouraging them to put down roots here in hopes they bear fruit– i.e., tax revenues and jobs. The new program, called Cville Match, uses funds from the Charlottesville Economic […]
This area’s affordable housing crisis is often in the news, but what about the other side of the issue–a sustainable income? Businesses can do their part by hiring local residents, who with some assistance or training could step up to a better-paying job. The challenge is, how to find those people, match them with the […]