Stayin’ alive: Scarpa models small business ‘thrive-ival’

In retail, 25 years is more than a lifetime–and Amy Gardner, owner and founder of Scarpa, knows this as well as anyone. The women’s shoe shop she opened in North Barracks Road in 1994 has evolved into one of the area’s premier women’s apparel stores. Gardner’s adventure in retail was spurred by her passion for […]

Destination gourmand: The food hall revolution arrives in C’ville

From long-standing icons like Union Market in Washington, D.C. and Chelsea Market in New York City to relative newcomers like Workshop Charleston, food halls are a mainstay in urban districts across the nation. And Charlottes­ville will be getting one of its own in spring 2020 with the Dairy Market on Grady and Preston avenues, part […]

Made to last: Blanc Creatives cookware bridges new and old, form and function

While some locals lament the passing of small-town Charlottesville, tucked away in the Belmont neighborhood is a blacksmith shop called Blanc Creatives, where local artisans forge hand-crafted culinary tools they call “modern heirlooms made for daily use.” Corry Blanc–blacksmith, designer, and founder of Blanc Creatives–is a north Georgia native who learned pottery in high school, […]

Five-and-dime nostalgia

THEN: Woolworth’s, opened in 1965 (originally 1924); closed in 1997 / NOW: Caspari, opened in 2005 “Your Money’s Worth More at a Woolworth’s Store” was one of the ad slogans of the beloved discount department store, a downtown C’ville fixture for 73 years. Woolworth’s first opened downtown in 1924 on Main Street, and in 1965 […]