The return to warmer weather carries a bit more weight this year. It signals picnics, visiting the Downtown Mall to nab a bite and, of course, it means we’re inching closer and closer to feeling a melting ice cream cone drip down our chins. But we’ll breathe a sigh of relief when we’re able to dine outside at our favorite places once again—a
moment we’re celebrating in this issue with a few of our favorite eateries, from the mobile to the classic.
HANDHELD & HANDMADE
For nearly 27 years, Baggby’s has served sandwiches, salads, and soups on the Downtown Mall—and not even COVID-19 can keep it down.
Baggby’s co-founder Jon LaPanta wants you to know two things. First: To everyone who’s reached out to help keep the beloved Downtown Mall soup-salad-and-sandwich shop going during the COVID-19 pandemic, thank you. “We have been humbled by how many of our customers have reached out not only as customers,” he says, “but letting us know how much it means to them that we are still here.” And second, to everyone else: Yes, Baggby’s is still around.
“When we first opened, the challenge was to get the word out about Baggby’s,” LaPanta says. “Now we are faced with a similar challenge of letting people know that we are open and that the Downtown Mall is still a great place to visit.”
After LaPanta’s father Mike retired in 1991, he and his wife Ann wanted a project to keep them busy. The LaPantas and their sons Jon and Jason fell for Charlottesville and the Downtown Mall—“a perfect fit,” Jon recounts. The Baggby’s name came from the brown paper bags in which they serve their food, “like the lunch bag you carried to school,” Jon says.
LaPanta credits the shop’s decades of success to his family’s hands-on presence, making their dishes multiple times a day in small batches to ensure freshness. Jon and his wife Erin are the sole remaining founders involved with the business, but it remains a family affair; their kids often help out at the shop.
Like many local restaurants, Baggby’s faced crushing challenges from COVID-19. “The pandemic killed our business,” LaPanta says. They’ve scaled back and spread out their seating, hoping to roll back those changes as the pandemic recedes. “We are lucky to have great loyal customers that have really helped keeping us afloat.”
Pandemic or not, those diners keep coming back to Baggby’s for the comfort food they love. LaPanta says the turkey/bacon/avocado Remarkable and the grilled Navajo and Pueblo chicken subs are perennial favorites. “Our chicken salad has always been popular,” LaPanta says, “but now folks are ordering by the pound for use at home.”
With vaccinations underway, the LaPantas are looking forward to brighter times for Baggby’s—and perhaps the chance to try something new, like the cold lamb chop sandwich that Jon has wanted to add to the menu for years. “Keep a look out,” he says, “it may appear as a special soon.”—Nathan Alderman
Platter chatter
Pearl Island’s lunch special
is a triple threat
T
hree meats, rice, peas, salad, plantains, and slaw. It’s the Trifecta Platter at Pearl Island Café, and it means you don’t have to make decisions anymore.
“Our jerk and pork platters for the meat folks are up there in popularity, but it depends,” café owner Sober Pierre says. “For me, the best is the sous poulet.”
What happens when you order them all is a harmonious collection of roasted and stewed meats alongside accompaniments designed to make the mains sing their island song. The cafés simply seasoned Caribbean pulled pork comes out of a 225-degree oven after nearly 16 hours. The sous poulet, or chicken with gravy, serenades with sauce. Pearl Island roasts the yardbird, collects the juices, simmers in gravy, and returns the protein from whence it came. Then boom—the jerk chicken brings in traditional island spices like cayenne pepper, allspice, garlic, and ginger. “[We’re] Caribbean overall, and that captures Puerto Rican and Jamaican and Haitian,” Pierre says.
The Trifecta’s sides are never off-key, either, with traditional Puerto Rican-style rice and pigeon peas, kale dressed in shallot vinaigrette and tossed with watermelon radishes and shredded carrots, fried-to-order plantains, and pikliz. “Pikliz—that’s our spicy pickled slaw,” Pierre says. “It’s a very traditional Haitian dish that goes with anything fatty.” Yes, pik-lease.—Shea Gibbs
FOR HOME COOKIN’
Bring some of Pearl Island’s signature flavor to your own kitchen with a jar of pikliz (pronounced “peek-leez”), a spicy, citrusy coleslaw-like condiment straight from the Caribbean. A family recipe of owner Sober Pierre’s, pile pikliz on hot dogs, salads, or anything fried.
PICK IT & PACK IT
What are the best local places to procure that perfect picnic?
So you want to stroll into the foothills Sound of Music-style with your wicker baskets and acoustic guitar. And you want that Alpine meadow feeling on a warm spring day.
While you might not have outfits made from old curtains like the von Trapps, you can at least fill those baskets with a brimming bounty. Check out these four spots for some of the best pack-away provisions this side of Salzburg, Austria.
Feast!
The veteran of the Charlottesville gourmet grocery scene, Feast! offers fine food, a full deli, and fulsome beverages. Over almost two decades, owners Kate Collier and Eric Gertner have gotten to know the local food supply chain as well as anyone, and it shows in the shop. The prosciutto & mozzarella sandwich, with roasted tomato spread, local basil, olive oil, and sea salt on baguette, is a can’t-miss, but keep your peepers peeled for the seasonal specials as well.
Greenwood Gourmet Grocery
Greenwood Gourmet Grocery offers great sandwiches, mostly made with local ingredients, but if you’d prefer to pick a different picnic path, hand it to the hand pies. Greenwood’s baker makes the crust in-house and fills the flaky favorite with what’s fresh. “It’s whatever he feels like trying out,” owner Nina Promisel says. “This week, we had a bunch of carrots and he roasted them with Middle Eastern spices and put them with caramelized leeks and feta.”
Multiverse Kitchens (formerly Keevil & Keevil Grocery)
It can be hard to keep up with Harrison and Jennifer Keevil’s latest restaurant and/or grocery concept, but no matter—the dishes are always delish. The Keevils’ rebranded Multiverse Kitchens is now offering C’ville’s first digital food hall, where you can place an order to pick up sandwiches, burgers, sausages, bowls and skewers, or fried chicken. Go with the full fried bird, and don’t forget the fresh-baked cookies.
Main Street Market
MSM’s been assembling some of Charlottesville’s best no-frills sandwiches for more than 10 years now. And since the mainstay on Main Street is also a full-service grocery, you won’t leave wanting for fresh produce, fine cheese, cured meat, or wine and beer. For stuffed sammy perfection, try the herb oven roasted turkey with provolone cheese, watercress, tomato, red onion, and paprika cream cheese spread on ciabatta.—Shea Gibbs
RAMEN & ROLLIN’
Basan brings Japan to the ’ville
Behind the window of a blue and white food truck with a cartoon rooster on its side, Kelsey Naylor and Anna Gardner ladle heaping helpings of ramen, chock full of locally sourced ingredients. But their menu is anything but traditional—they’ve put their own spin on every dish. The chefs’ signature option, Basan Peitan, combines chicken, greens, serrano pepper, and an onsen egg in a spicy, creamy chicken broth. “It also has pork rinds on top,” Naylor says, “which brings me a lot of joy.”
If Naylor and Gardner’s names seem familiar, it’s because they’re veterans of the local restaurant scene. A graduate of Johnson & Wales culinary school, Naylor has worked at Lampo, Ten, Timbercreek Market, and The Alley Light, while Gardner has worked in the kitchen at Junction, Oakhurst Inn, The Ivy Inn. It was while they were both working at Public Fish & Oyster that they decided to join forces and spend a year in Japan studying cuisine.
“I’ve always wanted to cook Japanese food. So, being able to live and cook there for a year was awesome,” says Gardner. “I come from a fairly standard meat-and-potatoes family. (I’m not kidding—I didn’t even know pickles could be made from anything but cucumbers until I was in my late teens.) When we were in Japan, I fell in love with all of the new flavor possibilities and ingredient treatments.”
When they returned, they opened Basan—but not without help from their mothers, Jennifer Naylor (who owns Mama Bird’s Kimchi) and Kathy Gardner, who helped with taste testing. “We did a lot of R&D on recipes and would make something 50 times in a row until we felt like we had it right,” Gardner says.
They launched the food truck in September of 2020, and it garnered such support that a brick-and-mortar isn’t out of the question in the future. For now, the chefs are content to develop more interesting, surprising recipes, and expand the menu. (Try the kare pan—a deep-fried curry bread, only available on Saturday mornings at The Farmers Market at IX.)
WHERE TO FIND IT
Friday: Decipher Brewing 5-8pm
Saturday: The Farmer’s Market at IX Art Park 9am-1pm, Potter’s Craft Cider 4-8pm
Sunday: Potter’s Craft Cider noon-6pm
Monday: JBird Supply Coffee Roaster at IX noon-2pm, Random Row Brewing Co. 5-8pm
