It seems we’ve spent the last few months reporting on the variety of survival-mode tactics many restaurants have been taking in light of the economic recession. While some have raised prices, others have offered steep discounts. While some have added hours, others have cut out lunch. While some have expanded their menu offerings, others have shrunk to small plate style. But Eppie’s on the Mall, for one, has been steadily busy (judging by the line out the door during many weekdays) and fairly consistent with its business since opening in 2006 with what now seems like the perfect concept for these crazy times: cheap, fast, comfort food for lunch and dinner, much of it made from scratch daily. Changes at Eppie’s have had more to do with a three-year-old establishment and first time restaurant for brothers Dan and Charles Epstein maturing and responding to customer demands than trying to keep the doors open.
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Dan Epstein, far right, with the staff at Eppie’s, where the quick comfort food formula has been a hit for three years and is now a must-have for hard economic times. |
For example, while Restaurantarama thinks it’s a sin to dine at Eppie’s and not order one of the signature jerk chicken plates or the cheese tortellini with pink sauce and Italian sausage, the Epsteins caved in to frequent requests this time last year and added sandwiches to the menu. (And we admit the Kites country ham on homemade pumpkin bread deserves a mention now, too.) Other more recent adjustments have been geared toward making the stuff they’re already known for even better.
“We’re now getting our pasta fresh from Mona Lisa instead of dried from Sysco; we recently added a Carolina-style pulled pork platter as our Saturday special,” says Dan, who comes in at midnight on Friday to start slow cooking the pork butt for the next day.
Last week, Eppie’s updated its daily specials for the season—the Tuesday turkey chili is now a Tuesday Caesar salad, for example. Also, to capitalize on the Mall’s summer boom, Eppie’s is now open late night on Fridays—9:30pm-midnight—and serves a special late-night menu of beer specials, inexpensive wine and snacks such as cheese toast ($5), spicy Jamaican jerk chicken wings ($6) and nachos grande with black beans and shredded chicken breast ($9).
“We researched what people really want at that hour and it’s ‘things I can eat with my fingers, fried foods and things with melted cheese.’”
Also, Eppie’s well-known fast counter service has become even more efficient. “We added a second cash register,” says Dan who explains that a busy shift now has two cashiers, two guys on chicken, one guy on pasta, one on salad, one expeditor (usually Dan or Charles) and one dishwasher on the line. Lately you’ll notice the cashier shouts some orders out loud (“Wheat bread!”, for example, or “Tortellini!”). That’s so items that take a little longer can get started even before the ticket reaches the respective line cook.
Biltmore Grill buyout
Andy McClure, whose restaurant empire already includes The Virginian, Three and West Main, has purchased the Biltmore Grill. The Biltmore has been languishing and up for sale for a while now, and we’re happy to hear that under McClure’s direction the UVA hotspot on Elliewood Avenue, notorious for its cheap beer, greasy burgers and grime, is getting a good cleaning and will reopen in August. Perhaps we’ll even get to enjoy it before the students come back and slop it all up again.
Grits for a good cause
Each Wednesday this month, Maya is donating 10 percent of dinner sales to the Rivanna Conservation Society, which sponsors stream clean-ups and buffer planting projects to keep the Rivanna River running.
