It’s resolution season, and a pair of local business owners are hoping to capitalize on the influx of interest in all things healthy that rolls around every January. If all goes according to plan, made-to-order juice bar and health food counter Cville Juice will be open by the end of January. “It’s a healthy thing,” […]
Jason Oliver wanted to make Devils Backbone a “brewer’s brewery.” That might seem like a terrible idea. Why would you want to run a brewery that appeals to such a small audience? But in the process of running a brewery that appeals to people like him, Oliver has unwittingly—or perhaps wittingly—turned DB into a place […]
Inn and out ’Tis the season for accoladed executive chefs to make some big changes, apparently. Not long after Melissa Close-Hart left her 14-year gig at Palladio to strike out on her own in Belmont, her culinary school classmate Tucker Yoder announced his plan to step down from his post as executive chef at Clifton […]
Food is love. Food is happiness. And, once a year, food inspires us to conjure our inner poet and present to you a list of the year’s openings and closings—entirely in rhyme. It wasn’t a great year for restaurants downtown: Five Guys, El Puerto and Song Song’s, all down. Plus, we said bye to Peking […]
Junction’s function Even chef Melissa Close-Hart seemed surprised when she revealed the concept behind the new Belmont eatery she’s opening with The Local owner Adam Frazier: It’ll be called Junction and serve up modern Mexican with a touch of “cowboy cuisine” thrown in. Close-Hart said she’s never cooked Tex-Mex professionally—hence the surprise—but said it’s something […]
A “global whiskey renaissance”—that’s what the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States is calling the trend in spirits over the last five years. Domestic and international demand for whiskey—bourbon in particular—has forced some of the largest producers to warn consumers of impending shortages, as demand is significantly outpacing supply. U.S. Whiskey exports topped 1 […]
Darden students and Dominican Republic natives team up to create line of Caribbean-inspired juice Why did the Darden students cross the border? To bring back tropical fruits for a new line of local juice, obviously. When Luis Solis took a trip back home to the Dominican Republic earlier this year, his buddy and Darden classmate […]
Café Cubano buyers show Grit What’s in a name? The group that bought Café Cubano last year is hoping not all that much. Eric Kelley, who’s owned and operated Para Coffee since 2008, and new partners Brad Uhl and Brandon Wooten are changing the name of the Downtown Mall breakfast bites and coffee spot to […]
The closure of specialty seafood seller Anderson’s Carriage Food House last month probably didn’t come as a surprise to anyone who’d been in the store over the past several years. It didn’t take an engineer to see the building was in a state of severe disrepair. But there were things you wanted to love about […]
Woolen Mills barcade Firefly makes its debut It’s been a long three months for Mark Weber and Ben Quade, the masterminds behind Charlottesville’s newest dinner-and-drinks spot. Weber bought the two-story Woolly Mammoth space at the corner of Market Street and Meade Avenue in July of this year, shortly after he began intensive chemotherapy for a […]