That little space on 29 North beside Pizza Hut, the former home to two Middle Eastern restaurants, Zandi’s, and more recently, Zam Zam Kabob, has yet another international tenant.

Hint: “Börk, börk, dee doo!”

However, unlike the Muppet’s Swedish chef, Little Sweden Café owner Eva Elm doesn’t speak gibberish, wear a toque blanche, or fling utensils. Plus, she really knows how to cook!

Originally from Mölndal, Sweden, and a graduate of one of the country’s top cooking schools, Elm moved to the States in 1992 and began work catering in Maryland. In 2003, she and her husband moved their family to Charlottesville and (more)

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Bel Rio owner Jim Baldi.
FILE PHOTO BY DAVE MCNAIR

Bel Rio, the Downtown Belmont restaurant and music venue that has sparked a passionate debate over noise-levels at night spots—which led to an amended City noise ordinance—appears to have disappeared, along with its owner, without a sound.

A sign on Bel Rio’s door last week announced that the venue would be closed for two weeks for vacation and kitchen renovations, but that was news to building owner Jeff Easter.

“I still haven’t heard from him,” says Easter of Bel Rio owner Jim Baldi. “I think he’s gone.”

Easter, a critic of the proposed 55db noise ordinance, which he believes is too low, nonetheless asked Baldi to tone it down following a July 3 incident after a private party at the restaurant during which there were altercations in the street, the police were called, and several people resisted arrest. Indeed, Tomas Rahal at MAS says that customers of his were afraid to leave the restaurant to go to their cars that night.

“When you have people screaming and yelling at 2:30 in the morning,” says Easter, “that’s a nuisance.”

Indeed, while musicians, Belmont residents, and City officials earnestly debated the noise ordinance, and whether or not Bel Rio’s late night music scene was a boon or bust for the neighborhood, Baldi seemed to be staking his success, at least in part, on late night parties.

“Jim said he couldn’t make it without the private parties,” says Easter. “I told him that’s not my problem.”

Baldi partnered with C&O’s Dave Simpson and Gareth Weldon to open Bel Rio in November 2008, but Simpson sold his interest in the restaurant to Baldi in October of last year after having second thoughts about the partnership.

Weldon, too, parted ways with Baldi, but he did not immediately respond to Dish’s call for comment by press time.

Meanwhile, no one seems to know where Baldi is— or when he’ll be back. Indeed, Dish spent most of last week trying to locate him with no success.

Local realtor Roger Voisinet, whom Baldi hired to sell his house at 900 Elliott Avenue, says Baldi contacted him last Tuesday via text message, saying he was going to Chicago and giving him his ex-wife’s phone number if anything came up concerning the house.

“I texted him back,” says Voisinet, “but I haven’t heard from him.”

When Dish called Baldi’s ex-wife, a family member answered (more)

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At the end of the summer, look for Camino to be replacing Il Cane Pazzo on Water Street.
PHOTO BY DAVE MCNAIR

Il Cane Pazzo, the Italian eatery in the corner of the Vinegar Hill Theater building on Water Street, has closed, soon to be replaced by Camino, a Mediterranean-style restaurant which the owner says will “draw from all the Southern European cultures.”

Three years ago, Fleurie and Petit Pois owner/chef Brian Helleberg opened Il Cane Pazzo in the long-lived  L’Avventura space. At the time, Helleberg admitted that he wasn’t really looking for a new restaurant, but he saw it as a chance to preserve a successful business and help its former employees.

“The restaurant really had a good reputation,” said Helleberg, “and the people who worked there were so eager to come back.”

In the end, though, Il Cane Pazzo appears to have became somewhat (more)

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Judging by the length of the grass, University Grille closed about a month ago.
PHOTO BY LISA PROVENCE

Charlottesville has one fewer Greek diner. After five years, University Grille on Ivy Road has closed its doors, as evidenced by the overgrown lot, shuttered windows and empty parking lot.

In a building that used to be Hardee’s, University Grille billed itself as a family restaurant serving breakfast, lunch and dinner. Its windows enticed with “pancakes & waffles,” “milkshakes,” and “Greek salads.”

Last time we checked in with the University Grille was in April 2006, when a customer reporting seeing a bus tub full of water fall through the ceiling onto a woman’s head while she was eating breakfast.

“I turned to see a woman sitting at a table with three other adults and a small baby and she was completely drenched with water, ” reported customer Jonathan Lord. “The woman was soaked, like she’d jumped in a pool. And I think her glasses were broken.”

As far as we know, no more bus tubs of water fell on unsuspecting customers at the University Grille before it closed its doors. The Grille had many regulars, who loved their chicken souvlaki sandwich and gyros, as well as their hearty breakfast, served until 2pm on Sundays, which surely served as a welcome cure for many a hangover.

The Hook was unable to locate the Grille’s owner, and the management firm that handles the property at 2025 Ivy Road, as well as the nearby 7-11, had not returned a call at press time about what will next take over the prime location.

June 18, 9:20am: Misuse of less/fewer corrected, courtesy of orchid.

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The Biltmore Grill on Elliewood Avenue was sold yesterday, but will re-open in August.

Biltmore Grill manager Katie Russell confirms that the Corner restaurant and bar, once named to a Playboy list of hot bars and home of the infamous Survivor Hour, was sold yesterday. After 14 years, it appears the poor economy prompted owner Tim O’Neil, who also owned the recently sold O’Neil’s Irish Pub, to throw in the towel.

“It was time to get out,” says Russell.

However, Biltmore fans needn’t mourn. Russell says the new owners plan on re-opening as the Biltmore Grill in August. Russell won’t say who the new owners are, but she does confirm that they are current Corner restaurant owners.

The building, long owned by Corner property owner Ann Albright, was built as a boarding house in 1945, then became a Mexican restaurant called Tortilla Flats in the 1970s. Later, it became the Coach House Inn and then Graffiti. In 1989, it was transformed into the Biltmore Grill by Dillon Baynes and a quiet North Carolina investor. Baynes is now a corporate developer in Atlanta, who happens to be spearheading Coran Capshaw’s Coal Tower development project.

On the heels of another Playboy mention in 1987, in which UVA was ranked the 10th best party school in the nation, Baynes oversaw the expansion of the building in the early 1990s, adding a ground level, a new back room upstairs, and solidifying its reputation as a place to party on the Corner.

–Last updated Tuesday, May 26 at 3:57pm

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Just Curry owner Alex George says he’s closing his Corner location, but will re-open his Transit Center location on Monday, January 19.
FILE PHOTO BY COURTENEY STUART

Last week, Just Curry owner Alex George announced on his Facebook page that he was closing his Corner location on Wertland Street in the 14th Street Parking Garage on Monday, January 12. He said nothing about his Transit Center location, which never re-opened after the holidays, and so many of us thought–including George, its seems– that that meant the end of Just Curry.

But George tells Dish that he has decided to re-open the Transit Center location on Monday, January 19, despite the “tough economic conditions” that forced him to close the the new Corner location; George originally opened Just Curry on the Corner in a space behind the Satellite Ballroom in 2006, and opened the Wertland Street location just five months ago.

“I had no choice,” says George, pointing out that the first week of January sales were down 78 percent from the same week last year. “The Corner never recovered after summer,” he explains. “Sales only went up 10 percent in the fall. After the election, sales went up, but just when you thought it was going to be good again, the students left…that was the last nail in the coffin.” (more)

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