We have The Nook to thank for the Yum Yum Shop, a new commercial bakery operating out of a house on Dale Avenue. Baker Gina Wood had been preparing desserts for the downtown eatery, but the busy kitchen space was beginning to cramp her style.
“The Nook is slammed all the time,” says Wood, “so I didn’t have much time or room to do my baking.”
Wood, who ran a restaurant at Rodes Farm Inn for many years, finally decided she needed her own space to better serve The Nook. Since she and her husband, Charles, a vet who owns the Old Dominion Animal Hospital on Preston Avenue, already owned a rental property on Dale Avenue, the location was a no-brainer. (more)
After years without a regular home for stand-up, the Buddhist Biker Bar & Grill is opening its doors to a troupe of local comedians called the Charlottesville Comedy Roundtable. “We do it for the love of comedy,” says 23-year-old Roundtable co-founder Alex Modic (seen here). Next event is Tuesday, May 26 at 8pm at the BBB&G, located at 20 Elliewood Avenue.
The sale of assets from the Gravity Lounge originally scheduled for Tuesday, May 12, has been pushed back to 1pm Sunday, May 17. Would-be buyers can preview the merchandise Saturday, May 16, from 1 to 3pm.
Zach Snider of Alloy prepares a new walkway from Main Street into Zinc on May 8.Passersby along West Main Street may have noticed a new look emerging for Zinc restaurant as a crew nears completion of a patio makeover that includes bold new sheets of shiny metal in keeping with the restaurant’s industrial feel— if not precisely with its name.
Co-owner Thomas Leroy says he and business partner Vu Nguyen were inspired by the flat metal plates outside of Mas, over in Belmont. But after talking to the folks at a local design/build firm, they opted for corrugated steel. So why not actually use Zinc?
“It’s a little pricy,” explains Leroy, adding that the metall should weather to resemble zinc, which already covers the restaurant’s bar inside.
Sunday brunch begins May 10, with the updated patio including new plantings with herbs and tall grasses— as well as a rope-lighting system and a gate to allow easy access to the sidewalk.
The work is being done by Alloy, a firm with a principal (besides rocking out in the band Straight Punch to the Crotch) who has twice competed in a million-dollar drilling competition sponsored by Irwin tools.
The new Harris Teeter in Crozet provides big-city amenities like sushi in a quasi-rural setting.An era ended in Crozet with the May 6 opening of a LEED-certified Harris Teeter, a symbol of the change in the western Albemarle village/designated growth area.
Great Eastern Managment Company has been trying to get a grocery built on the Route 250 site beside Blue Ridge Builders Supply since 1987, estimates principal Chuck Rotgin, no stranger to developments that take decades, like the company’s North Pointe project.
Originally he and partner Don Wagner planned to build a Food Lion there. But as Crozet’s demographics grew more upscale with fancy subdivisions like Old Trail and Grayrock, Food Lion was out and LEED-building, green-conscious Harris Teeter was in.
Wagner commends the strong support from the community in the western part of the county, and he remembers (more)
What do pancakes and baseball have in common? Well, if you head over to TGI Friday’s at the Hollymead Town Center for breakfast this Saturday, the pancakes you eat will help the Central Virginia Tigers, a 13-year old travel team made up of former all-stars from the Central, McIntire, Cove Creek and Northside Little League organizations. Operating on a shoe-string budget, the Tigers have managed to place 19th out of 87 teams in the State after four tournaments, placing second in two of them. Unfortunately, traveling across the State playing ball isn’t cheap, and the Tigers are hoping the pancake breakfast fundraiser will keep their streak going. The breakfast is from 7am to 9:45am and costs only $5 for three pancakes, sausage or bacon, milk, coffee, or juice, and fruit.
A new French restaurant called Southern Crescent has been proposed for the already restaurant-heavy 800-block of Hinton Avenue in Belmont, but some citizens aren’t so sure that’s a good idea, according to an April 21 story and a May 4 story, both posted online by public body watchdog group Charlottesville Tomorrow. According to CT, the owners of 814 Hinton Avenue want to rezone their house to become a restaurant, plead their case before the Planning Commission in April, and recently penned an open letter to the neighborhood pleading their case.
The letter points our that the Belmont BBQ space next door was once a residence, and makes the argument that 814 Hinton should be in a defined Hinton Avenue commercial zone.
“We believe that the re-zoning of 814 Hinton Avenue can serve as an essential first step in a comprehensive evaluation of our neighborhood’s future,” writes Andrew Ewell, one of the owners, as well as a writing teacher and guitarist for local rockers American Dumpster.
Want to put in your two cents about the Southern Crescent? The PC will hold a public hearing on the rezoning Tuesday, May 12.
Bosnian-born Nemanja Cetic and his family opened the Balkan Bakery Café on Water Street.Refugees from the Balkans appear to love café culture, as evidenced by the gatherings Dish has often seen outside at Greenberry’s, where long discussions in the guttural mother tongue are held over cups of coffee and cigarettes. So it’s no surprise that we finally have a Balkan café, named appropriately enough the Balkan Bakery Café. The small space on West Water Street, beside Sidetracks Music, opened just two weeks ago, but visitors to the Charlottesville City Market have been familiar with the Cetic family’s pastries, pies, and breads for the last three years.
“Everyone knows us at the Market,” says Nemanja Cetic, 23, whose mother and father moved he and his sister here 10 years ago with the help of the local International Rescue Committee.
“We’re from Bosnia, but we lived in Croatia, Serbia, all over when the war started,” says Cetic, referring to the brutal conflict known as the Bosnian War (1992-1995), which claimed over 100,000 lives and created over a million refugees like the Cetics.
“I think we were like the third family that the IRC helped to re-locate here,” he said.
Most of what they serve are traditional Balkan creations, says Cetic, such as their Meat Pie (Burek) and Cevapcici, a kind of grilled minced meat sandwich, the recipes for which are hundreds of years old, he says. Their traditional baklava is also a favorite.
Another special treat is their traditional Bosnian coffee, prepared by boiling finely ground coffee (along with sugar if you like) in a small, pear-shaped pot, at the bottom of which the coffee dregs settle before it is poured unfiltered into small cups. It’s a simple method Dish has always thought of as Turkish coffee, but apparently the Bosnian method has variations that make it unique. Regardless, both methods yield a cup of coffee that is definitely not for the faint-hearted.
As Dish says good-bye and heads out the door, the fresh Burek warm in the brown paper bag between our fingers, we can’t help but imagine what the Cetics had been through, and marvel at how far they’d come to this little spot on Water Street.
Orzo Kitchen and Wine Bar in the Main Street Ma...
Chef Angelo Vangelopoulos munches on his ̶...
Copious amounts of fried chicken and everything that goes with it at this old-fashioned buffet. Eat at long tables- make a new friend.
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