Arby’s has reclaimed its restaurant at Forest Lakes.
FILE PHOTO BY DAVE MCNAIR

Forest Lake’s Arby’s owner Tom Slonaker has finally left the building. According to Emmet’s Street Arby’s manager Ginger Herdon, the same company that owns her restaurant has purchased the building from Slonaker, who recently renamed his Arby’s A Patriot’s Place after a dispute with the Arby’s franchise over what kind of food he could offer.

Slonaker, a flamboyant businessman with a Libertarian bent, had repeatedly defied a County zoning ordinance prohibiting commercial flags (an ordinance that has been in place since 1969) by hoisting an Arby’s flag in front of his restaurant, along with signs for another business he owns. Later, he claimed the sign ordinance was enforced unevenly against businesses along 29 North, and he filed a civil suit against the county with the help of the Rutherford Institute, which argued that Slonaker’s First Amendment rights were being trampled upon. But last year a judge ruled that Slonaker had violated the sign ordinance and slapped him with $1,000 fines for several violations.

After tearing the Arby’s signs off the side of his building in November, Slonaker replaced them with illuminated American flags and renamed the restaurant, claiming he wanted A Patriot’s Place to become a place to eat good American food and learn about the words and the ideals of the founding fathers.

“This country, this town is so divided,” said Slonaker, who organized a Tea Party event at the restaurant before the mid-term elections. “I hope this new concept conveys to people that we have to come together to fix the problems of this country.”

However, he may have also been struggling. “If I’m going to lose money,” he added, “I might as well do it on my own terms.”

Apparently, Slonaker decided to take care of his own problems instead. The businessman could not be immediately reached for comment, as the phone number for his other local business, Cville Inflatables, which rents festive backyard jump-and-play structures, simply cut off when we tried to call. The website for Cville Inflatables is also no longer active.

But Dish thinks this isn’t the last we’ve heard of Mr. Slonaker.

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Hooray! Now you can get em’ on Route 29!
PHOTO BY DAVE MCNAIR

They’ve conquered the Mall and the Corner (and even have their own theme song), and now Marco & Luca’s dumplings have landed in the Seminole Square Shopping Center on Route 29.

Located in the former Aesthetic Associates day spa space at 176 Zan Road, it will be the biggest of their three locations, and according to Dragana Katalina-Sun— one half of the husband and wife team whose children’s names have become synonymous with cheap, tasty, and piping hot dumplings— her husband, Sun Da, has plans to add a little musical entertainment to the mix and perhaps even some Dim Sum. Yum!

For now, says Katalina-Sun, the place is open on a sparse schedule as they iron a few things out, but as soon as the new year begins, they’ll be on a regular schedule.

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Bohème in its heyday. Now casual fine-dining is returning to the space.
FILE PHOTO BY WILL WALKER

Once again the restaurant space in the old Michie Company building at 609 East Market Street, across from the police station, has changed hands. This time former Hamilton’s pastry chef Bernard Dukes plans to open a fine dining restaurant with French and ethnic influences named Carlton’s, which will also feature a late night jazz club.

Since late 2008 the space had been home to Asia Specialty, known for serving up authentic Chinese food, including hot pot meals, a kind of the Chinese version of fondue. They’d also recently been staying open until 5am on the weekends (more)

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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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Chef Harrison Keevil hard at work in Brookville’s kitchen today.
PHOTO BY DAVE MCNAIR

If you like locally sourced food cooked exquisitely, Dish suggests you wander down to Brookville Restaurant on the Downtown Mall (above Escafe) and check out their lunch menu. Chef/owner Harrison Keevil says he’ll start serving dinner around mid-August, when he hopes to get his ABC license, but a visit for lunch now is a great way to get a taste of  what this passionate chef has in store for us.

“Ingredients are everything,” says Keevil. “I buy great local food, and just try not to screw it up.”

Of course, you’ll pay for this lunch—about $13 or $20 per person if you get a starter—but you’ll get what you pay for: a seductive zucchini fritter that’s both smooth and lightly-crispy, bold thin-cut house-made potato chips, and a frittata with  goat cheese, greens, and grated carrots doing a slow dance on your palate you don’t want to end.  They also have a tangy house mixed burger blended with hanger steak and bacon. They even bake their own buns for those burger. Dish wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a cow and goat in the kitchen.

Sure, plenty of local restaurants source local food, but none that Dish knows of are going at it like Keevil wants to.

If he can keep up this kind of quality control, locals foodies could be in for a treat. What’s more, Keevil appears willing to do what it takes.

“I consider myself a 100-mile chef,” he says, meaning the emphasis is on using ingredients grown or raised within a 100-mile radius of Charlottesville. So don’t expect to see the same thing on the menu every week, as Keevil only plans to cook what he can source.

Indeed, during the winter months, when local farms aren’t producing anything, Keevil says he’ll turn to jamming, pickling, salt-curing, and smoking to create many of his dishes—the same thing folks did in Mr. Jefferson’s day during the winter months. Using more modern technology, Kevil says he plans to work with local producers who use polytunnels, a system used to grow plants in the off-season.

“I’m hoping Cville will accept the fact that they will see new things on the menu they didn’t see the week before,” he says. “It’s time to revert our eating habits to the way they used to be, because it’s the right way to do things.”

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