Wilson’s idea to combine the freshest of available local products with offerings more likely found at a supermarket chain has already been taken a step further by a company that has established a veritable online grocery empire in Virginia over the last several years. Online grocery stores are the kind of thing one sees advertised on the New York subway, a standby of larger cities where convenience is king and fresh produce can be hard to come by. Yet Zach Buckner, an electrical engineer from Lexington, has discovered a way to make a virtual headway into “the biggest business in the world” with his company, Relay Foods.88
Browsing Relay Foods’ website is like walking through Whole Foods, the farmers’ market and your neighborhood quick-mart all at once. One can buy No-Bull gourmet veggie burgers, AA batteries, Tropicana orange juice and quail eggs from Down Branch Farm with a click of a mouse. Relay offers an incredible selection of local produce, from red Russian kale to canary melons. Weekly Bounty Baskets, which change daily as well as seasonally, allow customers to pick up a CSA-style assortment of produce, albeit from different farms and at a no-commitment price. For those too nervous to commit to a subscription or too curious to stick to one farm, these Bounty Baskets have the excitement of a CSA bundle without the insecurity or the commitment.
But Relay’s allure lies with its foothold in more markets than just the local food scene. Many Whole Foods products, including its often-organic and reasonably priced 365 brand, are available online for those craving quality ketchup without wanting to brave the traffic at Whole Foods’ location on Hydraulic Road. Conversely, cheaper-priced food items like Richfood or similar off-brands are also available on Relay, thanks to a partnership with Reid Super-Save Market on Preston Avenue. Household cleaning products and cat litter line up with organic bell peppers and frozen pizzas from Mona Lisa Pasta on an easily navigable, user-friendly website that has made converts out of even the staunchest in-person market-goer. Similar to Horse & Buggy, Relay customers can have their groceries delivered to their home for a fee or can pick them up from a variety of centrally located stops in Charlottesville and Albemarle County five days out of the week.
Zach Buckner’s design of the business belies his engineer roots. A self-proclaimed empiricist, Buckner’s goal for the business is to be a one-stop shop for everything a big-box store could offer. A knowledge of freight costs, business efficiency and gas prices makes Relay not only convenient to customers but ultimately a more cost-effective option for both business and consumer. Though groceries are a trillion-dollar industry with an almost limitless customer base, Buckner admits that Relay customers are particularly well-educated people interested in food quality and origin. “It just so happens that the people who are quickest to understand what we’re doing are people that have college degrees,” Buckner states. Even Relay’s more than forty-five employees have an unusually high level of education, matching their enthusiasm for business with individualized savviness that contributes to a tightknit team. College graduates with four languages under their belts have driven grocery trucks, while MBAs man the desks.
Though CSAs and gourmet grocery stores have a niche local appeal, Relay has its eyes on a larger piece of the grocery industry pie. With bases in Richmond, Charlottesville, Williamsburg, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., the company is the largest online food marketplace in the mid-Atlantic region.89 Buckner’s goal for the company is not an overblown monopoly; it’s something far more idealistic. “I would love to see a Charlottesville that had no strip malls and no big-box stores,” Buckner muses. He looks forward to creating “the day when good food is flowing to houses around Charlottesville at something more like that ten cents per ton per mile instead of that forty-five dollars per ton per mile.” “The traffic in Charlottesville is decimated,” he continues rhapsodically, “and there’s farming and baking and making chocolate.” It’s not too challenging to imagine that his Pleasantville reverie could actually impact the landscape of the area, with more and more grocery items being listed every day that consumers can purchase in a more efficient, convenient matter.
GOING TO MARKET
Entrance to the Saturday City Market in downtown Charlottesville. Photo by Kevin Haney.
But convenience isn’t the deciding factor in grocery store selection for many people who prefer a more communicative, collaborative market environment. The traditional marketplace image, filled with people, fragrances, noises and tastes, appears on a converted parking lot every Saturday from April to December. The farmers’ market can be as simple as a couple vendors intermingling in a small space behind a college building or as large and complex as the four-day bonanza at Union Square Market. In Charlottesville, farmers’ markets have been in full swing since at least 1972, when a man named George Cason ran for the Charlottesville City Council. His platform included a plan for a new, accessible farmers’ market, “a place where the public could purchase locally grown foods sold by the growers themselves.”90 The city’s assistant manager quickly latched onto Cason’s concept, despite his defeat in the election, and soon began hatching a plan for the market’s design.
Agriculture and food production was, for Cason as well as many others, a family affair from the beginning. “I’ve been in the produce business all my life—my daddy was too,” Cason noted. In 1973, he and his three brothers began the market, initially the only vendors selling. Cason and two of his brothers still sell at the farmers’ market, though a Cason nephew has been banned due to being overly “boisterous.”91 The City Market’s current layout and status—a welcoming, exciting place for both locals and visitors—meets Cason’s conception of the market. “I just knew it would turn out like this,” Cason muses, “that it would be a nice place for people to come and meet each other and enjoy the morning.”
People have been enjoying the morning at the City Market for over forty years now. It’s a place to grab breakfast, whether a fresh-made omelet or piping-hot donuts with a side of Shenandoah Joe’s coffee. It’s a place to meet friends, whether you go with a gaggle of fellow UVA students or take the whole family, newborns included. It’s a small business incubator; many local businesses that started out as a stall at the City Market now run good-sized and well-known operations, such as Carpe Donut or Barefoot Bucha.
Perhaps most of all, it’s a Charlottesville signature. First-year students at the university place excited phone calls to parents, telling them about the bustling parking lot downtown where they spent—and ate away—most of their Saturday morning. Young professionals bring home gifts of sage and pork sausage for the holidays, informing their families about the vendor from whom they purchased their breakfast. People from different counties, social backgrounds and professions all show up on Saturday mornings—or Wednesday and Thursday evenings—to partake in the ritual of buying groceries direct from vendors.
Stephanie Andregg-Maloy, current manager of the City Market, has been almost single-handedly responsible for the market’s success and relevancy in the twenty-first century. When she came on board in 2003, the market was much smaller, with forty to fifty vendors. She wanted part-time work and hadn’t realized the city ran the market, given that it wasn’t well advertised and there was no visible structure. The thought of improving the market was interesting to Andregg-Maloy, and its Saturday-based work allowed for time with her son.
The market, more than anything, needed organizational skills and management skills. She wanted the market to be “more of a business than a chaotic gathering.”92 The first month was chaos—non-reserve vendors would just show up and make lines on First Street. People would arrive at 1:00 or 2:00 a.m. and sleep in their cars in order to get a spot. It didn’t make sense for farmers, given that “stuff will go bad.” Farmers lined up for visibility and business, which the central location in a parking lot on Water Street downtown enabled. This spot on Water Street has been “in transition” and “temporary” for many years, which causes “anxiety for the vendors because of spatial insecurity.” Though numerous city meeting and citizen
petitions have ensued, the City Market has remained in the same spot, albeit a “temporary one,” since 1993. Andregg-Maloy allows that while the market has always had a good reputation, it’s only gotten better.
Andregg-Maloy’s priorities for the current market are produce, fruits and prepared foods. Andregg-Maloy is quick to point out that while the Charlottesville City Market has changed over the years, it still remains true to Cason’s vision of a place where farmers sell their produce locally. Today, farmers compose 45 percent of the vendors, selling produce, including fruits, vegetables and cut greenery; live plants; herbs; flowers; meat; poultry; eggs; and dairy products. The farmers’ market also operates on Wednesday in Meade Park and Tuesday in the Forest Lakes neighborhood on Route 29, as well as smaller offshoots in the UVA hospital parking lot or around town on various days.
The occasionally high price of local goods and the well-off customer these goods normally attract have not escaped Andregg-Maloy. Since 2003, she has made it a priority to involve, not target, additional groups than the “higher class customer” who usually frequents the market. The City Market has replaced its acceptance of “local currency” with EBT cards, an initiative started by JABA in connection with its self-improvement classes. The market also interacts with Children, Youth and Family Services; Market Central is set to take over the EBT relationship in 2013. Her increased efforts to enfold more of the Charlottesville community into the vibrant local food scene will only meet increased success over the next several seasons.
The kinds of grocery retailers in the Charlottesville-Albemarle area, whether gourmet or homegrown, vary in quantity and kind. Latin food marts thrive several blocks away from the Meade Park market on Wednesday; Feast! does a solid business one street away from the affordable and popular Reid Super-Save. Whether through EBT cards, smaller packages of produce or even stands alongside roadways, retailers in Charlottesville are dedicated to getting local ingredients to a variety of home cooks eager to transform this bounty into first-rate meals. Pancetta from Olli Salumeria renders into crisp pieces for a rich amatriciana sauce, while collard greens cook down deliciously with local onions and Berkshire bacon from Edward’s Ham. Salads, sauces, crumb cakes and cordials are all made tastier and more honest with the addition of local ingredients bought by local retailers from local farmers.
Downtown Charlottesville at dusk. Photo by Sean Michael McCord.
Thomas Jefferson’s estate, Monticello. Photo by Christopher Hollis for Wdwic Pictures.
Peter Hatch in his garden in Crozet. Photo by Kevin Haney.
Michie Tavern. Photo by Purple Flower.
Laying hens at Free Union Grass Farm. Photo by Kevin Haney.
Donnie Montgomery’s Stoneybrook Farm, one of two dairies that supply milk to Homestead Creamery. Photo by Nancy Overton.
Pastured chickens at Timbercreek Organics. Photo by Casey Ireland.
The brood herd at Timbercreek Organics. Photo by Casey Ireland.
A flock of geese at Free Union Grass Farm. Photo by Kevin Haney.
Zach and Sara Miller with their children, Emory and Sanders. Photo by Casey Ireland.
A curious kid at Caromont Farm. Photo by Casey Ireland.
A batch of Red Row cheeses aging at Caromont. Photo by Casey Ireland.
Kate Collier, co-owner of Feast! Photo by Kevin Haney.
Acorn squash, sweet potatoes and onions supplied by the Local Food Hub. Photo by Kevin Haney.
Will Richey cutting up a Timbercreek Organics chicken in the Whiskey Jar’s kitchen. Photo by Casey Ireland.
Walking between vendors at the City Market. Photo by Kevin Haney.
Harrison Keevil and his cookbook collection at Brookville. Photo by Kevin Haney.
The downstairs bar at the C&O. Photo by Kevin Haney.
C&O’s old-fashioned cocktail. Photo by Kevin Haney.
Matt Rohdie and his children, Finn, Georgia and Lil, of Carpe Donut. Photo by Casey Ireland.
Sauvignon blanc grapes at Barboursville Vineyards. Courtesy of Luca Paschina.
A revision of Thomas Jefferson’s vineyards at Monticello. Photo by Tony Fischer for Thomas Jefferson, Horticulturist.
Harvesting grapes at Trump Winery. Courtesy of Kerry Woolard.
A handful of hops at Starr Hill. Photo by Kevin Haney.
Empty bottles at Starr Hill Brewery in Crozet. Photo by Kevin Haney.
Mark Thompson, owner of Starr Hill, pouring a pint. Photo by Kevin Haney.
Bottles of cider waiting to be labeled on-site at Potter’s Craft Cider. Courtesy of Tim Edmond.
Timbercreek Organics’ piglets at eight weeks old. Photo by Casey Ireland.
A selection of Olli Salame. Photo by Kevin Haney.
Farmers’ markets, gourmet grocery stores and CSAs are all wonderful tools for the home cook—assuming that the food-minded individual enjoys or is capable of whipping up meals. Charlottesville’s chefs frequent the City Market on Saturday morning, swapping cooking tips and picking up the freshest of ingredients before sleepy college students and hungry toddler-toting parents arrive on the scene. They work through the Local Food Hub for bulk onions and contact foragers in Staunton for ramps and mushrooms. These are even more resourceful and curious than the Charlottesville home cook, eager to transform the top of each season’s—if not each week’s—produce and the finest of local agricultural products into feasts fit for a president.
Chapter 4
Charlottesville Dining
How Lowbrow Sustenance Becomes Highbrow Meals (or Vice Versa)
DINING AT THE FARM AND ON THE FIELD: CURRENT TRENDS IN CHARLOTTESVILLE RESTAURANTS
As alluring as luscious, deep-purple plums and bundles of wiry scallions appear to the home cook at the City Market, seeing those items transformed on a clean white plate at a local restaurant is an arguably grander experience. Whether self-taught or trained at some of the most well-known culinary institutes in the world, chefs in Charlottesville truly know how to bring out the best in local ingredients. Weekly, if not daily, menu changes; prime seasonal ingredients; and personal relationships with farms and food producers characterize locavore-friendly spots in the area. Housed in old barns, tucked away in warehouse buildings or lofted up above the Downtown Mall, local-food restaurants in Charlottesville appear in all shapes, sizes and price points. Chicken tortilla soup, chock-full of the meaty shreds of birds from Timbercreek Organics, rings in at five dollars for an inexpensive lunch option at Revolutionary Soup; the same bird, dissembled and roasted at the Local, could cost a diner upward of twenty dollars. But the textures, smells and colors of local food as interpreted by a thoughtful chef at either diner or fine dining are worth a customer’s consideration and dollars.
An increasingly visible character in pop culture and the culinary arts is the ardent locavore diner, one whose enthusiasm for local foodstuffs borders on the rabid. Viewers of Portlandia or Saturday Night Live are familiar with the customer so invested in the origin of a meal, he or she travels to the farm in order to see firsthand how the animal has lived and died. The character is an understandable one, as there is something seductive, if not addictive or necessary, about tracking visible connections between the fork and the farm. The humorous characterization of the inquisitive diner stems in part from a very real panic many Americans are beginning to experience: the anxiety of having no knowledge or understanding of the places, stories or even animals behind the meals we eat.
The matchbooks at the C&O Restaurant. Photo by Kevin Haney.
Too often, the only animals that diners see are the cows dangling from Chick-fil-A billboards or the dancing chickens of Pollos Hermanos on Breaking Bad. The industrialization of farming, the accessibility of fast food and the rise of the supermarket have all contributed to an extreme level of disconnect between the consumed and the consumer. While CSAs, farmers’ markets and alternative supermarkets allow the health and environmentally conscious to stock their homes with local products, these customers often want that same level of control and understan
ding when dining outside of the home or farm.
Charlottesville is home to many offerings for diners committed to various levels or conceptions of locavorism, as well as offerings for those for whom a good meal is simply that. A popular catchphrase among Charlottesvillians is how the city has more restaurants per square mile than New York City. While the most recent ReCount survey conducted by the NPD Group situates Charlottesville between Portland and San Francisco as the fourteenth most restaurant-filled per capita city in the United States, the excitement and pride behind the restaurant scene in Charlottesville remains the same.93 For, after all, what does a city like New York City offer diners that Charlottesville cannot? Accessible late-night options, ethnic hotspots, a variety of cuisines and an even bigger variety of brilliant chefs mark this small city as a culinary powerhouse. Why else would the New York Times document ways to spend—and eat—twenty-four hours in Charlottesville94 or Southern Living write up a tour of chef turned producer Gail Hobbs-Page’s home?95 Charlottesville food has been influenced by the health-conscious simplicity of California cooking, the inquisitive inventiveness of New York and the back-to-our-roots southern charm of Charleston.
Charlottesville Food Page 7
