Eat It, Virginia!

Some of your favorite Richmond restaurants have teamed up and opened in the same spot. Hatch Local, Richmond's first food hall, is now open on Hull Street in Manchester.   Hatch Local consists of seven restaurants: Buttermilk + Honey Sincero The Beet Box Odyssey Fish Fat Kid Sandwiches Royal Pig Bully Burger Hatch Local general manager Annie Holland said the new food hall can help you and your friends answer an age-old question. "You can really come in with a group of people that don't know what they want, or the famous 'I don't know what I want to eat for dinner' question and have a perfect spot," she said. "You can really get whatever you want. And then you can all sit together and eat it." Hatch Local also has craft cocktails to pair with food coming out of the different kitchens. "So you come in and scan one of our QR codes and then ask the bartender and they're more than willing to be in your business and ask what did you get to eat, and then suggest a cocktail," Holland said. "[The cocktails are]

Tanya Cauthen went to school at the University of Virginia to become a rocket scientist. When she left, her focus was on food. It was a path that would eventually lead Cauthen to open Belmont Butchery in Richmond, Virginia, a national television appearance on the Food Network's Chopped, and the East Coast's Meat Queen. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

While Pinky's might be one of the newest restaurants in Richmond, Virginia, co-owner Steve DeRaffele is no stranger to the Richmond restaurant scene. The New York native, who comes from a family that literally helped define the look of Northeast diners, cut his teeth at restaurants like LUNCH:SUPPER and Brunch (remember the waffle flight, kids?). But when it came to opening a place of his own, Steve leaned on his family -- that includes not only the food he serves but the person he honored when it came time to  name the restaurant. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For 10 years, David Avery's smiling face has greeted coffee drinkers at the Starbucks on Gaskins Road in Henrico County, Virginia. In this episode of Eat It, Virginia, David shares some Starbucks secrets, provides coffee-making tips to help you up your home coffee game, and discusses how TikTok has changed the way Starbucks baristas do their jobs.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Courtney Mailey is the queen bee at Blue Bee Cider. She founded the cidery in downtown Richmond, Virginia a decade ago and has become a champion of Virginia apples. The podcast also features Kel Ward, a member of the Blue Bee Cider production team.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this first Eat It, Virginia episode of 2022, Justin Hershey takes us back to California to discuss his life and journey toward opening Chicano Boy Taco in Stauton and Midlothian, Virginia. Scott and Robey also talk about some of the best wing spots and this week's CiderCon 2020 in Richmond. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Thank you for another awesome year. We appreciate your support and feedback. Please go back and listen to one of the 72 interviews we've uploaded since the podcast started in 2019. We look forward to launching a new season in 2022. Send us a message on Instagram if there's someone you'd like us to interview.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jay Bayer: Saison and Bingo See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Daniel Harthausen: Young Mother See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

To say Daquan and Nicole Woodberry have a lot of irons in the fire would be an understatement. The chef and entrepreneur power couple hopes to transform the way Richmond orders food with both the LoCo food delivery app and virtual restaurants. "A virtual restaurant is essentially a restaurant within a restaurant. It thrives and operates solely off of delivery platforms," Dequan, who goes by Chef DQ, explained. "So if you go on any of the delivery apps such as [his app] LoCo, Uber Eats, GrubHub and DoorDash. And you're like, hey, I want fried chicken sandwiches, and you're scrolling down and you'll see [his new brand] Absurd Bird pop up. Well, you'll be able to order. And that food will be made at [his restaurant] RVA Cafe and it'll be delivered to you and you may or may not know is coming from RVA Cafe. So the big thing here is a lot of bigger chains and a lot of bigger corporations are getting into this. Maybe people have heard of Hootie's Burger Bar, that's a virtual restaurant from Hooters. But you walk i

Evrim and Evin Dogu are the brother and sister team behind some of the country's best bread. Their Richmond bakery, Sub Rosa, has become a favorite of locals and a tourist destination for traveling foodies. Five years after opening Sub Rosa Bakery in Church Hill, Evrim and Evin were named James Beard Award Semi-Finalists outstanding bakers in the country. A feat the duo repeated in 2018, 2019, and 2020.   What's the secret to their success? Quality ingredients, a nice brother-sister balance, and their wood-fired oven.   "We load each bread by hand into a wood-fired oven. And the wood-fired oven is the whole thing." Evrim shared on the latest episode of Eat It, Virginia. "It has fire in it from around 3 p.m. till 10 p.m. So it's just fire inside of the oven." "So even if we wanted to bake more, there's a cut-off at 3 p.m., we can't bake anymore, because we have to start the fire for the next day," Evin added. It's a baking method the Dogus can trace back to ancient Egypt. "It's the same thing. They built

Bobo Catoe is a self-described nerd on topics such as beer, vinyl, and superheroes. But what Bo knows best is food. The past Elby's nominee for the best rising chef in Richmond, Catoe can be found creating award-winning dishes in the open kitchen at Alewife in Richmond's Church Hill neighborhood. Listen to the podcast to get some pointers on what to talk with Bobo about before striking up a conversation at Alewife. Click here for tickets to the VisArts Chili Throwdown on October 1. Click here to attend a live Eat It, Virginia podcast recording with Sub Rosa Bakery founders Evrim and Evin Dogu. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Richmond native Libby Lewis left the familiar confines of office and city life for the family's Shenandoah Valley farm. But don't call her a cow farmer. "Maybe a steward of the land," Lewis said when asked about her new job title. "Someone dedicating their life now to bringing healthy meat to families in Virginia." As the CEO of Lewis Cattle Company, her mission is to get high-quality beef onto kitchen tables across Virginia. "I decided about a year and a half ago that I was super frustrated with the food industry and the quality of the meat that you can find in grocery stores and knew that we could do it better,"  she said. To accomplish her mission, Lewis had to first convince her husband to let her change the way their family farm did business. "His first thing was, 'no, you're going to get tired of it. You're going to do this for a month, and then you're going to quit because you're not going to like the farming aspect of it,'" she recalled. "After about six weeks, I came to him and I had found a ref

When Chef Ida Mamusu fled Liberia after a coup d'état in 1980, she landed in New York City alone and without a plan. A stranger approached Mamusu, crying at the airport, and took her back to her apartment to help get her on her feet.  After connecting with family in the states, Mamusu made her way to Richmond where she opened businesses to earn money to bring her family over from Africa. It was family, she said, specifically her grandmother, who set her on the path to opening her restaurant Chef Mamusu's Africanne on Main. "When I turned 10 years old, she put an apron on me and gave me a cooking spoon," Mamusu said. "That day was the day that I knew that I was going to be a cook, just the apron and spoon was in my hand, it transformed my whole idea of what I wanted to do in my life." It wasn't long before her father made Mamusu the chef of the house. She was just 13 years old. "I was feeding 11 people, doing the menus, the budget, everything," she said. "I knew that this was it, there wasn't anything els

One of Richmond's newest food brands came to life after a dark period for Danny Sterling. It was 2016 and the chef was shocked to learn he had cancer. The surgeries and recovery that followed (along with the support of his wife) convinced Danny to take better care of himself by making better food choices. "It doesn't hurt to look at holistic health and see how food can play a role in that. And it's changed my life dramatically," Sterling said. "I feel better. There's been a lot of just a lot of benefit that's come from really focusing on what I'm putting in my body." With that in mind, Sterling started ELYA after he moved to Richmond.  ELYA, which stands for Eat Like Your Ancestors, provides meals-to-go placed in refrigerators around Richmond. While popular menu items include a beef burrito bowl and chicken, bacon, ranch bowl, Sterling said ELYA offers diners a healthy, convenient alternative to fast food.  "The way that we look at [healthy food] is to make sure it comes from a good quality source," he sai

The world's best tomatoes come from Hanover County, Virginia. And some of Hanover's best tomatoes are grown at Village Garden Farm. "Amazing soil here," founding farmer David Hunsaker said about his Hanover farm tucked away on 10 acres near Kersey Creek. "We are east of the fall line in Hanover County. There's plenty of Hanover County that really does not have our soil. If you're west of I-95, you're on the other side of the fall line. And you don't have this glorious, coastal plain soil that we have." It is that soil, Hunsaker and his partner Barbara Hollingsworth, said, that helps keep Hanover tomatoes consistently great. "You eat with your eyes as much as your tongue. So if you've got these beautiful fruits there and the textures are perfect, and the colors are beautiful. That's certainly going to amplify it," Hunsaker said. "I don't know that you'd really be able to sit down on a blind tasting and have a clue [whether or not a tomato was from Hanover]. But if you found tomatoes that didn't taste as goo

On July 1, 2021, Virginia's marijuana laws changed making it legal in Virginia to grow up to four marijuana plants per household and possess up to an ounce of the drug. While smoking may be the most well-known way to experience marijuana, it is not the only way. Chefs Nikki Gregory and Paul Polk, who own Charlotte's Southern Deli and Tapas in downtown Richmond, appeared on the Eat It, Virginia podcast to discuss how best to use marijuana as a cooking ingredient. They also shared their plans to incorporate marijuana into future menus and business ventures. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When Joe and Emilia Sparatta arrived in Richmond about a decade ago, they hit the ground running. From helping Jason Alley open Pasture, to opening their wildly successful Richmond restaurant Heritage, to opening a second successful Richmond restaurant Southbound, to expanding from a couple to a family of four, there has not been much downtime for the Sparattas. That all changed in March 2020 when COVID-19 shut down the restaurant industry. "It was really hard to try to completely shift gears and amazingly stressful to try to make these decisions," Joe Sparatta said about the month the COVID-19 pandemic hit Richmond. "Being worried about people's health. Not knowing how the virus worked. Not understanding, are we keeping people safe? Is this a terrible idea being open? It was just very challenging, to say the least." After a few weeks of limited service and to-go orders, the Sparattas decided to temporarily close their beloved restaurant. "It was super traumatic. It was so hard to have to close down. It w

Drive just about 15 miles east of downtown Richmond on Route 5 you are in another world. The Lilly Pad, which dubs itself Richmond's only waterfront bar and restaurant, sits at Kingsland Marina along the James River in Varina. While the Lilly Pad has been around for decades, it has a new owner and a new menu which has created a new vibe in the old spot. "I've been in Richmond long enough to know that the restaurants that have the good food are the ones that sustain," owner Max Walraven said. "Mamma Zu's is a perfect example. Crappy little building, weird little location, line out the door for 35 years because the food was so good. I don't want to run a restaurant that has a subpar menu and say, 'oh, but the view is nice.' I want to have a great menu. I want people to come out here in the winter to eat and huddle up under the space heaters that all the restaurants have now to have a good piece of fish or a burger." Walraven has pushed for many changes at the Lilly Pad, but there are some aspects of the old

Can you keep a secret? Chef Steve Glenn sure can. The Chesterfield native is about a make his national television debut on Hell's Kitchen Young Guns with Gordon Ramsay. A secret the 23-year-old Manchester High School graduate had to sit on throughout the pandemic. The competition, which begins its television run at the end of May, was actually filmed in 2019. The pandemic pushed back the start date, forcing Glenn to keep quiet. "I had to pretty much be silent for two years," Glenn said. "Of course my family knew and, of course, the people that compete with you. But as far as everybody else, we just kind of had to go back to normal life, which was really weird. Just, going through all of that and then coming home like, alright, go back to normal life as nothing happened. I'm glad I can finally let the world know. It's good to get that off my chest." In the kitchen, the former executive sous chef at Richmond Country Club said he gets inspired by music and his grandmother's cooking. "She would make all types