Food News: Graffiato opens, fans fling donuts for Foo Fighters, and details on the Sammich Bus
This week: Graffiato opens its doors after a summer-long delay, the Sammich Bus rolls into RVA’s increasingly-crowded food truck scene, and oysters take over the 17th Street Farmer’s Market. All this and much more!
Chef Mike Isabella opened the long-awaited Richmond location of his Washington, D.C. restaurant Graffiato, along with with partners Travis Croxton and Hilda Staples, in the former Popkin Tavern space Wednesday evening. Like its sister restaurant, Graffiato serves upscale, yet affordable Italian entrees such as fire-baked pizzas, a selection of pastas, and more adventurous offerings like roasted bone marrow and charred octopus. RVANews’s Stephanie Ganz has a great profile on Staples and her role in the new eatery.
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Two brothers have teamed up to fill a void in the RVA food truck scene. The aptly titled Sammich Bus will offer, well, sammiches! Paninis, if you want to get specific. “The burgers and deep-fried stuff are out there in abundance,” co-owner Mark Moran told Richmond BizSense’s Michael Thompson. “I think people want not just veggies, but something that’s not going to make you want to take a nap for a couple of hours.” Sammich also offers various sides and homemade ice cream.
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Church Hill favorite Dutch & Co. is in the running for The People’s Best New Bar of 2014, a new readers’ choice award from FOOD & WINE Magazine. If you’re a fan of Dutch & Co’s craft cocktails, eclectic menu, and (pretty awesome) nightly prix fixe menu, you can vote to help advance the restaurant to the finals, once the contest goes live.
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There’s been a rash of recent fires, at least one of which appears to have been intentionally set, in the Northside area. One of them caused some exterior damage to the building housing Little House Grocery, which has had to temporarily close due to the incident. “We’ll be back up and running soon,” the business tweeted Tuesday evening.
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What could be better than a day of tubing, craft beer, live music, and dinner from a local restaurant? How about the fact that it all benefits the James River Park System? $40 gets you a fun day of all of the above at the fundraiser, which kicks off at Crossroads Coffee & Ice Cream at 11:30 AM on Sunday.
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Richmond made history and national headlines with our crowdfunding efforts to bring the Foo Fighters back to Richmond, and Sugar Shack Donuts, which kicked in a large sum of money to help round out the campaign, has 50 tickets to give away to the show. The shop is giving the tickets away to the winners of a long list of crazy, fun, and slightly absurd contests from now through September 17th, including donut eating, hurling (a separate event, not the type of hurling resulting from eating too many donuts) and selfie-ing. Have a look at the full lineup here.
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Speaking of donuts, have you ever wondered how Mrs. Yoder’s makes those ooey, gooey, big-as-your-face donuts that we’ve all waited patiently for in long lines around town (especially at the South of the James Farmers Market)? Richmond.com has a great video showing the Yoder family’s entire process from start to finish, and it’s making me pretty hungry.
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The 7th annual Shockoe-on-the-Half Shell festival takes over the 17th Street Farmers’ Market on Sunday. The festivities kick off at 12:00 PM and go through 5:00 PM. The Boathouse, The Savory Grain, Halligan Bar & Grill, The Pig and Pearl, and C’est La Vin are just a few of the local restaurants who’ll be slinging oysters. There will also be plenty of craft beer, wine, and cider to wash it all down–plus live music.
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In other festival news, the Scott’s Addition Pumpkin Festival is back for a second year, as was announced this week. More than 13,000 people attended the event last year, and with a VIP beer garden featuring Ardent Craft Ales, Hardywood Park Craft Brewery, Strangeways Brewing, and Isley Brewing Company, plus a Family Movie Night, it’s sure to be bigger and better than ever.
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Down the street, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts is charting new territory by partnering with Hardywood Park Craft Brewery for its first ever beer collaboration. Forbidden Ale, a Belgian white ale, is being brewed in celebration of the VMFA’s forthcoming exhibit, Forbidden City: Imperial Treasures from the Palace Museum, Beijing. The local brew will be available at Hardywood, VMFA’s Best Café and Amuse Restaurant, plus at outside distributors including Whole Foods and Shields Market, beginning mid-October. The release is set for October 4th at Hardywood.
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Finally, we live in an eclectic city with eclectic people–even one or two colorful people who’ll go so far as to make offerings to the Southside food gods. Said gods apparently enjoy things like cheap champagne, cigarettes, and cookies from La Subrosita Bakery. I’ll just, uh, leave this link here and walk away, much like they did with their plate of food and drinks.
Photo: Fultz Architects
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Trevor Dickerson
Trevor Dickerson loves all things Richmond and manages RVANews’ West of the Boulevard and West End community sites.
Notice: Comments that are not conducive to an interesting and thoughtful conversation may be removed at the editor’s discretion.
I love a panini. I remember the first one I ever had was in the Oxford UK covered market and I thought “that’s it, I’m just going to have to move here.”