The longtime restaurant and late-night Fan spot Bellytimber Tavern has finally reopened and has gone from brick-oven pizza and Bloody Marys to burgers and shakes.
Co-owners Patrick Stamper, Randy O’Dell, Kelsey Aiken and Eric Stangarone closed the restaurant, located at 1501 W. Main St., over the summer to switch up the menu and décor, and reopened just a few weeks ago as Beauvine Burger Concept.
From left to right: Beauvine owners Aiken, O’Dell, Stamper, and Stangarone
Serving up lunch and dinner, the restaurant boasts a menu of eight signature artisan burgers, along with a build-your-own burger section, snacks, salads, fries with several sauce selections, and a rich and decadent selection of milkshakes and handcrafted fruit sodas.
According to Chef Stangarone, who is also behind the menu at their Scott’s Addition restaurant En Su Boca, the area lacked a good burger joint and the partners wanted to be the ones to get in there and fill that void.
“We kind of looked around Richmond and looked around the neighborhood, and we thought that burgers would be a great play here in the Fan, there’s not really a go-to burger place,” he said. “We wanted to look beyond the expected diner burger place, we wanted to create something a little more whimsical and fun.”
He said the menu is inspired by the flavors around the state, across the country, and even from Europe.
“When I wrote the menu, I wrote it while I was in France, we have a lot of French cheeses and French products, spices from Europe, spices inspired from European flavors and California flavors, and the best of Virginia flavors as well,” Stangarone said.
Since Stamper and Stanagrone worked together on opening En Su Boca, when it came time to rebrand Bellytimber, the two longtime friends put their heads together to come up with the new concept.
“It’s a collaboration that’s been a long time coming,” Stamper said. “We wanted to rebrand, we really wanted to change it up…Bellytimber was fine, it was alive and well, but we thought reinventing this address would be a good thing for us, a good thing for the neighborhood.”
The menu appeals to everyone with options for a turkey or veggie burger, Flour Garden brioche buns, gluten-free buns, and lettuce wraps.
When I stopped in to chat with the owners recently, I decided to try out the “Joe Beef” burger along with the truffle parmesan fries. The burger comes with swiss cheese, truffled enoki mushrooms, baby arugula, red onion, tomato, steak sauce, and herbed aioli. And it was just scrumptious.
It was juicy and full of flavor and the sauces paired really well with the rest of the toppings. The burger is an homage to the Montreal restaurant with the same name. As you can tell from the photo, Beauvine does not skimp on the portions, as I had plenty of fries leftover. I also ordered their strawberry soda which was sweet, but not sickeningly so, refreshing, and a delicious choice with my burger and fries.
Besides the Joe Beef, the restaurant also has the “Beauvine” burger which is your standard cheese, pickles, red onion, tomato, and lettuce. Another one to try out is the De Leon which has pepper jack cheese, avocado, pickled jalapenos, red onions, tomato, Arbol salsa, and Duke’s Mayo.
For fear of falling asleep when I got back to work, I opted not to get a milkshake on this particular visit, but from looking at the six shakes on the menu, I’d venture to guess those with a sweet tooth will not be disappointed.
All are made with ice cream from the local Homestead Creamery and again there’s something that appeals to every palette from Tahitian Vanilla Bean and dark chocolate, to the more unique, Fruity Pebbles and Salted Maple Caramel. Beauvine has both non-alcoholic and alcoholic versions of each.
“From a culinary standpoint, at Boca the focus was on technique, and I think here at Beauvine it’s much more about letting the ingredients shine the way that that they should so we bring in high-quality ingredients…” Stangarone said.
If you’re not looking to fill up on a juicy burger or thick milkshake, the snack menu has a variety of different options from a seasonal pickled vegetable jar (above), duck fat chicken wings, and smoked gouda mac and cheese.
Frequent patrons of Bellytimber Tavern will be in for a surprise as it’s a complete turn around from the menu to the décor.
“Everything here is pretty new for us,” Stamper said of the changes.
You won’t see the brick oven pizzas which once dominated Belly Timber’s menu as Beauvine has taken out the pizza oven from the back of the space. The ever-popular Bloody Mary bar, however, could possibly reappear.
“We’re not doing brunch just yet, but it’s something we’ll look to do. If we do brunch, which I believe we will, we will have the Bloody Mary bar,” Stamper said.
And be on the lookout for a mural on the Plum Street side of the building courtesy of local muralist Ed Trask in the coming months.
Beauvine Burger Concept is open 11 am to 2 am daily.
Top image courtesy of Beauvine
