Richmond lost more than a business owner this week. On September 2, 2025, Vicky Hester, the longtime owner of Babe’s of Carytown, passed away at age 71. For many, her death marks the end of an era. For nearly five decades, Hester kept the doors of one of the nation’s...
The Universe Beckons: In Virginia, Ufologists Search Confidently For Life Outside Earth *This article originally appeared in RVA Mag #36, on the streets now at all your favorite spots. I want to believe. It’s the refrain of a generation, the innate human desire for something more. Everyone has a UFO story, and astronomer Seth Shostak of SETI...
Welcome to this week's Missed Connections, where it seems that the season for hollering at redheads continues. Spring is also here (even if it's pretty cold this morning...), and you can tell by the people out riding bikes, walking dogs, and checking out fine hotties. In other news, people are offering keys to their chastity belts, which if...
Time Travelers' Weekend, a twice-yearly event in which 20 local museums offered free admission for the weekend, gave us the perfect opportunity to be tourists in our hometown. Last week saw the return of Time Travelers' Weekend, a biannual program in which 20 local museums and historic locations offered free admission, inviting locals and...
The first installment of a monthly series in which a hometown Richmonder who has spent over a decade abroad explores the many different neighborhoods accessible by GRTC bus lines to find the ways GRTC connects us all. Manchester: Walking down Hull Street it doesn’t take much imagination to envision Manchester in its glory days as the seat of...
Years after making waves at Babe’s of Carytown, ANIMAL is lighting up the River City once more at The Hof. You know the place. Pulsing bass and treble under your feet, around your head. It feels like it’s coming from deep inside your body. Spurts of fog blast out from under the stage, and wisps linger around technicolor lights. It’s all aglow --...
Volunteers for "Will The Stones Whisper Their Names," a project of the Louisa County Historical Society, climb hills and trek through forests to locate and document African American burial grounds from centuries past. Gloria Gilmore recalled a man telling her, “When I was a little boy … we used to pick strawberries up a path that led to a...
Despite Virginia’s strict gambling laws, restaurants, bars, and gas stations are adding so-called “skill machines” to draw people who wish to wager money in an attempt to win big. Because the results aren’t left entirely up to chance, these slot-style machines lie in a gambling gray area. It sits a few blocks from the bustle of Carytown, under a...
The first warm weekend of the year happened only days ago, so of course the Missed Connections are heating up along with the weather. This is definitely the week for redheads, too, so if you're a carrot top, keep an eye out -- your Craigslist Prince Charming just might be looking for you. We've also got a run on sweatpants this time around, which...
After living abroad for a decade, a hometown Richmonder will take one GRTC bus route a month to explore neighborhoods at opposite ends of the track -- and showcase what’s near and dear to locals’ hearts at each stop along the way. What would New York be without the subway, or San Francisco without its streetcars? Just hearing the phrase “mind the...
