In Virginia’s countryside, picture a scene straight out of a postcard – rolling hills, farms, and winding roads leading through the sometimes misty mountains. That’s Waynesboro for you, a cozy town nestled in the Shenandoah Valley. With about 22,000 folks calling it home, it’s a hidden gem waiting to be discovered.
At first glance, it’s like any other Virginia industrial town, but look under the hood and Waynesboro’s artsy side might surprise you, with its thriving original local arts and theater scene, its growing collection of regional street art found all over town, spots to grab some good grub, sip on drinks, and do a bit of shopping popping up all around downtown.
And in an old foundry on the outskirts of town lies a massive live music venue with an 800-person capacity, rivaling our city’s own with top of the line sound and staging. Built within Basic Beer Company, it’s the apparent go-to spot for locals within a 20-mile radius to unwind with a cold brew and enjoy some tunes.
The first time I was asked to visit Waynesboro, VA, it was at the request of a man named Ian who was starting a mural festival in this small town on the side of a mountain. He was interested in having me visit after I had helped bring the Richmond Mural Project to town back in 2012. It was a small festival, but popular Richmond artist Nils Westergard was the main headliner, and I liked the idea that street murals might spread across Virginia, so I wanted to document it.
I went for the day and spent my time in an area of abandoned warehouses and industrial smokestacks. I didn’t even see a town at all, and I wrote this article back then, which you can read HERE.
Since that trip in 2016, I haven’t been back. I figured I had seen it all.
A few weeks ago, an email popped up asking if we would attend a preview of Pride and Prejudice put on by the Wayne Theatre. Would we attend? I didn’t even know Waynesboro had a theater. So that began a back and forth with the team at Waynesboro tourism, and we were invited to check out downtown and see what there was to see.
Photographer Kim Frost and I took off on a trip to Waynesboro.
We arrived and checked into our apartment for the night, the Shenandoah Valley Art Center Atelier. A renovated third-floor walk-up apartment on the backside of the Shenandoah Valley Art Center is used by visiting resident artists of the center while they study there. It was beautifully laid out with all the modern touches you would expect – totally Instagrammable.
Here are some photos.
I stepped out on the balcony to take in the view while Kim was capturing every detail of our living space, one thing dominated the skyline: a newer and gigantic mural by the aforementioned Nils Westergard of a young woman with eyes overlooking the town.
I made my way downstairs to meet with Shenandoah Valley Art Center executive director Piper Groves and take a tour of the 9,500-square-foot property. It is spread out over four floors and houses an educational gallery, seven artist workspaces, a large classroom, the aforementioned artist residency apartment, additional office space and artists’ studios for rent, a printmaking studio, a picture framing studio, and two libraries. It also serves as an event space for weddings, galas, art markets and/or other community gatherings.
This isn’t a tiny art center in the middle of nowhere. It’s a formidable contemporary gallery. On view were conceptual sculptures made of found objects: masks, padded bra inserts, spray nozzles, and cocktail umbrellas, transformed and holding space in the room.
How does a town this size have an art center like this? Piper explained that the Waynesboro art scene was mostly supported by private citizens and not the city. “It’s been a hard sell. This is an industrial town, right? So interestingly, we had GE and DuPont here in the ’60s and ’70s, with a lot of presence. They brought in their own engineers and scientists from other parts of the world. Well, back then the world was a little different. The wives did not like it here because we didn’t have the same culture they had come from. And so they renovated the theater. They built the history museum, and here they are. They’ve supported us for many, many years. So these people who came here from other places were economically helping Waynesboro, but they also culturally helped us in a different kind of way. So the city has not largely been as supportive as the private citizens have been.”
As we walked through, the level of artwork hanging all over the walls and what was being expressed were a nice surprise. There were several photographic works focused on a growing housing crisis happening in Waynesboro and the surrounding areas. Art being used to address issues affecting the community and creating conversation is a good thing.
Walking through the studio spaces upstairs, we bumped into Matthew Phelan, a designer and craft beer label illustrator, who recently moved to the area from New Orleans. He had this to add: “I feel like in Waynesboro versus Staunton, there’s more room to do your own unique thing. Waynesboro is more of an empty canvas. It’s nice to see things pop up, but there are still a bunch of empty storefronts downtown. I feel like it’s going to be the arts that drive that revitalization. That’s how it is, and that’s how it was in New Orleans neighborhoods. It’s like the artists come first, you know, and then they bring culture with them, making interesting little spots and just adding a ton of uniqueness. Then more money follows after that. We are starting to see that happening now.”
We stepped out onto the street and realized we were in Downtown Waynesboro, which is not huge, about 5-6 blocks in any direction. But on these few blocks were a bunch of unique shops and our next destination, the local dive called The River, to meet with its owner and Meghan Swanson from Waynesboro Tourism, our spirit guide if you will, on our trip, who made all this happen.
The River Burger Bar on Thursday for Happy Hour is a bustling place. The owner called it a dive, but I would call it too nice to be a dive. Recently renovated and opened by local Mandi Smack, this feels like where downtown is headed, The River is modern and hip with craft beers and specialty burgers with catchy names “The Waynesburger”, “Udder Goatness” and “The Hipster” — with a vibe more like our Beauvine Burger Concept than Bamboo Cafe.
The owner explained that she actually lives outside the city limits outside of Afton, past Skyline Drive. Apparently, it’s only a 20-minute drive into town for many people who like to come in and enjoy downtown for a night and then head back home to the country.
According to Mandi, the revitalization of downtown is largely driven by female business owners who are finding opportunities to rent affordable spaces to make this section of town their own.
After a few rounds, we made our way down a few blocks to Heritage. A former hardware store turned sports bar turned fine dining restaurant. Immediate impression was this place is spacious with decor and ambiance that would feel right at home in Richmond or Washington DC. We ordered a few apps and entrees, talked with the staff and overall really enjoyed ourselves. The place was nice, food was delicious, the service was very good and I would definitely recommend anyone coming to town to try it out.
After dinner, we walked back up a few blocks to the theater for the preview that started this whole adventure. I remembered something in that initial email about “audience participation” so I figured be ready for anything.
Well, that ended up being traditional English country dancing. The next thing you know, we were bowing to each other, then to strangers next to us, and then we danced. We didn’t get any video of us dancing, but here is some video of the scene.
The Wayne Theatre is almost 100 years old but laid empty, along with the rest of Downtown Waynesboro, for decades until it received non-profit status in 2002 and after renovations in 2016, opened its doors again. Since that time it has been a cornerstone of the revitalization efforts downtown.
We met with Leslie Larsen, artistic director of the theater, who took us on a tour of the space. She brought up the following on why she was here: “I’ve been living here for probably about 15 years. But I would go up to DC, go down, just kind of travel around to direct. And it was such a treat to discover that a professional theater was being built, literally five minutes from my house. When my husband and I got together, we spent years never getting to celebrate anniversaries together. It’s just such a busy life. And I came home after Tracy had given me a tour of the space. And I was like, ‘Robert, you’re not gonna believe this. There’s a legit theater, five minutes away from our house.’ And so then I started working here. And then just last year, I became the artistic director.”
I asked what the audience can expect from this theater, and she replied, “Everything that I chose for this season is something that you’d be able to find in a book or a movie because we’re here to prove that the live theater experience is better. So those are traditional. And while our demographic in the area tends to be a little bit older, a little more conservative, we’re slowly trying to grow that. For example earlier in the season, we did The Importance of Being Earnest, which had an all-female/non-binary cast. And it was really great. We had a much different demographic of audience joining our theater, which is exactly what I’m trying to do to grow a more diverse audience base.”
And what is it like for actors and artists working in town?
“It’s affordable to be an artist and live here. But I will say it’s hard to make art a priority for a lot of our community members when they’re just worried about trying to feed themselves. So one of our goals has been trying to see how we can work with those communities to help feed souls as well. We know that actual food needs to happen, but also how can we help bring art to communities that don’t have that or don’t have access to that? So we go into schools, we do a lot of community outreach with that. We, along with the arts center, with all of the little restaurants that are opening up, we are starting to wake up downtown. I’m seeing that happen and more people are coming now.”
We stayed to watch a few scenes from the upcoming performance and had to make our way to our final stop, an 800-person capacity music venue called The Foundry built inside Waynesboro’s Basic City Beer Co. Brewery.
Before we get into the visit, let’s jump back in time for a bit of history. There were two towns in the area: Waynesboro and Basic City. Basic City was situated at the intersection of the Norfolk and Western, and the Chesapeake and Ohio railroads at a point called “The Iron Cross” during the industrial boom and was established in 1890. It underwent a three-year surge in manufacturing investments focused on the process of converting pig iron into steel and the town grew bigger than Waynesboro. Then the “Panic of 1893” caused most of these investments to go bankrupt, which led to the folks of Basic City incorporating with the neighboring town of Waynesboro. Which was a big deal considering Waynesboro was a “dry town” and Basic City was anything goes at the time. Today, Basic City doesn’t exist and is now considered a “Lost Towns” of Virginia.
We met with Basic City Beer Company co-founder, and self-proclaimed “Mayor of Basic City”, Bart Lanman. When I asked why open a brewery in Waynesboro, he replied, “We’ve got the Blue Ridge Parkway where it meets Skyline Drive, and 6 million people cruise across that area every year. And it seemed like we could capture that audience. Waynesboro has shifted from that old-school industry scenario and has so much to offer as a tourist stop. We got right down on the mountain, Skyline Drive and Blue Ridge Parkway. The brewery is a part of the Shenandoah Beerwerks Trail. There’s a hill right over here in town that is called Sunset Park that the town has built the pavilion up there. It’s gorgeous. It’s a cool view of the mountains. All that is part of a 20-year plan for Waynesboro, something we’ve been involved with, to put focus on the growth you are seeing around town right now. It’s a great location for our business.”
I had to ask him how a town of 20,000 can sustain a venue for 800 when we have trouble doing that in Richmond.
“Now, we’re booking shows on Thursday, Friday, Saturday; sometimes there’s somebody on Wednesday. We make beer, and now with a venue, I don’t have to market the beer as much and we got a completely different thing. We got a venue plus a brewery that can fit up to 800 people, and they are coming from all over the area, not just Waynesboro. It’s not really a matter of packing it out with eight hundred people every time, just making sure we put on a good show, have the beer ready, and whoever is here has a good time, every time. That has worked great for us and we are a brewery that is actually growing instead of contracting.”
We had a really good time and The Foundry left a lasting impression; it was both impressive and spacious. Nestled within the vacant former Virginia Metalcrafters fabrication complex, the venue boasted exceptional sound quality, a lengthy tabletop bar capable of accommodating over 50 people simultaneously, a secretive speakeasy backroom, and a lively crowd of 500+ revelers that evening. I recommend that any music or beer enthusiast passing through Waynesboro make a detour to experience this gem firsthand.
Later that night, we hung out back at the apartment, chatting about how unexpected our evening was while taking in the view of Waynesboro under the moonlight off the back balcony. The next morning, after saying goodbye to Piper, we grabbed breakfast at Weasie’s, a classic diner known for its simple, tasty food. We indulged in some sausage gravy and biscuits, then hit up The River for burgers and cheesy fries before checking out an Appalachian magic shop called Pyramid, cute retail space Adorn and grabbing milkshakes from Kline’s Dairy Bar.
Then we headed back to Richmond.
It was a quick overnight trip but Waynesboro caught us off guard. It was fun and it’s got this vibe that feels like it’s on the brink of something bigger. We had a blast exploring and are already planning a return trip in the summer time when we can explore the outdoors there a bit. If you’re in Richmond and itching for a change of scenery, it’s a hidden gem that’s totally worth checking out.
For more information: visitwaynesboro.com
