This article was featured in RVAMag #28: Spring 2017. You can read all of issue #28 here or pick it up at local shops around RVA right now.

New Events & Other Happenings At Quirk Hotel

The boutique hotel located at 201 W. Broad St. has added quite a few programs recently. At the end of January, Quirk Hotel launched Wine Table Tuesdays in partnership with non-profit organizations. Each week, a new organization or charity will be featured with wine reps present to educate patrons on the chosen wine. Price: $17 per person that includes four tastings, with $2 of all tastings being donated to the specific charity that week. Events are held in Quirk’s restaurant, Maple & Pine, with past charities including the American Heart Association. Contact [email protected] to book.

Also at the end of January, Quirk Hotel’s restaurant launched its 10 Course Chef Tasting Series. Maple & Pine allows guests to leave all decision in the hands of Chef David Dunlap. These dinners will consist of 10 courses showcasing the chef’s favorite local ingredients and a variety of textures and techniques. Menus will change frequently and the series will run Thursdays to Saturdays. Price: $89 per person / Optional $25 Wine Pairing.

Maple & Pine Restaurant has introduced their version of “Sunday Supper” entitled Feasting With Friends. This new offering is a special family style menu that will allow guests to engage with one another through good food and delicious drinks. With a rotating monthly menu of seasonal eats, guests can continue to come back to enjoy all that Maple & Pine has to offer. Feasting With Friends will take place every Sunday at the restaurant from 5 to 9 pm. Price: $25 per person that includes an enjoyable four-item, shared plate family style meal.

RVA’s EAT Restaurant Partners Return To Chinese Roots With The Bejing On Grove

On Dec. 31, The Blue Goat came to the end of its six-year run at 5710 Grove Avenue and in January, EAT Restaurant Partners returned it to its original Chinese roots with The Bejing on Grove Chinese Kitchen and Bar. It will be the eighth restaurant for the local restaurant group, which also owns Boulevard Burger and Brew, Fat Dragon, Foo Dog, Osaka, Wild Ginger, and Wong Gonzalez.

Prior to The Blue Goat opening, which was a popular place for cocktails, the spot near the corner of Libbie and Grove was home to Peking for over 30 years. Chris Staples, Director of Hospitality for EAT, said the former restaurant was run by the father of EAT Restaurant Partners’ owner Chris Tsui and his business partner, who owned five Pekings around Richmond. “When Chris was in high school he was a bus boy, a waiter, he worked here while his family ran the business,” he said.

After they made the decision to close The Blue Goat just before the New Year, Staples said Tsui wanted to bring back a concept that once did well in the bustling Near West End corridor. “The Blue Goat ran its course,” he said. “There’s five American style restaurants on this block and instead of trying to always think of ways to compete with them and share that same client base, we were like, ‘Why don’t we just bring in something that the neighborhood is starving for and nostalgic about,’ which was Chinese food.”

This Asian concept is a fresh, modern version of its original antecedent according to Staples. “It’s a modern take on traditional Cantonese food, and a really cool upbeat chic fun place to come and enjoy it,” he said.

At the helm of The Beijing on Grove is Chef Fei Zhao, who is from Guandong and served as the original chef at Osaka, and most recently Fat Dragon as executive chef. The restaurant’s menu features dishes such as Beijing Duck, Mushu Pork, Chili Dumplings and Guandong fried rice. “He makes Szechuan, he makes Hunan style, but the core of the menu here is Cantonese food,” Staples said.

Prices are along the lines of Fat Dragon with appetizers from $4-$10, entrees from $12-$28, and lunch combos around $10-11. And don’t fret Blue Gloat fans, Staples said they are keeping their popular cocktail and craft beer program in place so patrons will have the best of both restaurants.

“All we did was take the focus from the Blue Goat and amp it up even more, so still a big focus on craft beer, craft cocktails, and a really nice curated wine list,” Staples said. “You get the things you want if you’re nostalgic for Chinese food, but you also get the stuff you want if you’re into craft beer.”

The restaurant offers happy hour seven days a week from 4:30-7pm with $2 off drafts, specialty cocktails, high balls, and $5 glasses of wine.

Pizza Club 2.0: Nota Bene’s Victoria DeRoche Breaks Silence With Rebooted Monthly Club

You may have heard rumblings a few years ago of several local restaurateurs getting together for pizza and booze at the home of Victoria DeRoche, now owner of Italian restaurant Nota Bene, for what would become known as Pizza Club. No one was allowed to talk about it, but we all knew it was happening.

And now DeRoche, along with several RVA brewers and restaurant owners, has given Pizza Club a reboot and this time not only do you get to talk about it, but you get to be a member too. Starting in January, DeRoche turned her monthly backyard pizza parties into a monthly event where patrons can dine on a special pizza at her restaurant created by some of Richmond’s finest restaurant owners, along with specialty cocktails and tap takeovers by local brewers.

“It’s fun to see it go from a fun gathering to now bringing it a different playing field where we can host it at a restaurant…” DeRoche said. “There’s a lot of nostalgia.”

It all started back in 2009 and for two years every month, DeRoche would invite her friends — including Nate Gutierrez now of Don’t Look Back, Julia Battaglini of Secco Wine Bar, and others — over for a potluck, but with a twist. Members would come up with a pizza recipe based on DeRoche’s theme, and they’d make that pizza right there in the backyard with a small wood-fired oven.

“I would provide dough and sauce and I would throw out a prompt, and the prompt would be like heirloom tomatoes are in season, make your favorite pizza based on an heirloom tomato… or make your favorite pizza that’s based on a soup. People were encouraged to do a signature cocktail or I would do a signature cocktail for the event.”

The club events will take Sundays and DeRoche will be baking up the pies in her wood-fired oven, but the restaurant owners will be creating the recipes along with a signature cocktail or other special beer. And while Nota Bene’s kitchen team is busy making pies, the monthly specials guests will be behind the bar sharing stories.

DeRoche has made the club even better by offering attendees an official Pizza Club punch card towards earning a free pizza. These punch cards will only be available during Pizza Club Sundays but are redeemable for punches and redemption during any visit.

Pizza Club runs on one Sunday of each month from 5-9 p.m at Nota Bene. Reservations are recommended and can be made online at NotaBeneRVA.com.

Millie’s Diner Executive Chef Launches Asian-Influenced Pop-Up Series, The Jackdaw

Richmond was late to the pop-up game, but nevertheless, the one-night temporary restaurants have become quite the hit over the last few years with Underground Kitchen, Longven, and Pop Up Revolution making it a regular occurrence in our food-obsessed city.

One that seems to have flown under our radar is Ian Merryman’s “The Jackdaw.” Merryman, the Executive Chef at Millie’s Diner, started doing a Chinese-influenced pop up at local restaurants around town about two years ago as a way to challenge his culinary chops.

“The Jackdaw started just out of wanting to cook my own food instead of somebody else’s,” he said. “Working for someone else, cooking their vision, I just felt like doing something on my own and wanted to do something I hadn’t done before.”

The chef has worked off and on and Millie’s for the last few years, prior to that he held the chef spot at Antler & Fin, but had the idea while he was in between jobs. Merryman has put on pop-ups at the now shuttered Kinsfolk, Lunch, Shoryuken Ramen, Belle & James, and the last Monday of every month he hosts “Industry Night” at Millie’s Diner. “Millie’s has been my go to because Paul {Keevil, owner} has been really supportive,” he said.

Creating an ever-changing menu, Merryman first started with Chinese dishes such as dumplings, spicy Dan Dan Noodles, Congee with pork belly, and dan dan mein soup with squid ink noodles. “I have a heavy back ground in Asian background, but never Chinese food,” he said. “I wanted to do something that wasn’t in my comfort zone.”

Since then he’s evolved the pop-up to feature other cuisines, most recently, Filipino. “I don’t have any family ties to it, but my mom was in the military and actually went to school with half-American, half Filipino kids when I was younger and was exposed to the food from a young age and loved it.”

Merryman said he felt like it was a cuisine that’s not really championed in Richmond so he wanted to bring something to the table that was lacking in the city. By the time this comes out, the chef will have put on his first Kamayan dinner, a traditional Filipino feast which features rice, noodles, pork belly, shrimp, clam and oysters and other dishes you can eat with your hands.

“The Kamayan feast, they’ll lay banana leaves out on the table and serve the food communal style,” he said. “Eating with your hands is encouraged.”

Merryman usually has guest bartenders from RVA spots including Ron Rogers from Strange Matter and Shaun Loughran from The Rogue Gentlemen along with several Millie’s employees.

Long Read: Eleven Months: Chatting With Restaurateur Hamooda Shami On His Bold New Project

Never one for sitting back on his haunches, RVA restaurateur Hamooda Shami is always looking for the next exciting move to make when it comes to his businesses. Since 2006, he’s continued to shake up the local restaurant scene with unique ventures like New York Deli, Portrait House, and Don’t Look Back, and now Shami will tackle his next challenge with Eleven Months, a restaurant with temporary themes that will switch up every year.

Shami opened the first Eleven Months in Charlottesville, where he’s currently based, February 8th, and a Richmond spot will follow in Carytown sometime in the spring. Each year, both restaurants will open with an entirely new theme, coordinating interior, menu and cocktails. We caught up with the busy entrepreneur to hear about his latest venture and his time spent in the business.

Tell me a little bit more about your new restaurants, “Eleven Months.”

The idea of Eleven months, which is going to be the permanent name… every year we’ll shut down for a month for a remodel and it will open with a new concept. The idea essentially is every year, it’s mostly cosmetic changes, light fixtures and furniture, but also the food and beverage menus. We’ve been saying extended recurring pop-ups, when in actuality it’s more like a temporary restaurant. From the day we open there will be a large clock in the restaurant at Eleven months and when that hits zero, that concept is done.

What can patrons expect with the opening theme, “Best Friends Forever,” at the Richmond restaurant?

Friendship and everything wonderful that comes with it. But there’s also a strong kitsch element, whether it be old photos of kids frolicking in a park or the more recent (and unnecessary) phenomenon of duck face selfies. Think Moonrise Kingdom meets Freaks And Geeks, if that makes any sense. There’s also an understated irony to the name, as it seems when you’re at the age when you’d actually use the term Best Friends Forever with complete sincerity… well, those friendships tend to rarely last.

You recently launched the first Eleven Months concept in Charlottesville with the theme, “Sorry It’s Over.” Can you elaborate on that?

It’s going to be all breakup based. I have breakup letters from my bartender, I got her and her husband’s old breakup letters that will be up there, think The Smiths. It’s completely camp, but there’s some substance there if you want to dig in. This won’t work if we take ourselves too seriously it’d be really easy to be pretentious. We’re trying to have fun with it.

Do the menus for both locations coincide with the themes?

[Charlottesville is] a contemporary American bistro. It’s sort of a mix of dishes, some of them are comfort-themed like mac and cheese on this first go. We’re still working the Richmond one out. It’s going to be rotating, it won’t necessarily be tied into the theme. The menu will sit on its own as something that will be fun and an opportunity to be creative. I think the Eleven Months concept will lend itself really well to cocktails. Like a featured eight or so every year. Like in Sorry It’s Over, it’s the name of depressing songs, “Boys Don’t Cry”… so having fun with that.

You decided to rebrand your Charlottesville restaurant Yearbook Taco into the first Eleven Months. What made you want to run with this idea?

Late summer, it became apparent it’d be madness to keep doing what I was doing. Essentially, what happened there, we were around for two years, I closed it December 31. We had a really good first year, second year slowed down considerably, the downtown mall in general in Charlottesville kind of had a bit of slowdown. Outside of the flagship ones like Whiskey Jar, Citizen Burger — a lot of places there started struggling including us. Anytime you face a challenge, there can be a positive outcome out of it, and to me it was, “I have to come up with a really compelling idea for this space.” People aren’t going to the mall are weekday nights. Parking is a problem so I need to come up with something that I think is compelling. I had to reach into my vault of restaurant ideas and come up with one that was a little admittedly, at most kind of out there. That could be the positive outcome of the slowdown I had at Yearbook, I really had to take a risk and this is definitely a risk.

Was this concept something you saw in other places?

I did conduct some research once I decided I was going to go forward with this, there was no one quite doing the same thing. The closest one we could was in Chicago, it’s called Next. Fine dining though, every three months they change the theme of the menu, but they don’t change the actual restaurant. So we’re the first doing this in this manner. I contacted a market research report all over the world because I was curious. I’ve figured out some of the numbers so it could make sense, but again, we won’t really know if it’s something people are going to be into until we open those doors.

Are you working with anyone on themes or branding for both restaurants?

I’m working with Campfire & Co., they’re on the branding and interior design. They have been instrumental in the process, leading the branding and interior design at both locations. What’s been lost in some of the initial buzz is that we’ve been compared to places that change their menu themes over different time intervals. When what we’re actually doing is creating an entirely new brand and restaurant experience every year. The signage will indicate Eleven Months, but when you walk through the doors, you’ll be walking into an entirely new concept. That’s why Campfire & Co. is so crucial to the model we’re attempting to execute, as the plan is for them to be the ones to develop the new sub-brand and interior design on each iteration at both locations. They have been instrumental in the process, leading the branding, logo and interior design at both locations.

Did you approach your previous restaurants in the same way, when it comes to creating the concept?

I feel like when you’re building a restaurant like NY Deli or Don’t Look Back, a place that you want to last for a while, you’re constrained with how insane you can get with regards to creativity of the theme. It would get old. Like the one in Charlottesville, the break up theme. If that went two or three years it would get kind of tired, but it could be really fun for eleven months. Any time I try to come up with a different concept, [it’s] same sort of thing. I’ve kind off had to have that in mind, I had to be, “this would get old soon.”

Why was this something you wanted to do and do you think it will take off?

The restaurant business is sort of a young person’s game and if I didn’t do this Eleven Months idea now, I was never going to do it. That sort of time thing keeps coming into play here… I think the Richmond arts community would really take to it. Richmond in general has been growing like crazy. When you put something on white board or an Excel spreadsheet, it’s not the same as reality. We won’t know if it’s something people will be into until we open those doors. There’s been a lot of positive feedback so far, but now we have to execute. This done the wrong way, is really cheesy and gimmicky. Done the right way, is creative and something we can have fun with and the neighborhood can have fun with.

You’ve been in the industry for over 10 years, how do you think you’ve managed to stay successful?

The importance of your staff it’s not just an aspect of the business it is the business. I’m at the point now, I want to work with professionals, I want to work with good people and people with a work ethic. The reason Don’t Look Back has made it is not because of me it’s because of the crew here. Really importantly is separating myself out from it. Starting with the earliest restaurants I worked at in DC, I’d work there and hang out there’s that sort of clubhouse mentality. I’ve learned to detach myself a little bit. People compare their companies often times to being a family, it’s tough to fire your sister or nephew whereas if you’re on a team you have that cohesive energy, you have to perform. I fired myself at the Deli at one point. I burnt myself out I looked at myself I was a manager, and I said that manager is not performing. I feel like a team mentality over a family mentality is the way to go. Every role is crucial. If the dishwasher or host doesn’t show up on Saturday night, the whole thing falls apart.

What are some of things you’ve learned along the way as you’ve worked your way up?

I read somewhere when I first getting into this that the two main reasons places fail are lack of knowledge and lack of capital. I was fortunate enough to, for the first couple years, not work as an investor, but as an assistant GM in DC. I could make mistakes so I was able to get a good knowledge base to start with so I wouldn’t make that fatal mistake in the first six months. And the second part is just making sure the place was financially secure enough to get through the waves in the beginning. Every one of my places at some point had an existential crisis. Every one, I was able to get through the slow times, occasionally have to strong pivot, but just making sure you have a safety cushion, some line of credit, and make all the mistakes before you try to start your own.

Top photo credit: The Jackdaw