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GOOD EATS RVA 004: Richmond Brunch Weekend, Saadia’s Juice Box opens, & Carytown’s Burger Bach to expand

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Now we’re into our fourth installment of GOOD EATS RVA, filled to the brim with restaurant news, new menus at local eateries, chef series and more. If you’re still among the few who missed RVA Magazine’s launch of GOOD EATS RVA, head over here to read up on it.

Just as before, we’ve got a huge helping this go around, so make some more room on your plate and pull up a chair and get ready for some GOOD EATS.

Richmond’s 2nd Annual Brunch Weekend

BRUNCH!!! Even if you’ve only lived in Richmond for a short time, you know how obsessed we are with brunch. Just step outside Sunday mid-morning on Main Street or Carytown or check out the line down the block at Millie’s diner and you can see everywhere is out getting their brunch fix. Luckily, last year Richmond dedicated an entire weekend to it, and there are a ton of restaurants involved ready to serve your hungry, hungover body.


Julep’s New Southern Cuisine

Richmond’s 2nd Annual Brunch Weekend will kickoff Friday at 5 pm at Southern Railway Taphouse and continue through this weekend. Local restaurants have created special menus with 10 percent of proceeds going toward VCU Massey Cancer Center. Some of the restaurants include The Daily Kitchen And Bar, 3 Monkeys, Savory Grain, The Betty on Davis, and Max’s on Broad. You can get more details and a list of all the restaurants here.

North End Juice Co. adds New Specials and Juices

North End Juice Co., a new sidewalk juice bar and walk-up window on North Cleveland Street serving fresh-pressed juices, acai bowls, smoothies, to-go salads, has some awesome new specials and new jucie creations which include Watermelon Gazpacho and Green Detox. Check out them menu and juices below.

Rapp Session reopens after fire, Rappahannock Restaurant remains closed

After a horrible fire at oyster and seafood restaurant Rappahannock Restaurant that forced it and its sister restaurant next door Rapp Session East Grace Street to close at the beginning of March, they are making progress. The oyster bar Rapp Session reopened March 9 and has resumed regular hours. Rappahannock is still closed.

Burger Bach taking over Wells Fargo in Carytown

Carytown burger joint Burger Bach is moving just down the block from its location at the corner of N. Thompson and West Cary streets and taking over the former Wells Fargo building at 3426 W. Cary St. The restaurant needed more space and will open in the 2,100 square foot building in June, according to Richmond BizSense.

Hattie Mae’s Southern Kitchen now open at Willow Lawn

Hattie Mae’s Southern Kitchen is now open at Willow Lawn in the former American Taproom space. The restaurant opened on the 15th and serves up southern specialities like hushpuppies, fried green tomatoes, peel & eat shrimp, catfish, chicken and waffles and more. See the full menu here.

Saadia’s Juice Box and Yoga Bar opens

Saadia’s Juice Box and Yoga Bar opened in the heart of Jackson Ward at 402 1/2 N. 2nd St. on March 3rd. On our menu you can find healthful concoctions of smoothies, raw juices, salads, wellness shots, teas and coffee. The shop also offers yoga and meditation classes. You can find their menu and yoga class schedule at the link above. I also suggest following them on instagram @saadiasjuicebox because they’re posts are drool-worthy.

RVA Food Truck Mean Bird to open in former StickyToGoGo space

Sarah and Mike Moore, owners of local fried chicken and vegan fried chicken food truck Mean Bird will open a storefront in the former StickyToGoGo spot in April. The space will be mostly takeout, a few seats for dining and a market carrying specialty foods from RVA artisans. You can read more in our interview with them here.

A look at Richmond’s Willie Byrd Dark Chocolate Sauce

RVA Mag recently profiled the women behind Wille Byrd Chocolate Sauce, a business that’s been selling four types of sauces to Richmond for the last three years, but began as a family recipe from the owner Scottie Phillips’ grandfather. It was passed down to her and her sister after her grandfather, the original Willie Byrd, died in 1994. They now sell four types including Peppermint, Dark Chocolate, Espresso, and Sea Salt Caramel at Libbie Market, Ellwood Thompson’s, Whole Foods, For the Love of Chocolate and Stella’s Grocery locally as well as 35 stores across Virginia and a few in Atlanta. You read up on how they got started here.

Long read: After 22 years, Cary St. Cafe’s owner has nothing left to do but smile, smile, smile

Wed Editor Brad Kutner had the chance to sit down with Robyn Chandler, the longtime owner of Cary St. Cafe and find out her back story, how she managed to get involved with the hippie bar known for its regular live music and how she’s managed to keep it successful.

You can check RVA Magazine’s interview with Chandler here.

Food Porn:

Head over to RVA Magazine’s instagram @rvamag to check out more photos of local good eats.

To submit news, ideas, press releases, menus, or other restaurant news, please email Amy David at [email protected] For advertising or sponsorship opportunities, please email John Reinhold at [email protected]

Photo Credit: Richmond Brunch Weekend

The Entrepreneurs Behind Willie Byrd Chocolate Sauce Find Sweet Success with an Old Family Recipe

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You may recognize the name Willie Byrd. You may have seen their colorful, eye-catching labels in local markets and stores around town, or like us, you may have had the pleasure of tasting their sweet and decadent chocolate sauce that started out an as just a beloved old family recipe.

The local business, run by Scottie Phillips, her mother Ann and sister Helen, have been selling four kinds of chocolate sauces for the last three years based on the recipe by Phillips’ grandfather Willie Byrd, which was given to them after he passed away in 1994.

“My mom at the time had been helping my grandmother and my grandmother asked if she could so something nice to say thank you for helping,” Phillips said. “She said, ‘I’d really like dad’s chocolate sauce recipe.’ That’s how we started, having some fun making some chocolate.”

A few months later, Phillips’ grandmother found the recipe scribbled on a scrap piece of paper and they’ve been churning it out ever since the 90s for family.

It wasn’t until about 10 years ago when Phillips started making batches and sending it to her children’s school as a thank you to their teachers that they realized they might have a marketable product on their hands.

“Both of my kids went to New Community School, which is a school for kids with dyslexia and they have a lot of teachers, they have individual teachers for everything,” she said. “It came Christmas time, and I wanted to do something nice for 15 to 20 people to say thank you.”

After receiving multiple notes from teachers who couldn’t get enough of the sauce, Phillips began making it in batches for them with the same response every year.

“We thought, ‘that’s so weird, do people really like it that much?’,” said Phillips. “Then we started looking around and we did some informal taste tests and found that yes, we did stand up taste-wise to other ones that were already on the shelves and we decided to go for it.”

From there, and after burdening their friends and family with trying the sauce (tough job), Phillips, her mom and sister took their sauce to market to test it out on the public.

Libbie Market was the first store to sell Willie Byrd’s Chocolate Sauce, which was very successful.

“It came together so nicely and so quickly,” she said. “Getting it into stores we were so lucky…Our friends supported us and went to buy it and it just kind of caught on. We’ve done very well.”

Willie Byrd sells four varieties of chocolate sauce including Dark, Espresso, Peppermint and Sea Salt Caramel. Besides Libbie Market, the sauce is sold in Ellwood Thompson’s, Whole Foods, For the Love of Chocolate and Stella’s Grocery locally as well as 35 stores across Virginia and a few in Atlanta.

Since they have other jobs and her mother is retired, Phillips said they enlisted the help of a manufacturer to keep them from having to deal with the major logistical aspects. They sourced Virginia Beach-based manufacturer Asburn Sauce Company who also makes Crabby Mary’s Bloody Mary Mix, cocktail Sauce, Carolina Reaper Hot Sauce, BBQ sauces, fruit punches, chutney and more to help to get their product out there.

“We didn’t want to take on mixing it up in big batches,” she said.

And while we will leave it up to the reader to do what they will with this thick and rich sauce, Phillips recommended to put it on sundaes, in coffee, pair it with cheese, or just eat it right out of the jar with a spoon which Phillips said is exactly how her grandfather used to eat it.

Although this chocolate sauce has been a staple in her house for years now and flourished into a profitable business, Phillips said it’s not something she had the luxury of eating regularly growing up.

“He was not a big sharer, and he would literally hide it in the corner cupboard with a silver spoon beside it and if you were lucky you got some when we went over for dinner,” she said, referring to her grandfather. “That’s why we call it, ‘hide unless willing to share.’”

Her grandfather’s original recipe has changed slightly since was passed down according to Phillips.

“He was making it with grocery store baker’s chocolate,” she said. “We use a Belgian chocolate now, it’s a really clean, really delicious chocolate and that makes a huge difference.”

Phillips said they’re currently working on a couple other recipes that they hope to roll out this fall.

“We’re working on a syrup, it would be a squeezable and then we’re working on another flavor but it’s not finalized,” she said.

For now, Willie Byrd is aiming to get a few more stores on the East Coast to expand the business and gain a bigger presence in the market, but in the meantime, get yourself a spoon and dive into this rich chocolately jar of heaven. You won’t be disappointed. You can also follow them on Facebook for recipes and events.

Photo credit: Willie Byrd Chocolate Sauce