New Fan restaurant Smoke & Barrel takes over for Lady N’Awlins

Co-owners Jordan Noble, Kevin Sheffield and Joe Hadad. (Mike Platania photos)

The lights are back on in a longtime Fan restaurant space. 

Smoke & Barrel recently opened for business at 2329 W. Main St., which has hosted a handful of establishments over the years, including The White Dog and, most recently, Lady N’awlins Cajun Café.

Owned by Kevin Sheffield, Jordan Noble and Joe Hadad, Smoke & Barrel hopes to be an approachable, neighborhood spot, offering Southern-inspired cuisine and cocktails. The concept is a change of course from what was initially planned for the building after Lady N’Awlins ended its 12-year run in September 2022.

At the time, the owners of Carytown’s New York Deli bought the building for $840,000 and lined up two employees to open a new Cajun-style restaurant in the space. 

When that deal fell through, New York Deli co-owners Demetrios Tsiptsis, Rodion Tsiptsis and David Zemlan approached Sheffield, who had been looking to open a restaurant in Mechanicsville with Noble and Hadad, the latter of whom’s family owns longtime Varina waterpark Hadad’s Lake.

The three are old friends and spent their 20s in the local hospitality scene, working at places like New York Deli and in Sheffield’s case, Lady N’Awlins. Sheffield said he was excited at the idea of bringing a new restaurant to the same neighborhood where he came up in the industry. 

“The pandemic kind of slowed (the Fan’s food scene) down and then Scott’s Addition was blowing up,” Sheffield said. “I just felt like the Fan was being neglected. So to help bring it back in any positive way is what I wanted to do.”

Sheffield, Noble and Hadad are leasing the space from the Tsiptsises and Zemlan. After getting the keys last spring, Sheffield said they immediately launched into a hefty renovation of the 900-square-foot space. 

“Let’s just say that there’s not anything left from Lady N’Awlins in there. The bar, floors, drywall, coolers – anything. You name it, we redid it,” Sheffield said. “We wanted to give that ‘Wow’ factor for people.”

Prior to Smoke & Barrel, the space had been home to Lady N’Awlins and The White Dog Restaurant.

Sheffield said the plan for Smoke & Barrel is for it to be neither a dive bar, nor a high-end spot. Its menu includes staples like burgers, pulled pork and chicken sandwiches ($13-$15), along with entrees like a pork ribeye steak, brisket carbonara pasta (both $19) and smoked duck breast ($24). Its cocktail menu includes a spiced espresso martini, Aperol sour and smoked old fashioned. 

It has seating for 65, and will be open from 4 p.m. to midnight on weeknights and until 2 a.m. on weekends, along with morning brunch on Saturdays and Sundays. Sheffield said they don’t anticipate adding lunch service. 

Smoke & Barrel’s landlords, the folks from New York Deli, are also working on a new cafe on the other side of the Downtown Expressway. Last year they received city approval of The Byrd’s Nest at 401 S. Stafford Ave. in Byrd Park. Demetrios Tsiptsis said they’re still working on that spot and that an opening date isn’t clear.