Restaurants

A coffee-fueled expansion

A local café chain is gearing up to open its newest location this fall. The coffee-house meets -wine-bar also is reported to now have some backing from the parent company of Outback Steakhouse.

French bistro coming to the Slip

Dubbed Bouchon, the restaurant will dish up Provençal cuisine from chef Francis Devilliers. Bouchon, which is French for “traffic jam”, is being retrofitted at 1209 E. Cary St. in the space previously occupied by Pomegranate Euro Bistro. The owners, who met while on vacation in the Caribbean, hope to open at by the end of July for lunch and dinner Monday through Saturday.

Vacancy signs stay on this year

Even with Memorial Day around the corner, it doesn’t feel like a time to celebrate for Virginia’s hotel operators.

New ABC program may eventually soften the hated 45% ratio

The often-ridiculed law that requires restaurants to sell a minimum dollar value of food based on liquor sales has shown extraordinary staying power, in part because a powerful beer and wine lobby opposes upsetting the status quo.

But one law based on House Bill 2293, could make things easier for restaurant owners who want to sell high-quality liquor by allowing restaurants to calculate their ratio based on the volume of liquor sold, not by the dollar figure as is currently done.

Virginia Beach restaurant coming to Gayton Crossing

An acclaimed Virginia Beach restaurant is opening a second location at the Gayton Crossing shopping center in Western Henrico. Eurasia Cafe & Wine Bar  plans to open on May 12 and will offer lunch and dinner service Monday through Saturday. Co-owner David Edelen said the restaurant will serve Asian, American, and European inspired cuisine with… Read more »

Garnetts Cafe coming to The Fan

A new restaurant is in the works at the corner of Park and Meadow, with a veteran of vegetarian cuisine at the helm. The restaurant, Garnetts Cafe, will be at 2001 Park Ave. The business is registered to Kendra Feather, owner and operator of Ipanema Cafe. The new restaurant applied last week for wine, beer… Read more »

Richmond consumers shopping less but still dining out

Shoppers in Richmond cut back spending at a surprising clip in the fourth quarter of 2008, according to recently released tax data. But restaurants, long thought to bear the brunt of new-found thriftiness, didn’t see an across-the-board hit to their revenue.

100-proof doesn’t mean recession-proof

The state-run business of selling liquor is showing signs of a hangover. Sales to bars and restaurants for January were down 3 percent compared with the previous year. For the fiscal year that began in July, year-to-date sales at Virginia ABC stores were still up 6.3 percent from the previous year. But the size of… Read more »

The business of accessibility

Kevin Mak remembers the day a man in a wheelchair entered his restaurant with a few friends, ate some sushi and left without incident. A few weeks later, Mak, who owns Carytown Sushi, received a lawsuit in the mail. The man in the wheelchair, Craig Fabian of Midlothian, alleged that the restaurant was in violation of… Read more »