West Main passersby were alarmed last week to see yellow caution tape stretched in front of Parallel 38 and Gus’ Custom Tailoring, and a sign declaring Continental Divide “unfit for human habitation or occupation.” Despite that dire warning, the problem (a collapsed ceiling) should be repaired and the restaurant up and running again next week, […]
Devoted Audi owner Deborah Wyatt was set to buy her third car from Flow Automotive in Charlottesville in August—until she was presented with a separate arbitration agreement after signing the sales contract. Arbitration agreements, which are more often part of banking or credit card terms, are usually designed to block your ability to sue in […]
The Downtown Mall is not faring well, at least according to the Downtown Business Association of Charlottesville, which wants the city to pump up the maintenance and provide DBAC with $250,000 for advertising, staff, rent and holiday lighting. Business in the entire city of Charlottesville dropped $14 million—nearly 12 percent—in September, the Charlottesville Regional Chamber […]
A Memphis-based car dealership chain bought Charlottesville’s Brown Automotive Group, an institution in the community for nearly 40 years, on September 19. Umansky Automotive Group, a family-operated company, has 850 employees across 16 dealerships, says owner Dan Umansky. The five local Brown [...]
By Marilyn Pribus “Charlottesville is a unique place,” declares Payam Pourtaheri, a co-founder of AgroSpheres, one of the many new businesses born right here where he says the entrepreneurial spirit is very strong. “There’s the feeling we’re all in this together. Everyone is supportive—you [...]
President-elect Donald Trump made stopping illegal immigration a cornerstone of his campaign. Legal immigration, however, is another matter, and son Eric Trump’s winery has filed a request with the U.S. Department of Labor to hire six foreign workers to prune grapevines. Trump Vineyard Estates [...]
When Bank of America closes its branch doors downtown in February, it leaves a grand 1916 building in its wake that will house a steakhouse, according to building owner Hunter Craig. And while he declined to identify the grilled meat purveyor, he did say it would be locally owned, not a [...]
In the ongoing melodrama between the city and Charlottesville Parking Center owner Mark Brown, a letter from City Manager Maurice Jones says there’s no way the city will sell its Water Street Parking Garage shares to or even work with Brown, who, perhaps not coincidentally, announced plans to [...]
Earlier this year, the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control suspended popular watering hole Escafé’s license to sell mixed drinks for the seemingly oxymoronic problem of selling too much booze. In Virginia, where bars are prohibited by Prohibition-era regulations, licensees have to [...]
Teens in trouble Three young men were arrested for the spate of recent muggings around UVA. Pendarvis Marquette Carrington, 18, was charged with two counts of robbery, two for use of a firearm in the commission of a felony and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Two 17-year-olds were [...]
For most of us, wine and kombucha tea are totally different products and only an idiot would confuse them. Not for Gallo, the $4 billion corporation with a history of trademark bullying. In April it sued local mom-and-pop Barefoot Bucha purveyors Kate and Ethan Zuckerman on the grounds that [...]
Congressional candidate Tom Garrett is back in Charlottesville today a week after he debated Dem Jane Dittmar at the Senior Center. The two are vying for the 5th District seat currently held by Robert Hurt, who decided not seek a third term. C-VILLE caught up with Garrett, a state senator, at [...]
When the owner of MADabolic grins at you from her bike and says, “Sometimes this class kicks my ass,” you know you’re in for a good workout. On Saturday, June 26, about a dozen people clipped onto bicycles in the rows of stationary bikes at Zoom Indoor Cycling, located in the Barracks Road [...]
Discussions for this year’s list of the most powerful in Charlottesville turned not toward one particular person but an entity that truly affects Charlottesvillians’ daily lives—the Virginia Department of Transportation. Don’t worry, you’ll still see some familiar faces (last year’s [...]
The Downtown Business Association of Charlottesville said in April it wasn’t taking sides in the parking wars fueled by litigation between the city and Mark Brown, owner of the Charlottesville Parking Center. That course changed when Violet Crown hired public relations firm Payne Ross, also a [...]
Yoga is humbling. No matter how often or how many different methods you practice, a class or a pose will always come around to remind you that you’re human and your body’s strength and limitations vary from day to day. Take, for example, last Wednesday’s 9:30am 90-minute hot flow class at The [...]
The Greenbrier in West Virginia may no longer be a five-diamond resort, but in the food and beverage world, to be its director of fine dining is still a pretty sweet gig. Carmelo “Carmine” Carrozza held that position for barely two weeks before he told his boss he had cancer and was seeking [...]
When we last checked in on Barefoot Bucha proprietors Kate and Ethan Zuckerman in November, their probiotic beverage business was going great guns, except for a little trouble with Gallo, which objected to their attempt to register a trademark. The wine goliath feared that drinkers of Barefoot [...]
Thirty-five-year-old Russell Matthews, dressed in a denim shirt, blue jeans and white sneakers, enters a small classroom in the Dillwyn Correctional Center in central Virginia and shakes his instructor’s hand. He’s the first of about 15 prisoners to arrive to class on this mid-April day. “Good [...]
“We could in the United States make as great a variety of wines as are made in Europe, not exactly of the same kinds, but doubtless as good.” Thomas Jefferson said it best, and we like to think good ol’ TJ would be proud of the ever-growing Napa-esque wine culture in the Charlottesville area. [...]
Bank of America is closing its location on the Downtown Mall February 17, branch customers learned by letter April 20. “What, we’re closing?” a teller there asked this morning when she heard a colleague inform a customer on the phone. Built in 1916, the structure was [...]
The Young Men’s Shop—opened by Henry Reuben on the Downtown Mall in 1927—is closing its doors after nearly 90 years of selling tailored suits and brightly colored ties. “It’s been here basically for 89 years and I guess it’s just a part of Charlottesville,” says current owner Harry Marshall, [...]
Minutes before top Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s helicopter landed on the grounds of the Trump Winery in southern Albemarle County on Tuesday, July 14, a soft breeze rustled the grapevines on the 1,300-acre estate and, in an occurrence that might have seemed eerily [...]