RECENT COMMENTS
Taco restaurant, Ginger Juice slated for Jefferson Avenue
ABOVE: rendering of renovation of former FAMILY SUPERMARKET at 24th and Jefferson
In what should be tremendous addition to the already lively Jefferson Avenue corridor, we’ve learned today that an as-yet-unnamed taco restaurant and the 3rd location of Ginger Juice have verbally committed to the planned mixed-use development at the Jefferson Avenue/25th Street/M Street triangle.
Brian Rivers and Stephan Parry, partners in 23rd & Main, will be opening the taco place (described as a similar concept to their El Jefe Taqueria in Lynchburg) in the point of the building at the circle. Spring 2019 is a tentative target opening date.
Erin Brumfield is on board to open the third location of her juice and food bar Ginger Juice in historic restoration of the former “Family Supermarket” at the corner of 24th and Jefferson Avenue.
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Yay! Please be affordable.
I’m down with the tacos but a juice bar just smacks
Will it be minority owned?
Will Scovill
Who cares. Affirmative action policy does not play into my buying decisions. Cost, location, convenience, ect.
Remember the whiners at those community meetings all worried that a Subway was going to go in there? Taco that!
Sophie Brasseux MOVE HERE PLEASE
Wow we have some intense opinion around here
Wow we have some intense opinions around here
Sequoia, why would that be a concern? Should race be a deciding factor on businesses that are supported.If so, very sad for your thought process I personally look at service and quality of product.
It better not be another en su boca situation
En Su Boca seems to be doing ok. Sure is better than the porno shop that was there. Pretty certain this taco place will do well, and be a better neighborhood amenity than the vacant rat field that is there now.
Any word as to what’s going in the bottom of new building at 23rd/Jessamine triangle?
It sounds like sequoia does, Dan. What a dumb question.
Yeah! Locally owned businesses, jobs, and tax revenue suck! Bring back boarded up buildings!!
It’ll be in the gentrified part of Churchill so theirs no guarantee
I only asked because I believe businesses should reflect the community that it serves.
If you’re looking for real tacos made by people who actually eat them regularly skip this joint and head to Mi Guerrero Grill at Nine Mile and Laburnum. Stop buying “Mexican” food from white people and lining wealthy pockets. Besides I think it’s tuesdays (or Thursday’s) MGG has $1 taco night. You want to enjoy the food? Support the community that created it.
Right? I’m just over here excited about tacos!
There is no substitute for quality.
When we try to substitute identity for quality we are telling the kind of lie that is only redeemed if, in a short time, we can make that lie into a truth.
If you peruse El Jefe of Lynchburg’s menu, you may notice some striking similarities to Don’t Look Back’s menu. I’d like to say it’s a coincidence, but with 23rd and Main being a Richmond run group, I’d say it’s not likely to be a coincidence.
This building will be a wonderful improvement over what you see now. And, I am looking forward to some reasonably priced food. The owners of this new space have worked long and hard to make this happen.
My concern is simply that the neighborhood’s upscale businesses are not ones that long term residents of the neighborhood will utilize, leading them to feel pushed out. I am all for new businesses, but would like to see some businesses not catering to a strictly upscale clientele
Sequoia, what community and people would that be? Please elaborate.
@18 – So, I’m thrilled to have a new taco place in the neighborhood, but you’re totally right that Mi Guerrero is pretty damn good (those pupusas… I’m not sure that the food is technically Mexican so much as “Latin”).
Anyway: sometimes I want California/Tex Mex/Americanized Mexican food and sometimes I want the real thing. They’re all good in their own ways.
@16
A business reflects the community it serves by providing services for which there is a demand in the community. Anyone of any race can do that.
@17
Rather than telling people to skip the tacos from a place that is not even open, why not tell the people at Mi Guerrero Grill to come down and open a place in this neighborhood? And who is to say that MGG’s food is better than the food that the new place is going to offer just because the owners are Mexican? Some of the best and most authentic New York style Jewish food I ever ate was made by an African-American man in New Orleans. I didn’t think I was selling out the Jews when his Matzoh Ball Soup was some of the best I ever tasted.
I am a little disappointed that Ginger Juice will be coming up here. Their insistence on marketing junk science “cleanses” and alternative medicine woo to GOOP aficionados is rather unfortunate. Would have liked something other than peddlers of charlatanism and quackery in the space. The downside to a free market, I suppose.
@23 Sarah
If that is what you think should be there, what steps are you prepared to take to step in and make that a reality. The people who are opening businesses there feel they are the best fit for the neighborhood and the return on yout investment. If you think you have a workable business concept that serves different people step up and get it done.
Hey BAF – I like how you judge others’ concerns about the restaurant choices, but then lob your own. Your comment “The people who are opening businesses there feel they are the best fit for the neighborhood and the return on yout (sic) investment” could be ascribed to your #28 comment.
Kettle black? I think juice sounds delicious.
@MP
To the contrary, I specifically pointed out that it was a free market and those markets have consequences, i.e. that they have every right to open their, in my opinion, quack operation even if I find their business highly objectionable–if I wasn’t explicit enough. But unlike the other posters, my comment wasn’t focused on the “right” nationality running the business or what was the right demographic for any new business. My lament was more that the concept underlying their business–so-called cleanses–is pretty much discredited in terms of the science and is borderline scammy in my view. If you see that concern as equivalent to worrying about the nationality of who runs the taco shop, then we will have to agree to disagree about if I am the pot calling the kettle black.
http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2013/11/juice_cleanses_not_healthy_not_virtuous_just_expensive.html
“Taco restaurant, juice bar lined up for pending Union Hill building”
https://richmondbizsense.com/2017/09/25/taco-restaurant-juice-bar-lined-pending-union-hill-building/
Just so we’re clear on Don’t Look Back, Nate (Gutierrez) is from New Mexico and his food reflects a New Mexican culinary heritage #ChristmasSauce
Speaking of great tacos, I just visited the Taco stand next to the tire place around main and 27th and it was terrific. If you don’t want to wait for this bougie taco place to open, try the taco stand in the parking lot down there. Get corn tortillas mexican style. Real deal.