A restaurant building in Virginia Beach sold for $1.6 million, Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer announced Monday.
Located at 1784 General Booth Blvd., the building is 5,105 square feet.
Mahant Enterprise LLC bought the building from El Tapatio III for a Fuddruckers restaurant. Rob Wright with Thalhimer handled the sale on behalf of the buyer.
A Virginia Beach retail building has been sold for $2.2 million, and the buyer plans to develop a Freddy’s Frozen Custard & Steakburgers restaurant in the 6,000-square-foot building, Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer announced last week.
Mosley Real Estate Advisors Inc. purchased the 796 Lynnhaven Parkway building from United Restaurant Group LP and also plans to build a 7,000-square-foot multi-tenant building.
Eric Stanley of Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer handled the sale negotiations on behalf of the purchaser and will handle the leasing of the new multi-tenant building.
RICHMOND, Va. — From vermicelli bowls to crispy chicken, Pho Luca’s, a Vietnamese-owned Richmond restaurant, uses plastic foam containers to package takeout meals. That may soon change after the General Assembly recently passed a bill banning such packaging.
After negotiations on a Senate amendment, the House agreed in a 57-39 vote last week on an amendment to House Bill 1902, which bans nonprofits, local governments and schools from using polystyrene takeout containers. The Senate passed the amended bill in a 24-15 vote.
“We’re just leveling the playing field,” said Del. Betsy B. Carr, D-Richmond, about the amendment. “So not only do restaurants, but nonprofits and schools will be subject to this ban in 2025.”
Food chains with 20 or more locations cannot package and dispense food in polystyrene containers as of July 2023. Remaining food vendors have until July 2025. Food vendors in violation of the ban can receive up to $50 in civil penalty each day of violation.
Carr said she is glad Virginia is taking the lead to curb plastic pollution and that the measure will “make our environment cleaner and safer for all of our citizens [by] not having [polystyrene] in the ditches and in the water and in the food that we consume.”
This is the second year the bill was sent to a conference committee. Last year’s negotiation resulted in a reenactment clause stipulating the bill couldn’t be enacted until it was approved again this year by the General Assembly.
The COVID-19 pandemic loomed over this year’s bill dispute as businesses shift to single-use packaging, such as polystyrene, to limit contamination.
Lawmakers skeptical of the polystyrene ban spoke out on the Senate floor, arguing the ban will hurt small businesses who rely on polystyrene foam containers, which are known for their cheaper cost.
“The places that give me these [polystyrene] containers are the places that are struggling the most right now,” said Sen. Jen A. Kiggans, R-Virginia Beach.
The pandemic has financially impacted the restaurant industry. In 2020, Virginia’s food services sector lost more than 20% of its employees from 2019, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Like many small businesses, Pho Luca’s has relied on polystyrene foam takeout packaging because it is affordable and functional.
Dominic Pham, owner of Pho Luca’s, said he has been in contact with several vendors that sell polystyrene alternatives, but it has been a challenge for Pham to find suitable alternatives.
Pho Luca’s currently uses plastic foam containers that cost about a nickel per container, Pham said. The alternatives will cost about 55 cents more. However, Pham said he is willing to make the change, recognizing that polystyrene containers are detrimental to the environment.
Pham said he distributed surveys to consumers on the possibility of raising prices to offset the cost of polystyrene alternatives. The results were overwhelmingly positive.
“Even if we have to upcharge them a dollar for the recyclable, reusable containers, people (are) happy to do that, they don’t mind,” Pham said.
The use of plastic foam containers has risen during the COVID-19 pandemic. Several states and cities have reversed or delayed restrictions and bans on single-use plastics since April 2020, according to a USA Today report.
The pandemic also has resulted in an increase in single-use plastics, such as plastic bags and personal protective equipment. A 2020 report in the Environmental Science & Technology journal estimated plastic packaging to increase 14% as consumers seek out prepackaged items due to sanitary concerns.
Although the COVID-19 pandemic sparked renewed interest in single-use plastics, environmental organizations and businesses have spoken against the use of plastic foam containers. Polystyrene biodegrades slowly and rarely can be recycled, posing a risk to wildlife and human health, according to Environment Virginia.
MOM’s Organic Market, a mid-Atlantic grocery chain, has used compostable containers and cups since 2005.
“I think that it’s the right thing to do for the environment, for communities, for our residents,” said Alexandra DySard, the grocery chain’s environment and partnership manager.
DySard said purchasing compostable takeout containers instead of polystyrene foam containers has not financially hurt the chain. She said using a plastic lid that can be recycled locally is a better alternative than using polystyrene foam.
Polystyrene alternatives will become more affordable and accessible the more businesses use those products, DySard said.
“If it’s a statewide change, that’s kind of the best case scenario because everybody makes the change at once,” Dysard said. “And it’s driving demand for the product up and costs down.”
The bill now heads to the governor’s desk. If signed, Virginia will join states such as Maryland and Maine to ban polystyrene foam containers.
Capital News Service is a program of Virginia Commonwealth University’s Robertson School of Media and Culture. Students in the program provide state government coverage for a variety of media outlets in Virginia.
While COVID-19 cases run high and outside temperatures run low, the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors has allocated $250,000 in federal CARES Act funding to offset costs for outdoor dining, including seating, tents, heating systems and heating fuel, Loudoun Economic Development announced Thursday.
The Loudoun Is Ready Outdoor Seating Grant will provide up to $5,000 grants to approximately 50 businesses. Applications open at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 24, and will be considered on a rolling basis.
“With the winter months right around the corner and COVID-19 cases on the rise, Loudoun restaurants and craft beverage businesses are doing everything they can to maintain sales and keep customers safe,” Loudoun Economic Development Executive Director Buddy Rizer said in a statement. “This is one very important way in which Loudoun County is supporting our business community during the ongoing health pandemic. We salute the resiliency of our businesses and understand that this money goes a long way toward their ultimate survival.”
Visit Loudoun, Loudoun Building and Development, the Loudoun Fire Marshal and the incorporated towns will help market the grant and verify applicant information.
For many restaurant workers, their final shifts fell on Saturday, March 14.
“We had kind of a weird weekend, and at Saturday night, it was so dead in there, we said, ‘Should we shut down?’” recalls Brandon Peck, bartender at The Jasper, a popular Richmond craft cocktail bar. “The governor had, that day, made a statement banning groups of more than 50. We said we just need to call it.”
Leslie Hong heard from her two jobs — as a front-of-house floater at L’Opossum and a server at Metzger Bar & Butchery, both in Richmond — on March 14 and 15. “We thought at the time it would be closed just through April,” she says of L’Opossum, a French-inspired restaurant that books tables months in advance and remained busy through its last service. “Then, a bunch of news happened over the weekend. By the end of that week, we were closed through all of April.”
And now, all three restaurants are shut down until at least June 10, the day Gov. Ralph Northam’s COVID-19 stay-at-home order is set to expire. Metzger’s sister restaurant, Brenner Pass, is still open for takeout, and Hong said the owners have spread tips to all staff members, even those who are out of work.
Hong and Peck are among an estimated 237,000 Virginia restaurant workers, or 78% of the state’s dining industry workforce, who have lost their jobs since March — laid off because there aren’t enough shifts available with dining rooms closed, or their workplaces are shut down completely. The National Restaurant Association forecasts that restaurants and the food service sector in Virginia stand to lose $1.3 billion in revenues for April.
Meanwhile, some restaurant owners have struggled to receive funding from the federal government’s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), which allocated $349 billion nationwide in just 13 days before running out of money last week. More than 40,000 applications filed by Virginia businesses received $8.7 billion, according to the Virginia Bankers Association, but 22,726 small business applications totaling requests for $3.235 billion have not been filled.
Many servers, cooks, managers, bartenders and front-of-house staff are also navigating the unemployment system for the first time — and at a moment when the Virginia Employment Commission is overwhelmed with more applications than it has ever seen. As of the week ending April 18, 493,501 Virginians have filed initial unemployment claims since the pandemic began — more than the total number of initial unemployment claims filed during the last three economic recessions combined. Nationwide, one in six Americans have lost their jobs due to the coronavirus crisis, numbers approaching the Great Depression.
Christina Fiore, a server at The Roosevelt and Alamo BBQ in Richmond, also got laid off on March 14 and 15. She received a severance check from the Roosevelt’s owners and worked some takeout shifts there, but a blip in Fiore’s job history — a “voluntarily quit” job three years ago, she was told — disqualified her from receiving unemployment benefits temporarily. After getting that straightened out, the Virginia Employment Commission had the incorrect bank account number for her, she said. Finally, after speaking with three people at VEC, Fiore said she’s received one payment for a few hundred dollars.
“My back’s up against a wall,” she said. “I live alone. I have no family in Virginia. I really hope something comes together really soon.”
The good, the bad, the ugly
Lily Hargis, a pie tender at Richmond’s Proper Pie Co., has received a little more than $100 a week from VEC but has not yet received a federal check. “I applied pretty much the day I got laid off,” and it took about two weeks for her to see any money, Hargis said. “I had a job that wasn’t reflected in my job history when I applied for unemployment.”
Trying to speak to a person at VEC, Hargis kept getting disconnected after one ring. She tried 47 times in one day — she went into her phone history and counted — and then, finally, the call went through. “I heard, ‘There are 1,794 people in front of you. It was so insane.” After seven hours on hold, she finally reached someone.
“The woman I spoke with was incredibly kind,” Hargis said, and she’s been able to receive funds since then.
Peck got lucky. He got his $1,200 stimulus check from the IRS and started receiving the $600 weekly Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation supplemental check, in addition to state unemployment, within a couple of weeks after losing his bartending job on March 15. Others interviewed for this story said they had not received their IRS checks yet.
Cyan Sada, a student teacher who worked as a server and bartender at a Chili’s Grill & Bar in Chesterfield County, received state unemployment quickly but had to wait about a month to begin receiving the weekly $600 federal check, which landed this week by surprise in her bank account. Her parents helped her with April’s rent check. “If I was just getting my unemployment, I couldn’t make my rent,” she said. Virginia unemployment benefits are capped at $378 a week. She, too, received the IRS payment.
Hong applied for unemployment, “and that was a two-week process,” in which she was first notified that she didn’t qualify.
After calling the governor’s office and getting an email address for the head of customer relations at VEC, Hong says she was able to get her unemployment issue straightened out, and now she’s also receiving the weekly $600 federal unemployment supplement. Both she and Peck say the combination of state and federal funding has matched and even possibly exceeded their usual income, but it’s still a stressful time.
“I personally was very, very distraught for the first couple of weeks,” Peck said. “I like to keep myself busy all of the time.”
A musician and a longtime restaurant worker, Hong says, “Everything I’ve devoted my life to, it’s totally been pulled out from under my feet.”
Richard Tai Nguyen, operations director at his family’s Nam-Viet Restaurant in Arlington, has helped raise $7,500 for his 15 employees by selling restaurant gift cards.
“We try to take care of them the best we could, and paid staff up through the end of the month” when the Vietnamese restaurant closed on March 18, Nguyen said. Takeout and delivery, he noted, don’t bring in enough income to break even, so his family decided it would be better to temporarily close the business, which has been open since 1986.
“You can’t have your staff idle,” Nguyen said. “They’ve got families to take care of. A lot of them are anxious to come back to work. We’re hoping to get back as soon as we can.”
Also, he noted, the weekly $600 federal pandemic unemployment checks will be ending on the week of July 25.
Joyce Fogg, the VEC’s communications manager, acknowledges that the state unemployment benefits agency has been overwhelmed with calls and emails since the middle of March, with wait times “over two hours.” She’s not even part of the department that works directly with unemployment filers but she still receives 200 or 300 calls a day, she says, and the VEC’s customer service department is “inundated” with emails, to the point that it now has a 15,000-email backlog. To respond to the incredible volume of calls, the VEC has hired 25 more people for its call center in Grundy and 10 more in South Boston, as well as pulling in any member of the agency with unemployment insurance experience. The agency also has begun contracting with a third-party call center, Fogg said.
As for delays in payments, Fogg said, anyone who is self-employed, an independent contractor (also known as a 1099 worker) or gig worker does not qualify for unemployment benefits, but they must still go through the application process and be turned down for unemployment. Then they can reapply for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA), which covers nontraditional workers.
The $600 weekly federal unemployment payments kick in automatically for anyone who qualifies for unemployment benefits, Fogg added, but the federal payments didn’t arrive for most people until recently, and most can expect a couple of weeks of back payments. Also, “a lot of people are getting the federal stimulus check,” the $1,200 check from the IRS, she said. Although work remains very hectic and some VEC employees are working seven days a week, Fogg expects the situation will settle down. “My phone has stopped ringing in the middle of the night,” she noted.
Helping others
Randall McGarry, a manager at Secret Sandwich Society’s Richmond location, started a Facebook group for local restaurant workers that now has about 2,000 members who exchange stories about their unemployment experiences and post information about private funds that are lending support. Although McGarry has received state and federal funds himself, he realizes that many workers are falling through the cracks — undocumented workers, in particular.
“It’s a large and essential part of the restaurant community,” he said, noting that no one without a Social Security number can apply for unemployment benefits. So far, McGarry has raised $7,000 and is sending sums directly to individuals through Venmo and Cash App.
Many restaurant workers have applied for relief through private grants and loans, like Richmond’s Holli Fund, which provides rent assistance and other basics for restaurant workers in need.
At a particularly low point, Fiore was invited for dinner by friends who knew she was having difficulty. She feels a lot of “pride and camaraderie” in the Richmond restaurant scene, which has earned national accolades in recent years. It’s hard to tell what the landscape will look like in the future, but Fiore holds on to hope that things will work out in the end.
She advises fellow restaurant workers to “be resilient and be persistent and be annoying. I’ve been poor before; I’ve been broke before. I know how to survive.”
With milk prices dropping to the lowest point in years during the COVID-19 pandemic, Virginia dairy industry representatives fear that as many as 30 to 40 of the commonwealth’s 450 dairy farms could be forced out of business by the end of the year.
The dairy industry in Virginia has been in decline for several years now, with more than 100 dairy farms closing in Virginia since 2018. In 2019, nearly one Virginia dairy closed per week, said Matthew Nuckols, a former Virginia dairy farmer who now works for the Virginia Farm Bureau Federation as a grassroots membership and fundraising specialist.
“This is coming at a challenging time for dairy farmers, to say the least,” Nuckols said.
Virginia dairy farmers such as Rhonda Ware of Triple R Dairy Farm in Crewe are concerned about how this will affect their businesses in the long term. About 98% of dairy farms are family-owned and -operated operations like hers.
“The futures prices, like the stock market and everything else, look absolutely horrible,” said Ware, a third-generation dairy farmer. “We’re all just holding our breath, hoping that we all come out of this.”
Due to the sudden downshift in demand from restaurants, schools and other institutions, many dairy farmers have been forced to discard huge amounts of milk before it could be delivered to processors to be pasteurized as fluid milk or be processed into cheese, yogurt, butter or other dairy products.
The time it takes for milk to be harvested from cows to getting sold at grocery stores is a quick, 48-hour turnaround, with no wiggle room to alter production cycles. Not all dairy farms have equipment to produce milk that can be used for cheese, yogurt or other dairy products, so it has been impossible for those dairy farms to pivot to produce other products. And that’s not to mention the fact that demand for those products is also down.
Meanwhile, dairy production isn’t stopping. “You can’t just turn off a cow,” said Brittany Jones, a dairy farmer at Blacksburg-based Richlands Dairy Farm. “It doesn’t work like that.”
And because the milk supply doesn’t stop, dairy farms aren’t able to furlough employees, said Eric Paulson, executive director of the Virginia State Dairymen’s Association.
Despite the declining demand, Virginia dairy farms haven’t been forced to dump their milk supplies yet, but some dairy co-ops in the commonwealth have been forced to discard milk due to over-capacity at manufacturing facilities, Paulson said.
Although grocery stores continue to purchase milk, roughly 40% of dairy products are bought by food-service establishments, Paulson said.
“At the grocery store level, they’re obviously selling a lot more product, but it’s not enough to offset the food from restaurants,” he said. And although many restaurants continue to offer takeout and some school systems are running meal pickup programs from designated sites, these sectors have reduced their dairy orders by 80% to 90%, Paulson adds.
Giant Food, which has 59 grocery stores in Virginia, has been increasing its milk orders by 30% to 60% depending on the week, Giant Food spokesperson Daniel Wolk said.
“We are ordering unprecedented amounts of [dairy] product and we are going to extraordinary means to get product to our stores,” he added. “We have daily calls with our regional milk supplier, and we have worked together to ensure we meet our customers’ needs.”
Wegmans Food Markets Inc., which operates 12 grocery stores in Virginia, hasn’t changed the way it orders dairy products, despite the pandemic.
“We continue to place [dairy] orders at the same rate as before the pandemic,” said Wegmans spokesperson Marcie Rivera. “We understand demand has decreased in other areas, like schools and food service.”
At Ellwood Thompson’s, an organic grocery store in Richmond, the story is a bit different. Grocery manager Jordan Montero said that his shop’s usual dairy source — the Wisconsin-based Organic Valley co-op — has been out of gallons of whole and 2% milk, although Ellwood Thompson’s has been able to order half-gallons in recent weeks.
Organic Valley is a cooperative of 1,800 U.S. farms that produce farm products sold in regional stores. Some of its dairy farmers are in Virginia, mainly in the Shenandoah Valley.
A spokesperson said that a “shift in eating behaviors due to social distancing” has caused a decline in restaurant demand and, at the same time, increased demand from retail groceries.
“We are doing the best to redirect the milk intended for food service to retail,” Organic Valley spokesperson Elizabeth McMullen said in a statement. “We are working closely with our processors to maintain service levels to the stores … and anyone who has an issue finding a product can contact our consumer relations department.”
Ellwood Thompson’s sells about 12 Organic Valley half-gallons of whole milk a day, along with about 20 gallons of whole milk a week and 15 gallons of 2% milk per day, products that come from Mt. Crawford Creamery in Rockingham County. The store, Montero explained, mainly sells products that are produced within 100 miles of Richmond and are either designated organic or produced without GMOs.
“Right now, we’re out of gallon milk,” Montero said Wednesday, the day before the store’s next delivery. “I don’t know exactly why. Possibly panic buying.” Many shoppers are buying baking ingredients during the quarantine, another potential source of greater milk demand, he noted.
But the changes in distribution and demand are still not enough to hold up the dairy industry.
The bottleneck in dairy product sales is not because there’s not enough milk, but because the supply chain wasn’t set up to serve all grocery sales, said Jeremy Moyer, a dairy farmer at Amelia County-based Oakmulgee Dairy Farm.
“We’re just anticipating really low prices at least for April, May and June,” Moyer said. “Until processors change their packaging or what they’ve been processing to meet the grocery demand versus the restaurants and school demand, there’s still going to be low prices.”
The United States Department of Agriculture and the National Milk Producers Federation are working to purchase these excess products to redirect them to food banks and school programs, Paulson said, so that dairy farmers are able to make up for the significant losses they’ve faced.
“Unfortunately, the prices for milk were supposed to be better this year,” he said. “Maybe they still will be. Anything that’s going to suppress milk prices is just going to make it another very tough stretch.”
Kate Andrews contributed to this report.
A Dairy Queen Grill & Chill in Harrisonburg sold for $1.15 million, Denver-based Blue West Capital announced Thursday.
Dairy Queen was the only tenant leased to the property at 78 S. Carlton Street in Harrisonburg.
The property sold as a sale-leaseback. The Dairy Queen franchisee will still be able to use the building, but will lease instead of own it. The franchisee signed a new long-term lease at closing and is also developing a new location in Richmond.
Robert Edwards and Shawn Dickmann of Blue West Capital represented the seller, Chesa Holdings LLC. The buyer, Lightkeeper LLC, was represented by a local broker.
“Even with all the uncertainty in the market surrounding COVID-19, investors are still eagerly buying quality single-tenant, net=leased assets,” said Dickmann. “Quick-serve restaurants with drive-thrus are still able to serve their customers while following government distancing guidelines.”
Blue West Capital focuses on the acquisition and disposition of retail shopping centers and commercial investment properties.
Richmond-based advertising agency Familiar Creatures launched a website this weekend called “Keep Calm and Nom Nom RVA,” where Richmonders can buy gift cards from local restaurants to support the businesses during the coronavirus crisis.
On Tuesday, Gov. Ralph Northam issued a statewide mandate for restaurants to “significantly reduce their capacity to 10 patrons, or close,” leaving some restaurants few choices in how to operate. Hundreds of restaurants across Richmond have reportedly closed their dining rooms, some have shut down for good, and many restaurant employees were laid off this week.
“Friday afternoon we realized restaurants were going to be in a really bad way soon, so decided to bust out a site over the weekend to draw attention to their need,” says Dustin Artz, creative director and co-founder of the firm, which is based in Richmond’s Scott’s Addition neighborhood. “We think most Richmonders cherish the food scene and would be willing to buy a gift card up front and dine later for the good of their community. … We’ve had tremendous — and sometimes heartbreaking — responses from local places that want to be added to the site.”
Unlike other governors in some other states like Maryland and New York, Northam was reluctant to order mandatory closures of restaurants in Virginia due to concerns about the economic impact on the restaurants as well as the patrons who rely on them regularly for food.
“Over 45% of Virginians get their meals in restaurants so I think we need to be very careful, very prudent” about ordering closures, Northam said Tuesday. “We know people need to eat and … need adequate nutrition. We’re encouraging 10 or less people to be in a confined space. In the meantime, if restaurants [routinely] exceed that, they will use carryout.”
A coalition of Richmond-area restaurant owners led by Richmond Restaurant Group (RRG) announced in an email early Tuesday morning that they will close their dining rooms to prevent the spread of novel coronavirus.
“We have been doing all we can to keep our people working, while also keeping you as our guests healthy and safe,” RRG owners Michelle Williams, Jared Golden and Leandra Dunlevy said in the statement.
Other restaurant companies in Richmond including EAT Restaurant Partners, Rueger Restaurant Group, The Giavos Family of Restaurants, RVA Hospitality and Mosaic also signed onto the letter.
The action comes as several states, including Maryland, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut issued orders in the last two days to close all restaurants and bars. Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan issued an order Monday closing all restaurants, bars and movie theaters and gyms indefinitely in an effort to slow the spread of the virus. Maryland restaurants are still allowed to offer delivery, carryout and drive-through services.
Virginia Restaurant, Lodging & Travel Association President Eric Terry said that Virginia is also mulling mandatory restaurant dining room closures, adding that “it is under consideration but not definite yet.”
RRG said it will meet with staff across its six restaurants — including The Daily, East Coast Provisions, West Coast Provisions, The Hard Shell, Barrio Taqueria & Tequila and The Hill Café — to plan how to offer delivery and pick-up options for customers as its dining rooms close.
Other city restaurateurs, such as Jake Crocker, owner of F.W. Sullivan’s and Lady N’awlins, are closing their restaurants indefinitely. “We may be suffering [financially] but we understand why this is happening and why the government is making these recommendations. … We don’t want to be part of the problem,” Crocker said Monday. He gathered his staff Monday night, he said, and told them “that this was going to be our last night for the foreseeable future. I paid them up … and everybody railed around. They maintained a great attitude. … Obviously how long this goes on is anyone’s guess.”
Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney issued a statement Monday recommending that restaurants in the city operate at half capacity and serve no more than 50 patrons in their dining rooms. The statement came before the White House announced Monday that Americans should avoid social gatherings of more than 10 people.
Virginia Business Editor Richard Foster contributed to this story.
The Suffolk Economic Development Authority has awarded a $15,000 state grant to Wall Street Cafe, which plans to open a new venture in the city.
The two-story Wall Street Cafe building on Suffolk’s Washington Street will house a coffee shop on the first floor and a real estate and finance professional office on the second floor. The project is scheduled to open early 2020.
The grant was awarded under the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development’s Community Business Launch program.
The program authorizes Virginia communities to award state grant funds to qualified new or existing small businesses operating in a downtown district.
Wall Street Cafe joins previously awarded Suffolk grant recipients SPARC Shoppe and Nansemond Brewing Station.
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