As I still have some minimal work to do on it. Photos need to be sourced, html needs to be cleaned up. I can give you an idea though.
If it were a radio show; it would be "All Things Fizz..."
T'were a TV show; "All My Bubbles"
T'were a movie; "Taps to the Future"
Helping any?
I am continually suprised by the little things about this city. The number of candy factories which existed back nearly 80 years ago, the bakeries and bars, the restaurants and grocers. To duplicate the choices available to Roanokers 80 years ago, one would need to double the size of downtown easily. So someone explain to me why we have sank to a reliance on supermarkets for our baked goods, a sad amount of community watering-holes (CB does not count as a community bar), and can anyone point out to me the local confectionary factory?
Even the choices in restaurants is limited these days. I should not say that, the scope of the restaurants we do have is limited. Billy's Ritz is Frankie Rowland's is Trio is Metro is Dolce. Why do I have to go halfway to the airport on Williamson to get decent REAL mexican/spanish food?
Bah.. thats what I get for talking to Chef K. Hungry.
Where's the butchers that used to inhabit the Market building? There's one now, on the Farmer's Market, with prices far less than what you would pay at Kroger, and a better quality of meat. But where's his competition?
It's nice to see news that the Hotel Roanoke is going to get some competition in the upscale hotel business, Cambria Suites. Upscale, yet affordable.
But Roanoke needs more competition, more options, more choices.
I think so anyway, I don't like having to go to Kroger or Wal-Mart for stuff that I know could be done better by a locally owned business. I'd spend the extra buck to get quality rather than save it and sacrifice quality.
Word of warning, Kroger does not bake cakes. They come in frozen. Wal-Mart does not bake them either. Food Lion has Carvel Ice Cream Cakes, and they are better than just about any frozen "baked" cake out there. Have yet to see a shop here do that either.
Ok, Im off to enjoy a lovely day and continue finishing the new page. Go do the same.
If it were a radio show; it would be "All Things Fizz..."
T'were a TV show; "All My Bubbles"
T'were a movie; "Taps to the Future"
Helping any?
I am continually suprised by the little things about this city. The number of candy factories which existed back nearly 80 years ago, the bakeries and bars, the restaurants and grocers. To duplicate the choices available to Roanokers 80 years ago, one would need to double the size of downtown easily. So someone explain to me why we have sank to a reliance on supermarkets for our baked goods, a sad amount of community watering-holes (CB does not count as a community bar), and can anyone point out to me the local confectionary factory?
Even the choices in restaurants is limited these days. I should not say that, the scope of the restaurants we do have is limited. Billy's Ritz is Frankie Rowland's is Trio is Metro is Dolce. Why do I have to go halfway to the airport on Williamson to get decent REAL mexican/spanish food?
Bah.. thats what I get for talking to Chef K. Hungry.
Where's the butchers that used to inhabit the Market building? There's one now, on the Farmer's Market, with prices far less than what you would pay at Kroger, and a better quality of meat. But where's his competition?
It's nice to see news that the Hotel Roanoke is going to get some competition in the upscale hotel business, Cambria Suites. Upscale, yet affordable.
But Roanoke needs more competition, more options, more choices.
I think so anyway, I don't like having to go to Kroger or Wal-Mart for stuff that I know could be done better by a locally owned business. I'd spend the extra buck to get quality rather than save it and sacrifice quality.
Word of warning, Kroger does not bake cakes. They come in frozen. Wal-Mart does not bake them either. Food Lion has Carvel Ice Cream Cakes, and they are better than just about any frozen "baked" cake out there. Have yet to see a shop here do that either.
Ok, Im off to enjoy a lovely day and continue finishing the new page. Go do the same.
3 comments:
LOL. As an employee of the Kroger deli and after 5 the bakery I can also enlighten you to the fact that nothing except for the cookies and minority of the patries are actually baked at the store-just reheated or sometimes just thawed-as is the case w/ the cakes. That includes the breads.
But I've asked myself the same question about Roanoke, where are the local candy, bakeries, butchers, and those long standing resturants in Roanoke the type that you always see in cities of ronaoke's age on the food network being stalked by the way too perky Rachel Ray. The only answer I have ever been able to come up with is that they have all been supplanted by chains and artifical cultural places created by the likes of the Center in the Square people. The downtown has been so corporatized and consumed by yuppies and all too similar resturants. And everything is all pushed into that tiny little area, you are right it should be much larger to support business as well as AFFORDABLE housing to revitalize the area, and truly do so not just the yuppy lip service stuff.
You need not tell me, I suffered my way through the rampant unprofessionalisim and backwards business pratices of Kroger's deli myself.
I've never seen a deli with more of a focus on moving the "prepared" and cheese island foods, rather than the deli-sliced meats.
I know a made a difference with the customers though, as I had no problem telling them what they should expect from a proper deli. (Myself being a veteran of the great NY Deli Wars.)
I think, with the exception of the City Market building, that unless the market area sees a dramatic opening of a place thats NOT high-end, it will be a while before the yuppies leave. Paradox, for example. If a comfortable, regular-joe kinda place opened there, there would be a shift in the market-area restaurants. Without that factor, your looking at some hard lean years (maybe months in some cases) before the trend corrects itself.
But.. could the same idea, revitalization, work further off market. Say starting at 2nd and Campbell and working its way west? Give the Yuppies the market area for the time being, but develop a regular joe styled market area?
Sure its possible. Can it happen? Ask yourself that, and everyone you know.
For cakes, go to the Wildflour or to El Palenque.
"Billy's Ritz is Frankie Rowland's is Trio is Metro is Dolce."
I've never been to any of those places, but I have plenty of restaurants I love here in Roanoke: New Yorker, Green Dolphin, Sake House, Brambleton Deli, Swagat, Wildflour.
That's half a dozen places that vary in menu and atmosphere, just off the top of my head.
I think Roanoke does restaurants very well, at least in comparison to other cities I've lived (Asheville NC, Monterey CA, Richmond VA and a bunch of small towns).
Just my 2 cents.
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