New restaurants and a closing to report
Frank Beamer. Roanoke Times file photo.
Restaurant news has been hoppin’ late this week, with readers most interested in reports that Virginia Tech football coach Frank Beamer is going to try his hand in the business yet again.
Retail reporter Amanda Codispoti has details about this announcement over on her blog, The Storefront. The restaurant will be named Beamer’s 25 and will be located in The Lofts at West Station, a warehouse on Salem Avenue that’s been renovated into new apartments. Click here to check out Amanda’s entry.
Over in Salem, a New York-style deli called Cafe X-press (on Facebook here) has opened at 206 Apperson Drive. It features a huge menu that includes breakfast platters, sandwiches, omelets and bagels; hot and cold subs and sandwiches, and specialties such as:
* The Salem: Smoked turkey and roast beef with Muenster cheese, slaw and Russian dressing
* Brooklyn: Hot roast beef with melted Swiss, coleslaw and Russian dressing
* Cajun Chicken: With Louisiana seasoning, sauteed onions, peppers, Provolone and lettuce and tomato
* Roanoker: Turkey breast with jerk seasoning, grilled onions and peppers, cheddar, lettuce and tomato
There are many more special sandwiches on the menu, as well as wraps, burgers, paninis, vegetarian options, and salad platters. Prices look pretty reasonable to me, with the specialty sandwiches ringing up for between $5.25 and $6.25. However, the menu does not indicate that includes any kind of side item.
A colleague emailed me last week to rave about this place. He lives in Salem and said he’s eaten there and loved it. If you try it, let us know what you thought. To see more info about the owners, click here to read Miranda Beck’s So Salem blog entry.
On a sadder note, several of you have noticed that Foodies, a cooking school in Roanoke County, has closed. I sent a message to co-owner Emily Capocci Sesler to confirm this news and here’s her response:
“Yes, Foodies closed 12/31/11. Our lease was up and we decided not to renew. We knew this was very likely to happen so we stopped selling gift certificates one year ago. Our friends and business partners (that you met) had to get out of the partnership for family/personal reasons 2 years ago so it was just Jeff and I. It was becoming more difficult to find instructors and just too much for the two of us to handle with very little reward. We kept all of our commitments though 12/31 and made an attempt to find a new owner with no success. We are now in the process of selling all of the equipment/smallwares and plan to have a tag sale for anything left on 2/11. We learned so much, met some great people and have some great memories to cherish. I hate that we were unable to keep it going. The purpose-built teaching kitchen was a great resource for the Roanoke Valley – that is no more. Let me know if you have additional questions. We are flattered that your readers worried about/had concerns or questions about us. It is nice to be missed.”
That’s all for now, folks. If you have not yet reviewed Allsports Cafe or Queso Southwestern Grill in the Roanoke City Market Building, click the links to add your two cents. Up next week: Habana Cafe and Bayou Snowballs. Have a great weekend!
January 27, 2012 - 12:05 PM
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To be more correct, Frank Beamer is lending his name to a restaurant opening soon in Roanoke. The actual restaurant owner is the same person who closed a similar Frank Beamer titled restaurant in Hampton earlier in the month. Stephan Parry does operate a number (8, I think) of restaurants in the MidAtlantic region.
Good luck to Cafe XPress. Just a casual observation, I do not know of any restaurant that has done as well as Macado’s in naming their sandwiches. For whatever reason, they just all had a good flow and consistency to their naming logic.
Cafe XPress looks like an independent version of a sandwich shop. I’d encourage everyone to give them a visit or two, just to help support their small business. Franchise places are fine, but independent places can really be such wonderful assets to the community. Best of luck to Cafe XPress. Maybe I’ll see some others down there this weekend…
so sorry to hear about Foodies closing. So very hard to find cooking classes.
@Robin, yes it is. We still run cooking classes in our Foodie Calendar in Thursday’s Extra section if you want to check there for other options.
So ol’ Frank’s gonna try again? How many failed restaurants does this make -4, 5? From comments on the previous ones, the reasons were always the same – bad management, no hands-on leader in the restaurant, bad service, etc. The definition of “insanity” is – doing the same thing over and over again hoping for a different result.
Robin: The Natural Foods Co-op in Roanoke has a variety of cooking classes as well, and they’re very moderately priced. You should give them a look!
Tried Cafe X-press on Saturday. I had a turkey sandwich. It was great. You could tell it was fresh real turkey, not processed. The place was clean and the people were friendly. Will definitely be going back soon.
The Gourmet Pantry in Blacksburg has cooking classes. Check them out!
Checkout Cafe X-Press where my husband and I shared half a sub each of chicken salad and shrimp salad. Both were delicious and fresh. The shrimp had a little kick to it which we both liked, and the bread was pretty close to real Italian bread, not mushy like too many places serve. There was a very tempting blueberry cake calling me. It was hard, but I didn’t listen. Large and diverse menu, and definitely fair priced. Looking forward to trying quite a few items, especially the knish!