“Food is so important to my family,” says Karina Benavides, owner of Abuelita’s, and she attributes this fact largely to the women featured in the weathered photographs on the walls of her restaurant. These are her abuelitas, the Mexican grannies who passed the tradition of culinary excellence onto her. In the small town in Jalisco where Benavides and her husband grew up, there weren’t really restaurants. Food was lovingly served to the community in its living rooms. The decor of this restaurant, with doilies and terracotta cazuelas, or cooking pots, artfully arranged on the walls, is meant to conjure that feeling of familial informality, setting the scene of a home-cooked meal.
Abuelita’s was born in 2017 from its founders’ drive to cook the food they want to eat, which means the signature dishes of Western Mexico: birria (slow cooked beef), cactus salad, pozole (pork bone and hominy soup), and, in particular, the rotation of stews called guisos, served with rice, beans, and homemade corn tortillas. Every day, Abuelita’s offers eight guisos, brightly colored and steaming, selected from over 20 recipes in the rotation.
Benavides points out that traditional cuisine remains so important to today’s Mexican culture that it is one of two countries, along with France, whose food is recognized by UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage program. Tracing its ancestry to ancient agricultural and cooking skills, traditional Mexican cuisine uses a diverse array of native ingredients missing from most American Mexican menus catering to tastes that evolved outside of Mexico. Abuelita’s is a rare exception.
“We made a decision not to put the word ‘Mexican’ on the sign because we didn’t want people to be disappointed when they see something different than what they’re used to,” said Benavides. So if you’re looking for new and different types of delicias to enjoy, Abuelita’s welcomes you home.
Arthur Ashe Tunnel
A colorful tribute to Richmond’s favorite son
Let’s go ahead and get it out there. Contrary to its own website, Battery Park is not where Arthur Ashe (1943 – 1993) learned to play tennis. The park did exist in Ashe’s heyday, and it did have tennis courts, but Moe Thacker, his teammate at Maggie Walker High School, lived adjacent to the park and recalled in a 2018 interview with Richmond Magazine that there were not even nets on the courts between 1948 and 1960.
Tragically, the courts where Ashe actually did learn to play no longer exist. Nearby Brook Field Park was one of the few recreational sites for Richmond’s Black citizens in the 1950s. Like many Black landmarks in the city, Brook Field Park was shut down in the 1960s to make way for another municipal project. “Looking back at my childhood, I see my world defined as a series of concentric circles,” Ashe wrote in the Washington Post in 1981. “At the center was our house at 1610 Sledd Street. The next circle was Brook Field, which played an important role in defining my future.”
Battery Park, however, is remarkable in its own right. Sitting in the predominantly Black neighborhood of Barton Heights, not far from Ashe’s stomping grounds, the park now contains ten very well maintained tennis courts, nets and all, in addition to basketball courts, horseshoe pits, a swimming pool, and two playgrounds.
Most notably, the park features a memorial to Arthur Ashe in the form of brightly colored murals adorning the interior of a tunnel and both of its openings. One opening features a portrait of the young champion hoisting his Wimbledon trophy. Inside the tunnel, the major events of his life are listed in chronological order. The tunnel empties to another mural portraying an older, more solemn, bespectacled Ashe opposite the words he spoke and lived by, “From what we get, we can make a living; what we give, however, makes a life.”
Address 2803 Dupont Circle, Richmond, VA 23222, +1 (804) 646-0944, www.rva.gov / parks-recreation / battery-park | Getting there Bus 1 to Chamberlaynes & Hammond Avenues | Hours Daily dawn – dusk | Tip Jackson Ward is home to a memorial for another of Richmond’s favorite sons, vaudeville performer Bill “Bojangles” Robinson (1878 – 1949). His birthday, May 25th, is celebrated as National Tap Dance Day (601 Price Street, www.nps.gov / places / bill-bojangles-robinson-statue.htm).
Black Rabbit Tattoo
Beacon in a sea of ink
According to a study conducted by totalbeauty.com in 2013, Richmond had the third largest number of tattoo shops per capita in the United States. Two years later, Kim Graziano opened Black Rabbit Tattoo, and the shop immediately stood apart for its bright atmosphere and unique values. In an era when the industry wasn’t known for its hospitality to girly girls and anime aficionados, Black Rabbit opened its doors to these groups, carving out a colorful and vibrant niche amid a crowded landscape.
Early on, Black Rabbit attracted an all-female roster of tattoo artists seeking sanctuary from a toxic industry with a culture of hazing apprentices. The shop has since moved on from its explicit “all-girl” identity, but remnants of the vibe remain. These include the neon “GIRLS! GIRLS! GIRLS!” sign in the window and depictions of powerful female figures like buxom, blade-wielding manga warriors and cartoonish, callipygian bunnies saturating the painted-pink walls.
The shop also distinguished itself with a focus on fandom-centric art, welcoming an enormous subculture devoted to certain realms of pop culture, particularly Japanese-style animation, that other shops tended to ignore. As it turns out, nerds like tattoos too, and there are a lot of them. The melding of anime and tattoos may have grown without the influence of Black Rabbit, but Graziano certainly drove it forward by hosting the massive annual Anime Ink Con in downtown Richmond each October.
Black Rabbit has largely shed its “girl tattoo shop” and “anime tattoo shop” labels but continues to promote inclusivity and diversity in the world of body art. With a door open to walk-ins most days, depending on artist availability, the shop welcomes anyone to drop in, take a peek at the cheerful, colorful space, and maybe get some ink. As the sign above the register says, “If you don’t belong… then you belong here.”
Fan Guitar and Ukulele
Main Street’s little slice of Oahu
Richmond is neither a large city, nor is it a mecca for ukulele enthusiasts, but it nonetheless hosts a shop dedicated almost entirely to that lovely little instrument. Put into context, however, the journey of John and Genie Gonzalez del Solar to the Fan Guitar and Ukulele makes a little more sense.
John studied classical guitar at VCU and then enlisted in the Navy, which led him to Pearl Harbor for four years. “Ukulele was just a part of living in Hawaii and playing music. It’s basically a given,” he says of his time there. “I had managed a guitar and ukulele store in Hawaii while I was living there, so I had a basic understanding of what it was all about. We opened in 2012, and it was a stressful but magical evolution.”
While the store has been present in its current location since it opened, indeed it has evolved. John began manufacturing ukuleles in 2015 and now sells his branded Sparrow ukes at the store. During the Covid-19 lockdown, John says he really leaned into the luthiery side of the business, while the retail side was being devastated. John’s best friend Stu Kindle bought half the business and helped the store weather the pandemic, as John puts it, “with his jovial persona and willingness to exaggerate the positive elements of life!” At this point, things are coming up Milhouse, as 2022 was the business’s best year ever. And with in-person contact back to baseline, they’re expanding ukulele lessons at the shop.
For anyone who can strum a ukulele, which is, well… just about anyone, the store is a joy to walk through, with an inventory to suit all budgets and styles. For the rock fans in the house, there’s a wall dedicated to electric ukuleles. If bluegrass is more your jam, a selection of tiny, adorable banjos is available. John, Genie, Stu, and pups Scruffy and Ziggy are usually around to talk shop, spread their wisdom, and share the good vibes.
Address 1215 W Main Street, Richmond, VA 23220, +1 (804) 254-4600, www.uke-fan.com, fanguitarandukulele@gmail.com | Getting there Bus 5, 77, 78 to Main & Harrison Streets | Hours Daily noon – 6pm | Tip One of Gonzalez del Solar’s favorite places to catch live music is the Tin Pan, a listening room and restaurant that books folk music, jazz, and bluegrass music in an intimate setting (8982 Quioccasin Road, www.tinpanrva.com).
Grave of Lady Wonder
Pay tribute to the Mare of Richmond
Founded in 1929 by a local veterinarian and still in operation to this day, Pet Memorial Park is an animal cemetery that serves as the final resting place to more than 4,000 of Richmond’s feathered and furry friends. Although flashbacks of Stephen King’s Pet Sematary are inevitable during a visit here, perusing the headstones dating back to the 1920s is endlessly fascinating. The majority of its inhabitants are dogs and cats, but you’ll also find ducks, rabbits, a goat, a chimpanzee, and of course, a famous psychic horse.
In 1926, a Richmond woman named Claudia Fonda began to notice something special about her horse that she had purchased the previous year, a two-year-old filly named Lady. With a mere unspoken wish, Lady would appear by her side. Sensing that the horse had more to say, Mrs. Fonda taught her the alphabet and fashioned a giant typewriter contraption, with which Lady could reportedly spell out messages. Before long, word spread of the horse’s talents, not only mere mortal skills like spelling and arithmetic, but of supernatural gifts like mind-reading and clairvoyance, earning her the more fitting title of ‘Lady Wonder.’
The Fondas began scheduling meetings for visitors, each paying 50 cents to ask three questions of the horse. An estimated 150,000 people visited Lady Wonder at her stable in Chesterfield County for counsel. She became famous for her soothsaying, including accurate predictions of 14 out of 17 World Series champions and all but one presidential election in her lifetime (she whiffed on the Dewey-Truman matchup, though she was hardly alone there). So revered were her talents that investigators from four separate missing children cases across the country came to Virginia seeking her help. In March 1957, at the age of 33, Lady Wonder died from a heart attack and was laid to rest at Pet Memorial Park before an adoring crowd.
Address 1697 Terrell Drive, Richmond, VA 23229, +1 (804) 639-4591, www.facebook.com / petmemorialparks, petmemorialparks@gmail.com | Getting there Bus 79 to Three Chopt Road & Westbury Drive | Hours Daily 8am – 5pm | Tip Another iconic Richmond horse is War Horse, the sculpture by Tessa Pullan, which can be found on the steps of the Virginia Museum of History & Culture. The downtrodden stallion is a monument to the estimated 1.5 million horses who were wounded or killed during the Civil War (428 N Arthur Ashe Boulevard, www.virginiahistory.org).
The Kickstand
Gatekeepers of the Capital Trail
From Lewis Ginter’s Lakeside Wheel Club of the 1890s to the UCI World Championships in 2015, Richmond has a storied love affair with the bicycle. One of the city’s finest municipal accomplishments over the past two decades was the opening of the Capital Trail, a 51.7 mile paved bike path connecting Richmond to Jamestown. With views of the James, passage through verdant forests by the homes of three US presidents, and 44 historical markers describing 400 years of Virginia history, the trail is an excellent way to enjoy the two defining features of the region: its history and its natural beauty.
Near the Richmond end of the Cap Trail, in an otherwise empty lot on the river between Shockoe Bottom and Rocketts Landing, sits a simple, mint-green shipping container called the Kickstand, which rents bikes. For folks without a bike or wanting to demo something a little fancier like a clip-in road bike, an electric bike, or a pull-behind trailer for the kiddos, the Kickstand has a wide variety of affordable rentals in increments of 1, 4, 8, or 24 hours.
The Kickstand is an extension of the Richmond Cycling Corps (RCC), a non-profit dedicated to integrating bicycling into the community, particularly with young people who live in the public housing neighborhoods of East Richmond. The RCC empowers individuals recruited from these communities by hiring them to manage the Kickstand during peak hours.
The RCC runs several other programs, most notably the Legacy Cycling program, an intensive training program through which kids learn to compete in road racing and mountain biking. About ten individuals are enrolled at any given time, riding most days in preparation for races around the state. On a weekend day, you can swing by the Kickstand to enjoy a chat with these young folks, and while you’re at it, go ahead and rent a bike to explore the sites along the Cap.
Address 3011 Water Street, Richmond, VA 23223, +1 (804) 372-7813, www.richmondcyclingcorps.org / kickstand, info@richmondcyclingcorps.org | Getting there Bus 4A, 4B, Pulse to Main Street & East Riverfront | Hours Daily 10am – 5pm | Tip Near the trailhead of the Richmond Capital Trail is the Great Shiplock Park, a walk along the entry point for boats from the James River into the historic Kanawha Canal. The trail connects to little-known Chapel Island, which features great views of the river (2803 Dock Street, www.jamesriverpark.org / explore-the-park-great-shiplock-park-chapel-island).
Meadowgate Alpacas
The cutest herd this side of the Andes
“It’s just really easy to fall in love with alpacas,” says Nicole Phillips, who, along with her husband Stephen, owns Meadowgate Alpacas in Beaverdam, Virginia, about 30 minutes north of Richmond. Sign up for an hour-long farm visit, offered to private groups of up to 10 people from April through December, and you will assuredly fall in love too.
The butterflies will begin to flutter from the moment you pat the dense fleece on the neck of Phoenix, the handsome herdsire, to the moment you lock eyes with Zendaya, with her head propped on the fence to catch a peek at you. By the time baby Twilight, a new addition to the herd in 2023, nuzzles into your neck, Cupid’s arrow will be lodged firmly in your backside.
The Philipses began their love affair with alpacas in 2017. Once owners of a horse farm north of Boston, they moved to Virginia in 2005 and sold their last horses in 2015. After taking a break from raising farm animals, they happened upon an alpaca farm. It was the first time Stephen had ever spent time with an alpaca, but he fell hard. That same day, the couple decided to purchase their first three alpacas, the progenitors of a herd that has since grown to 30.
The Philipses happily share their love of alpacas with the community in a variety of ways. In addition to hosting visitors to the farm, they also provide outreach to local organizations in the form of “alpaca therapy,” bringing alpacas on visits to senior living facilities, veterans’ groups, and nonprofits focused on children with special needs. With the fleece collected from the annual shearing, usually in April, Meadowgate also produces garments, yarn, and home goods available for purchase online. Many of these products are sourced back to one specific alpaca, so when you fall in love during a farm visit, it’s possible to own a special memento from your fleecy crush.
Address 16305 Coatesville Road, Beaverdam, VA 23015, +1 (804) 432-3572, www.meadowgatealpacas.com, nicole@meadowgatealpacas.com | Getting there By car, take I-295 North to US-33 West to VA-671 towards Beaverdam | Hours See website for visit schedule | Tip Just over a mile east from Meadowgate is Patrick Henry’s Scotchtown, the house where the “orator of the American Revolution” lived from 1771 to 1778 and where he likely wrote the famous words that launched the war for independence (16120 Chiswell Lane, Beaverdam, www.preservationvirginia.org / historic-sites / patrick-henrys-scotchtown).
Penny Lane Pub
You’ll never walk alone in downtown Richmond
When football is on the telly, Penny Lane comes to life. Although the sign out front reads “Liverpool’s Penny Lane Pub,” the large, labyrinthine bar has room for football foes of all stripes, as beloved bartender “Chelsea Joe’’ can attest. Indeed, the pub is the official gathering spot, sanctioned by the clubs themselves, for the Richmond fanbases of Liverpool, Chelsea, and Tottenham Hotspur.
Chelsea fans were the first to secure the designation, but sensing the universe was out of alignment, the Liverpool faithful quickly followed suit. Just don’t be caught wearing a Manchester United kit in the northwest corner during a Northwest Derby, lest ye receive an earful of Scouse-tinged scorn from hooligans armed with pints of Smithwicks.
True Liverpudlians here are few and far between but include the pub’s founder Terry O’Neill. He played football in Liverpool (though not for the Liverpool) and bounced at The Cavern, the club where the famous foursome adorning the walls of Penny Lane got their start. Terry’s wife was present at Woolton’s Parish Church when John met Paul. While in service of the British Merchant Navy, Terry found his way to New York, and at the urging of other British expats, eventually to Richmond. “When he arrived here, he asked, ‘Where are the pubs? Where do the lawyers get together with the carpenters?’” says Terry’s son Terence, who now runs the establishment. “This was all built from one man’s vision.”
O’Neill, a carpenter by trade, quite literally handbuilt the rich wooden inlay that gives the bar its distinctly British feel. Also contributing to the vibe are the low ceilings hung with steins, steaming heaps of shepherd’s pie, and walls saturated with equal parts Beatles paraphernalia, Liverpool FC merchandise, and photos of besotted patrons from days of yore. Short of traveling across the pond, there’s simply nowhere better for a pint and a match.
Address 421 East Franklin Street, Richmond, VA 23219, +1 (804) 780-1682, www.pennylanepub.com, pennylanepubRVA@gmail.com | Getting there Bus 5, 14 to Main & 5th Streets | Hours Tue & Wed 4pm – midnight, Thu 4pm – 2am, Fri 3pm – 2am, Sat 11 – 2am, Sun 11am – 9pm | Tip Speaking of places that remind us of Great Britain, “the view that named Richmond” is the vantage in Libby Hill Park, from which city founder William Byrd II reminisced about his English home, Richmond upon Thames (2801 East Franklin Street, www.scenicvirginia.org / view-that-named-richmond).
Sunken Barges at Dutch Gap
Paddle between the ghost ships
Just after dawn on a crisp November day, a blinding, orange sliver of sun peaks above a maple-lined horizon, silhouetting the broad wingspan of a blue heron as it cuts through billowy vapors steaming off the chilly water at Dutch Gap. Tucked in just south of where the Citie of Henricus once stood lies an 850-acre lagoon hosting a magnificent ecosystem. Home to beavers, muskrats, turtles, frogs, and hundreds of species of birds, the area is a destination for nature lovers.
One species not commonly encountered on ambles around the secluded, 3.5-mile trail encircling the lagoon is the homo sapien, although people have been visiting the area for a long time. Ancient Native American artifacts have been unearthed all around the banks of the lagoon. In 1613, Sir Thomas Dale attempted to cut a trench through the massive oxbow in the river to fortify Henricus from Indian attack. Union troops expanded these efforts by forcing freedmen to dig a channel that would circumvent Confederate defenses. In the early 1920s, the Richmond Sand & Gravel Company began mining in the area. This continued until the 1960s, at which point a channel was cut and the river filled the enormous mining pit.
To paddle a 2.5-mile trail through the lagoon, you may portage your own craft from the parking lot at Henricus about 440 yards to the put-in a mile upstream. In the warmer months, kayak and canoe classes leave from the much closer boatshed.
One highlight of the water trail is the Graveyard, a collection of abandoned mining barges that now form a series of islands dense with vegetation. In the middle of the archipelago sits an iconic, rusty, old tugboat sporting a “D” on the smokestack. Although humans have permanently changed the topography at Dutch Gap, nature has reclaimed the sunken fleet at its center.
Address 341 Henricus Park Road, Chester, VA 23836, +1 (804) 748-1624, www.chesterfield.gov / DutchGap | Getting there By car, take I–95 South to exit 61A onto SR-10 East then turn left onto Old Stage Road, right onto Coxendale Road, and right onto Henricus Park Road | Hours Daily 8am – dusk | Tip The Bellwood Flea Market, Richmond’s oldest and largest, sets up just up the highway from Henricus. A bustling smorgasbord of goods and produce open on weekend days, the market has particular significance to the Latin communities of the Southside (9201 Jefferson Davis Highway, www.facebook.com / officialbellwoodfleamarket).
Vinyl Conflict Records
Wax for the masses
Owner of Vinyl Conflict, Bobby Egger, recognizes that for the casual music fan, the record store can be an intimidating space. Recall the scene from High Fidelity (2000) in which an ornery employee excoriates a trench coat-sporting older gent for his “terrible taste” after he requests a Stevie Wonder album. Perhaps it is that acknowledgement that allows Vinyl Conflict, despite the relative obscurity of its collection and the vast knowledge of its staff, to shed the stereotype and sell records without a hint of pretense.
The shop opened in 2008 as only the second record store in the city, and much has changed since then. Egger took the reins in 2012. The store moved from Oregon Hill to downtown in 2022. The number of record stores in Richmond grew to double digits. Despite the changes, the store’s original mission remains the same: to provide a marketplace for underappreciated music. Vinyl Conflict values local artists in particular and has its own label that has supported 35 bands over the years, all from Richmond.
The diversity of the collection has expanded as well. DIY punk and metal still occupy a large share of the shelf space, but Egger says there aren’t really boundaries around what the store sells. “We definitely have some albums from major labels… If a kid comes in asking for Taylor Swift, we’ll talk to them about it; otherwise they’ll never come back into a record store.” All are welcome, whether they seek mainstream music or the deep cut on the B-side of the demo of a Midlothian garage band.
Egger also seeks to restore the richness that record collecting has lost to modern conveniences. “There is an ‘Amazonication,’ to collecting these days,” he says. “People click the button and check out. We want you to come and dig in, browse the rack, talk to us, let us play an album. Tell us what you want, what you like. You’ll be surprised what you’ll find.”
Address 300 E Grace Street, Richmond, VA 23219, +1 (804) 644-2555, www.vinylconflict.com | Getting there Bus 1, 2A, 2B, 2C, 3C, 14, 78 to 4th & Broad Streets | Hours Tue – Sat 11am – 7pm, Sun & Mon noon – 6pm | Tip For metalheads in search of live music, one of the better local mosh pits can be found at Canal Club, a large, brick warehouse that originally housed the Old Dominion Hide & Fur Company in the 1800s (1545 E Cary Street, www.thecanalclub.com).
John Tucker was born and raised in Richmond, where as a child, he subsisted on Ukrop’s White House rolls, slept under a Richmond Braves poster, and regularly rode his bike to the Huguenot flatwater. While completing his training as an Emergency Medicine doctor in Chicago, he discovered the 111 Places series and knew that he was destined to write the Richmond edition. Between busy shifts in the ER, John further stresses himself out by watching UVA sports and unwinds by exploring the River City with his family.
Ashley Tucker grew up in Chester, Virginia, where she received her first camera from her grandfather. After stints in New York and Chicago spent honing her photography skills, Ashley reunited with her hometown and used her camera to document Richmond’s hidden treasures with her husband, the author of this book, their adventurous children, and rowdy golden retriever. When she isn’t capturing the city from behind a lens, she can be found on her yoga mat at Humble Haven, spending time with her family or fixing up their vintage Richmond home.
