AVOCARGO, JUNIPER & JAM, AND MODEL CITIZEN COCKTAIL SUPPLY OFFER YUMMY VARIETY
By Marisa Marsey
Seldom is heard a discouraging word at Selden Market, downtown Norfolk’s perpetual spring of new-concept retail, where mentors nurture emerging small businesses, and consumers get “in-on-the-ground-floor” action in a historic arcade. The Downtown Norfolk Council runs the incubator, cultivating community and letting entrepreneurs’ dreams soar without sky-high rent. “In what other city can you be in the middle of everything, in a fancy zip code, at a fraction of the cost?” said Shauntel Davis, chef-owner of Avocargo, one of its three newest tenants. Here’s a taste of her enterprise, along with fellow freshmen Juniper & Jam and Model Citizen Cocktail Supply.
Avocargo
Food with Benefits
You’ve heard of soul food. Bronx-born Shauntel Davis dishes up body-and-soul food. Avocargo, begun as a food truck, is not all vegan, but a vivacious “eat your veggies” mentality prevails. Having witnessed too many relatives—herself included—struggle with dietary issues, she decided to fuse food from the beloved Deep South-Caribbean canon and creatively tweak it into healthier versions without compromising flavor. Take her collard green egg rolls (and you should, they’re out-of-this-world delicious). A tribute to her grandfather, a chef in Midtown Manhattan renowned for his collards (she started cooking with him at church when she was 10 years old and bonded with her grandmother watching Julia Child), hers use apples in lieu of fatback. Greaseless wrappers are as delicate as crêpes.
They’re rolled by her fiancé, Darryl “DJ” Stephens, a full-time mental health professional whom Davis met while teaching autistic children. She swept him up in her health journey and, as their relationship grew, their waistlines shrunk. They shed 300 pounds, combined, through better eating (and the video game Just Dance).
Stephens’ wrappers swaddle sweet potato egg rolls, too. Heady with the scent of cinnamon, they swap agave syrup for honey, ensuring vegan friendliness. Bowls of jerk chicken and stewed chicken, both sassy and swoon-worthy, are perfect foils to calypso rice, whose sweet peppers emit green, red, and amber waves among the grains.
Wash down the down-home five-star fare with refreshing, good-for-you teas in flavors such as ginger. For her newest, hibiscus, Davis boils flowers, adding citrus and spices. With antioxidants and blood pressure-lowering properties, it’s cool aid.
In a rush? Take away fast food-style; otherwise, take time. Davis savors meeting customers. “Let’s connect. Let’s have a conversation,” she said. “Get back to the experience of knowing who’s making your food.” That sounds healthy, too. avocargova.com
Juniper & Jam
Heartfelt, Cozy Comestibles
You may know her as Sarahndipitous from farmers markets where her small-batch jams draw big crowds, but chef-owner Sarah Wingate is now Juniper & Jam—easier to say and spell. “Juniper has nothing to do with what I do, but it felt right,” she said. Probably because it’s fresh and homey, the essence of her expanding line of baked goods, coffees, and lunches.
When she applied for her shop’s spot, she asked: “Do you watch Schitt’s Creek? Essentially, I’m David. I have an idea. It’s a store, but it’s a market, a café, a grab-n-go. I must have sounded scattered.” No matter. One slurp of her roasted red pepper soup, and she was in.
Cream-based, comforting, and subtly kicky, it took her a dozen years to perfect. The customer who nabbed the last serving one Friday said, “I feel like the luckiest person in the world.”
Equally popular are chocolate chip cookies. Brown butter lends an unexpected nuttiness while vanilla sugar and homemade vanilla (Wingate makes all her own extracts) intensify the flavor of the old-school, nubby treats. Your adult mind subconsciously registers their gustatory depth while your inner child just goes, “Zowie! Yum!”
Her oatmeal cream pies run laps around Little Debbie’s, sprinkled sugar atop apple cider donut bread crackles like morning frost, and blueberries in bright lemon-blueberry loaves are as big as marbles. The Italian roast beef sandwich, slow-roasted for 10 hours and served on a good Kaiser roll with “cowboy caviar” (candied jalapenos) is “very Pittsburgh,” the Pennsylvania native said.
Wingate taught special education for two decades but has been cooking and baking with her grandmother and great-grandmothers “forever.” (Their handwritten recipes etched onto cutting boards adorn one wall.) Her plans call for hiring those with special needs: “It’s who I was for years,” she said. “It’s important that that stays with me.” juniperandjam.com
Model Citizen
Cocktail Supply Buzzy in the Best Ways
“You’ve got the ABC store, I’m the D-to-Z store,” quipped Josh Seaburg of this latest iteration of his decade-old consulting/education business, where the master drink-maker (and self-proclaimed philosophical hedonist) retails the requisites for at-home cocktails (except distilled spirits, sold by only the Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Authority). That means handblown glass stemware (dishwasher safe!), “buy-it-for-life” barware (juicers, strainers, barspoons, brass shakers), and house-made syrups. He even customizes: “If you need it, I can make it for you. In quantities as low as eight ounces.”
His bottled Fast Fashion, an aptly named base for mixing old-fashioneds, prompted him to open a storefront. The mahogany-hued blend of organic sugar, water, bitters, gum arabic, and orange oil makes crafting a cocktail easier than opening a wine bottle. No messy syrup concocting, no bitters dashing—just add whisky and ice—and presto! That oil, 100% Valencia, rocks. “Did you just peel an orange?” asked my husband with an appreciative sniff upon entering the kitchen as I stirred. Typically, I’m a bumbling adult beverage-DIYer, but this was as good as any I’ve swigged at swanky bars.
Seaburg also stocks wine and liqueurs and, in the refrigerator case, beers and packaged goods such as Saikō (pronounced psycho), a sparkling sake spiked with sweet-tart yuzu and mint that’s dangerously easy to drink. The fizz continues with Galvanina organic soft drinks. A Campari fan, I especially liked the herbal, bittersweet chinotto flavor. Take drinks to-go or enjoy in-store with snappy Sabrett hot dogs and vegetarian samosas. Seaburg shoots for a record store vibe—a hangout for thumbing through cocktail books and wonking out with him over milk washes and centrifuges. Hopefully, the bar he’s building for pintxos (and more libations) will be ready by the time you read this. Odds are good. After all, Model Citizen opened auspiciously on December 5…Repeal Day. modelcitizencocktails.com
Marisa Marsey
Marisa Marsey is a food, beverage and travel writer whose awards include 1st place Food Writing from the Virginia Press Association. A Johnson & Wales University representative, she has sipped Château d'Yquem '75 with Jean-Louis Palladin, sherpa-ed for Edna Lewis and savored interviews with Wolfgang Puck and Patrick O’Connell.
