Dine out

Given these literary resonances, I somehow wasn’t at all surprised to enter the restaurant on a bright Saturday afternoon to find someone hard at work as others—children, naturally—enjoyed the fruits of his labor. In the little open kitchen at the far end of this impeccably diminutive restaurant, chef Tucker Yoder was busy peeling just-steamed golden beets while two of his children sat on stools across from him, lavishing butter on day-old (still delicious) rolls. A few feet away, his youngest son napped on a cushioned bench beneath a big, sunny window. Ceiling fans whirred under the original exposed timber beams high above. A few minutes later, fresh from feeding chickens at an experimental garden plot nearby, co-owner John Blackburn arrived with his own two children. The little boy clutched a bouquet of green onions, soil still clinging to the white tips, while the girl held a scruffy little puppy, dirt still clinging to its once-white paws. When manager Beth Morrison strolled in a few minutes later with three more kids, the dining room was nearly at capacity. Lucky for the chef, the young crowd disappeared out the door a few minutes later. It was Saturday, after all, and every one of the 26 seats (there are 16 more on the patio) was reserved. Lucky for me, three of them—the much-coveted stools just inches from the kitchen—belonged to me, my husband and, of course, our own child.

Though the history of this circa 1898 structure is veiled in mystery—was it a law office? a pool hall? a grocery store? Why the chapel-like design?—the story of the Red Hen restaurant is clear. Charlottesville native John Blackburn, an instructional technologist at Washington and Lee and a highly engaged environmental activist, fell in love with the building on East Washington Street shortly after moving to Lexington in 1998. When the owner put it up for lease a year or so ago, Blackburn and business partner Stephanie Wilkinson (founder and publisher of Brain, Child magazine) decided to take a leap of faith and open a restaurant. Friends since bonding over deadlines at the same Charlottesville weekly newspaper, they had quickly learned to appreciate the unique virtues of their new home city, recently named one of Budget Travel’s “10 Coolest Small Towns in America.” “I have never been to a place where so many random people—people who could choose to live anywhere in the world—decide that this is the place they want to spend their lives,” says Wilkinson. But every time she and Blackburn reflected upon the many pros of Lexington life—nature, culture, architecture, community—they couldn’t help but notice one glaring deficiency: the town lacked innovative, locally sourced dining options.