Scuffletown Garden, which replaced the former Strawberry Street Café in Richmond’s Fan District, closed less than six months after opening in June 2019. A new restaurant is planned for the space.
The bathtub salad bar that made Strawberry Street Café famous will be used in some way in the new tapas and beer restaurant.
The restaurant space at 421 N. Strawberry St. in the Fan District that was home to Strawberry Street Café for more than 40 years is back on the market and now available for sale or lease.
The sale price for the 3,500-square-foot building — which includes all the kitchen equipment and interior features, plus a 12-space off-street parking lot — is $1.4 million — slightly up from its 2018 sale price of $1.375 million. The building was renovated and the kitchen, plumbing and HVAC upgraded in 2019, according to the listing details from One South Commercial and agent Sandy Appelman. The lease price is $25.50 a square foot.
The building was publicly listed July 2, according to online brokerage websites — but the fate and use of the restaurant space has been in question since Scuffletown Garden, the restaurant that took over the iconic cafe’s space for five months in 2019 — closed at the end of that year. Octavio Camacho, who purchased the Strawberry Street building and restaurant in 2018, last summer announced a new restaurant where everything is $5 would fill the space; that deal appears to have fallen through. Camacho couldn’t be reached for comment Wednesday.
But of course, for Richmond, all of this comes down to a bathtub. Specifically, the antique, $115, porcelain clawfoot bathtub that for more than 40 years held the ingredients for salad.
Let’s revisit the backstory.
Strawberry Street Café served up hot meals to generations of Richmonders. But it was the restaurant’s bathtub salad bar — that is, salad ingredients presented in bowls resting in an antique clawfoot bathtub — that propelled the restaurant to iconic status, especially once the bathtub salad bar was featured on TV’s “Jeopardy!” in the 1990s.
The 43-year-old restaurant was sold to new owners (the third in its history) along with its building in late 2018, then officially closed by the new owners in March 2019. Camacho was and is the sole owner of the building.
Scuffletown Garden, the restaurant named for an adjacent park, was co-owned by Camacho, an investor and businessman from Mexico who’d never previously been to Richmond — and Derek Salerno, a career Richmond restaurant bartender and manager who connected with the investor in 2018. Camacho had been looking for investment opportunities in the United States and had ties to Richmond, the local restaurant scene and eventually Salerno, by way of his American-born attorney whose son attended Virginia Commonwealth University.
Salerno ran the day-to day and after initially announcing plans to ditch the bathtub, opted instead to open the new restaurant with the bathtub repurposed as an outdoor planter at the entrance; Salerno received “close to death threats” for the bathtub’s indoor removal, he told The Times-Dispatch in 2019. And across Richmond, there were emails, phone calls, letters to the editor, whole social media threads and more all demanding the bathtub be saved.
In fact, despite positive reviews for Scuffletown Garden, the bulk of the conversation — for the full year, from the November 2018 announcement that the restaurant would be sold through the new restaurant’s run and closure in November 2019 — was dedicated to the fate of that bathtub salad bar.
The closure wasn’t because of the bathtub, though, Salerno told The Times-Dispatch in 2019 — it was the investor’s call. And the operators for the everything is $5 restaurant that Camacho announced last year promised a return of the bathtub, which last summer was in storage at a private residence in Henrico County.
The whereabouts of the bathtub today are unknown.
12-31-1987 (cutline): Strawberry Street Cafe spotlights a salad bar in a bathtub.
Strawberry Street Café staffers Clare Uzel (from left), G.G. Laird and Andy Jay were all set to host one of the restaurant’s Monday evening wine tastings.
07-02-1978 (cutline): Strawberry Street Cafe has two fans over the bar, they are decorative and functional.
Strawberry Street Cafe in the Fan has finished its renovation. 10/25/2017:
Tom and Doris Flower of Colonial Heights look over the famous bath tub salad bar at Strawberry Street Cafe. They dine at the restaurant when they visit their relatives in Richmond. June 2006.
Strawberry Street Cafe in the Fan has finished its renovation. 10/25/2017:
Strawberry Street Cafe in the Fan has finished its renovation. 2017.
Strawberry Street Cafe in the Fan has finished its renovation. 10/25/2017:
Salad bar is ready at Strawberry Street Cafe in the Fan. 2017.
The clawfoot bathtub salad bar was already a popular fixture with diners at Strawberry Street Café when Ron Joseph (left) and Grayson Collins bought the restaurant in 1994.
Todd Williams and Suzanne Scherberger chat at Strawberry Street Cafe' where chalk drawings by a VCU art student are displayed. There are four pieces which are copies of Picasso works featured at the Virgnia Museum of Fine Arts. This piece is "Self-portrait," from Picasso's done in late 1901. March 2011.
At Strawberry Street Cafe', Laura Greene (left) and Julie Mullian talk below a chalk drawing done by a VCU art student. The chalk piece is a copy of Pablo Picasso's "Dora Maar Seated" from 1937. March 2011.
30th anniversary decorations hang from the lighting fixtures inside the Strawberry Street Cafe. June 2006.
Brenna Wilson, a bartender at Strawberry Street Café in Richmond’s Fan district, mixes a “Simba,” a Lion King-themed martini that the restaurant is serving during the show’s run at the Landmark Theater through March 11, 2012.
Ron Joseph, owner (according to his business card; perhaps Grayson Collins, who did not show up, is also referred to as ‘owner’) of Strawberry Street Cafe. Febb. 1995.
Salad bar is ready at Strawberry Street Cafe in the Fan. 10/25/2017
Strawberry Street Cafe general manager Adam Williams, second from left, does the "line up" details of menu items offered for that evening's diners. At left is bartender Dan Ingold, and wait staff (from top): Carey Dragone, Liz Wattiker, Jessica Croxton and Erin Bryant. At bottom is Valarie Horne slicing lemons. June 2006.
Detail on exterior of Strawberry Street Cafe. June 2006.
Ron Joseph is shown at his Strawberry Street Cafe in the Fan. 10/25/2017:
Strawberry Street Cafe owners Grayson Collins, L, and Ron Joseph stand next the world famous salad bar in a bathtub. The curiosity has been mentioned on the game show Jeopardy! and Collins said that customers still mention they've seen the show featuring the famous answer. June 2006.
Strawberry Street Cafe in the Fan has finished its renovation. 10/25/2017:
Exterior of the Strawberry Street Cafe. June 2006.
Strawberry Street Cafe in the Fan has finished its renovation. 10/25/2017
Scuffletown Garden Restaurant & Bar is located at 421 Strawberry Street. Photo was taken on Wednesday, August 14, 2019.
Scuffletown Garden, which replaced the former Strawberry Street Café in Richmond’s Fan District, closed less than six months after opening in June 2019. A new restaurant is planned for the space.
Scuffletown Garden Restaurant & Bar is located at 421 Strawberry Street. Photo was taken on Wednesday, August 14, 2019.
For a different spin on cocktail ordering, the Scuffletown Garden roulette wheel can decide which well-crafted classic or tiki drink you should have.
Scuffletown Garden Restaurant & Bar is located at 421 Strawberry Street. Photo was taken on Wednesday, August 14, 2019.
Monkfish is one of the Nightly Fish” on the menu at Scuffletown Garden Restaurant & Bar Wednesday, August 14, 2019.
Scuffletown Garden Restaurant & Bar is located at 421 Strawberry Street. Photo was taken on Wednesday, August 14, 2019.
The clawfoot bathtub that was part of the Strawberry Street salad bar now grows lettuce in front of the building.
Scuffletown Garden restaurant is opening Friday for dinner in the former Strawberry Street Café space, which underwent a major interior renovation.
Scuffletown Garden is opening in the former Strawberry Street Cafe space.
A new restaurant — one that also will house a bathtub — is in the works on Richmond’s Strawberry Street in the former Strawberry Street Café space.
Scuffletown Garden, the restaurant that opened this summer in the former Strawberry Street Café space in Richmond’s Fan District, is closing.
Scuffletown Garden, which replaced the former Strawberry Street Café in Richmond’s Fan District, closed less than six months after opening in June 2019. A new restaurant is planned for the space.
The bathtub salad bar that made Strawberry Street Café famous will be used in some way in the new tapas and beer restaurant.
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