Restaurant Review - Locally Grown in Richmond, VA: Urban Farmhouse

 by Sheena Pradhan

Downtown Richmond is definitely slowly but surely catching onto the local and organic trend. On a walk through the farmers’ market downtown on 17^th street, I was disappointed to only see two farm stands selling local produce, paling in comparison to Philly’s farmers’ markets that dominate the city. Despite this, Richmond redeemed itself when I found the Urban Farmhouse Market and Café. It is basically a typical trendy sandwich shop with a selection of smoothies. The shop claims to use mostly local ingredients for their sandwiches and I didn’t see too many ingredients on the menu items that couldn’t be grown in Virginia. The sandwiches all came with potato chips and carrot sticks. Good for the health conscience! They also sell local bottles of Virginia wine—much of it comes from organically grown grapes and all of these claim to be from no further than ninety miles of the Urban Farmhouse itself! For any aspiring musicians in VA, they also have an open mic night. I had a pepper pesto and goat cheese sandwich and a coffee. Yum! This spot is great for lunch, a coffee break or just a chill Sunday afternoon on the café tables outside!