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Bamboo Cafe opened in 1974. (Photo courtesy Hunter Armstrong)
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A painting of Bamboo Cafe by Elizabeth Evans hangs in the restaurant. (Photo by Jay Paul)
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Crew out front featuring Cindy George Loving, Pieter Borman, Billy Pittmann, the late Ron Jouck and Adrienne LaPrade (Photo courtesy Hunter Armstrong)
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Former Bamboo Cafe cook Billy Pittman at a Christmas party (Photo courtesy Hunter Armstrong)
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A T-shirt designed by Carole Pelfrey from the late 1980s (Photo courtesy Anne Bucci)
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Longtime Bamboo Cafe server and bartender Elizabeth Evans (Photo by Jay Paul)
For 50 years, amid development, industry innovation and a vanishing yet beloved neighborhood bar culture, Bamboo Cafe — on the corner of West Main and Mulberry streets in the Fan — has stayed true to its identity as a community hub, seemingly uninfluenced by the outside world. At any hour, patrons can be seen blissfully tucked into tight wooden booths, their elbows and knees grazing those of their companions while sipping strong drinks under the tin roof without a care in the world.
It is a place of routine, where worries can be curbed by a stiff pour and a familiar face. Longtime Bamboo Cafe customer Jim Bandelean, 81, has been frequenting 1 S. Mulberry St. since it was Mulberry Tavern in the early 1970s. Though he moved to the West End a few years ago, making trips to his favorite place less frequent, Bandelean says matter-of-factly, “Oh, but I still get down to the ’Boo.”
Every Sunday, Bandelean and his wife, Despa, and a group of a few dozen others congregate outside, waiting for the doors to open at 10:30 a.m. Brunch begins with a click of the lock, followed by a frenzy of friendly hugs. The bartender on duty lines the well with tall glasses in preparation for the incoming bloody mary brigade.
Much like the establishment he loves, Bandelean’s usual — bourbon and ginger with a slice of lime — is timeless. At the sight of him, and most of their regulars, the Bamboo crew know what to reach for; they are masters in the art of silent service.
“They would have the drink on the bar when they saw me crossing the street,” Bandelean says fondly.
That sort of unspoken hospitality is treasured, almost a lost art. As Richmond navigates change, Bamboo stays the same, and slogans from patrons like, “Make your own family here” and “We come alone to get together” capture its spirit.
An old menu from when Bamboo Cafe first debuted (Image courtesy The Valentine)
The ‘Place to Go’
The story of Bamboo Cafe — its name a nod to Bambú rolling papers — starts in 1974 with the original owners, husband and wife Diane and Jim Bandette. The space previously housed the Mulberry Tavern and in its earliest iteration was a drug store.
While the Bandettes may have gotten the party started, they cut ties with Bamboo Cafe just a few years later.
Jay Barrows, now an art dealer and curator, moved to Richmond in 1970 to attend Virginia Commonwealth University. During grad school, he lived on Monument Avenue and was a caretaker for Richmond philanthropists Sydney and Frances Lewis.
Back then, Barrows says, “Nobody, nothing was on Main Street. [The Bandettes] took a chance and opened this place. I heard about it, and I came.”
The week that Bamboo Cafe opened, Barrows plopped down on a bar stool and struck up a conversation with some fellow patrons. Like many others since, he quickly made a friend.
“It became like my place to go,” Barrows says.
It eventually became his first wife Becky’s place to go, too. She worked as a secretary at The Fulton School (now art studios and the restaurant Blue Atlas) and waited tables at The Robin Inn before landing at Bamboo Cafe in 1975.
Shortly after she started, the Bandettes sold the restaurant. It was then taken over by John Anderson and Gary Morgan, but not long after, Anderson decided to sell his stake.
Barrows says, “Becky came home — she’s 25, I’m 26 years old — and she says, ‘Are you interested in buying half of the Bamboo?’ And I went, ‘Well, we can look into it.’”
On May 19, 1977, the couple purchased their part of what would become one of Richmond’s most cherished places for $18,000. It would also mark Bamboo Cafe’s shift into a true neighborhood bar.
Though business was booming, Barrows saw an opportunity to take things up a notch. In 1978, he and Becky applied for a liquor license and learned that there were a few hurdles to overcome: They needed to have 45 table seats and no more than eight seats at the bar. The couple hired a lawyer, called on a friend who was a carpenter and spent $10,000 on renovations.
“We took every square inch of this place and added enough seats to make it 45,” Barrows says. “The back two seats are called the judge’s chamber, it used to be a furnace; we took it out, and those were our last two seats.”
There was a certification and court hearing, and it was all a “pretty big deal.”
When you come in, if you’re by yourself, you know somebody. It’s almost like a party for people.
—Elizabeth Evans, bartender and server
“We kept thinking, all right, it’s going to be worth it, it’s going to be worth it,” Barrows says. “And we made it happen. We were suddenly the bar that everybody that worked in bars and restaurants went to.”
In the early days, the menu featured “munchies” including peanuts in the shell and onion rings, “piping hot pizzas,” and a triple-decker club sandwich, still a Bamboo classic, for $2.25. There was also chili in the winter — a favorite of Barrows’ — and gazpacho in the summer.
They kept the lights on until 2 a.m., and post-midnight, it was a gathering place for those in the biz seeking a post-shift balm after untying their aprons. A record player loudly spun rock ’n’ roll, and if you brought in vinyl, it would happily be played. Bamboo earned a reputation as the smokiest joint in town with the latest last call. It was cash or check only, and to its customers, it was simply the best.
The camaraderie transcended to softball tournaments and lively Christmas parties. When they upped the price of beer by 10 cents, Barrows recalls one regular exclaiming, “Now I can’t get two beers for $1!” There were also frequent visits from the police and the ABC board, but it always brought people together, he says.
“We always said we wanted it to be a place that you came to three or four times a week as a neighborhood place, but the food was always good,” Barrows says.
Barrows balanced working for the Lewises and Bamboo Cafe. “Gary [Morgan] and Becky and I, we were good partners; we loved doing it. And I’ll say, you cannot be an absentee owner in a small restaurant,” he adds.
But they eventually ran out of gas. With the Barrowses contending with their own relationship woes and Morgan ready to exit the business, the trio sold the restaurant and parted ways with Bamboo Cafe in October 1982 in a decision that felt simultaneously right and bittersweet.
“We built something that had a pretty great reputation,” Barrows says.
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Cook Noel Hornung, who has been at Bamboo Cafe for 26 years, in the kitchen with Anne Veillette (Photo by Jay Paul)
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Bartender Chrissie Lozano (Photo by Jay Paul)
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Patrons at the bar (Photo by Jay Paul)
Come as You Are
Martin “Marty” White took over the bar and restaurant in 1982. When White died of cancer in 2004, his wife, Adrienne LaPrade — a fixture at Bamboo Cafe since 1980 — assumed ownership. “I just kind of inherited it,” she says. “I’ve done everything here except cook; I’m too short [for that].”
The cast of characters at Bamboo Cafe has remained incredibly consistent since then. Regulars will recognize Elizabeth Evans, who frequented the bar for a decade before becoming an employee in the 1990s; when she relocated from a stint living in California.
“I came in to say hi when I got back into town, and it was a Friday night around 6:30, and they said, ‘Hey, we need someone to work, would you be interested?’ I’ve been here ever since,” she says.
That was 30 years ago. “I just loved it so much as a customer. I don’t know, it just feels so comfortable. When you come in, if you’re by yourself, you know somebody. It’s almost like a party for people.”
Bamboo Cafe has attracted all walks of life, from beatniks and punks to artists and gigging musicians to nearby neighbors, restaurant workers and everyone in between. It has also been the stomping grounds for a number of successful restaurateurs who followed similar stick-with-it paths and went on to introduce some of Richmond’s favorite eateries — among them, Manny Mendez of Kuba Kuba, Sam George of Cafe Rustika and Paul Keevil of Millie’s.
In 1985, the ’Boo went Hollywood for the HBO film “Finnegan Begin Again,” posing as an ice cream shop, harkening back to the space’s origin as a corner drugstore and malt shop.
Though Bamboo Cafe welcomes all, you almost have to know someone to secure a job there. General Manager Mariam Farrell has a Bamboo bloodline. Her uncle, two brothers and three sisters all did their time there. Farrell says she got suckered into covering a shift for her pregnant sister over two decades ago and has kept with it. Her sister Andrea O’Hare works with her still and has since 1998.
There is also Chrissie Lozano, a 22-year employee and singer in the band Piranha Rama. When she relocated to Richmond and was looking for a job, she says, “Somebody told me to come up to Richmond and go into Mamma Zu and talk to Ed [Vasaio] and then come to Bamboo Cafe and talk to Adrienne. I came up on a Sunday, and Mamma Zu was closed.”
Her fate was sealed.
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A band, aka the kitchen staff, during a Christmas party (Photo courtesy Gregory Gabriel)
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Exterior night shot with regular Lee Huband Jr. perched at his usual spot (Photo courtesy Ed Worthington)
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Inside Bamboo Cafe (Photo by Jay Paul)
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Mariam Farrell at the Bamboo Cafe 50th anniversary party (Photo courtesy Ed Worthington)
In the kitchen, chef Noel Hornung cranks out consistently reliable eats. He’s the child of Bamboo regulars and grew up in the booths there. His mother, Carol, tended bar at Bamboo.
“When people were coming by [last] year, like for the 50th, one thing everybody said, ‘I haven’t been here in 10 years, I haven’t been here in 15 years, and it’s exactly the same.’ That’s something that I think is wonderful about the ’Boo,” Farrell says.
Crew members bring up stories of longtime patrons including Arlington “Lee” Huband Jr., who had a reserved seat at the end of the bar that he called “the apex of the universe.” A retired Richmond firefighter, Huband was noted in his obituary as having “many adoring ‘rascals and stinkers’ and other loving friends at the Bamboo Cafe.”
Huband always remembered birthdays, gave toys around Christmas and was part of the fabric of the restaurant.
Farrell says, “When I became pregnant with my son, he took pictures of me like twice a week, and then he ended up making a little photo album for me and a bunch of little collages and gave it to me after I had my son. That’s something that’s very dear to me.”
Evans says, “There’s certain people that touch you. You got regular customers that come every Friday to see me. I mean, they just, they love Bamboo, and they love me, so it warms my heart.”
In 2019, Bamboo Cafe won Richmond magazine’s Elby Award for Neighborhood Anchor Restaurant, recognizing an establishment that has consistently provided high-quality food and service and has served as a community hub.
The COVID-19 pandemic may have been the business’ greatest test to date, but they navigated it with poise. Red velvet and gold-accented ropes created an extended dining space outside, and when customers exited the cafe to smoke a cigarette, bartenders wiped the door handle behind them. There was even a wedding.
“A couple got married here during the pandemic, just out front, because this is their favorite place,” LaPrade says. “It’s not a moneymaking place, and it’s not a place that you could put anyplace else. No, this is it, this is the building. This is what has all the memories and the people in it.”
During the bar’s 50th anniversary block party last October, patrons flooded the streets and clanked cups under the red canopies. People who hadn’t seen each other since their last exchange at the bar happily reminisced about their home away from home.
While there are some newer faces working there today, the bar shuts down at midnight during the week, and perhaps it hasn’t quite returned to its raucous pre-pandemic days, Bamboo Cafe remains a revered neighborhood staple.
The bar is a reflection of Richmond, mirroring the people who inhabit it. From first dates to proposals, Tuesday nights to midday hangs, it’s a place to pop in and stay a while, a place for life moments both everyday and big — a balance that can’t be re-created. The ’Boo transports just by being itself.
“It really is generational. The crazy little hole in the wall serving pub food has made its mark on many,” Barrows says. “It’s maintained its identity, and it’s a mainstay that has a purpose.”
