Hot and new can steal the spotlight, but what about longstanding local favorites? Each month, we’ll visit a Richmond-area restaurant that has been in business 15 years or longer.
Buckhead’s owner Mark Herndon and General Manager Woo Brower (Photo by Jay Paul)
Providing a classic steakhouse experience — think Peter Luger — in a western Henrico shopping center and located just a few doors down from a hardware store, Buckhead’s (8510 Patterson Ave.) hit the three-decade mark last year. Owner Mark Herndon says the secret to their success is consistency.
“I think we’ve been able to maintain because we just try to stay true to who we are,” says Herndon, who took over as owner in 2006. “The two gentlemen that started the restaurant back in 1994 had the vision of creating sort of that classic New York chophouse, the dark-paneled walls, the servers with white shirts and black ties, the white tablecloth.”
Woo Brower, Buckhead’s general manager, says they boast a wine program with more than 800 labels and on-staff sommeliers with decades of experience. The menu is a masterclass in steakhouse standards, including escargot, pommes frites, lump crab cakes and chocolate tartine.
Herndon, also co-owner of The Roosevelt, and Brower can easily name guests who have been coming for decades. Brower says, “There was one family back when I was here in ’99, they had a standing reservation, and they had a table. They had their routine. And then, when the matriarch passed away, the daughter and the son-in-law continue to come in, and they still have their table to this day.”
The longtime patrons are matched by the longtime staff. Many servers have been with Buckhead’s for over 20 years. Family ethos is a key ingredient in Buckhead’s continuing prosperity.
“We fit a particular niche,” Brower says. “So, it is celebratory, it is appropriate for business, but it is also comfortable enough and familiar enough that if you want to come just to have Thursday night dinner, we are accessible in that way, too.”
