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.
Galaxy Diner owners Rebecca Cherry and James Henderson (Photo by Jay Paul)
Richmond knows what makes a good diner. That’s certainly what the cooking site Taste of Home discovered last year when they named Carytown’s space-themed, approachable mainstay, Galaxy Diner, the best in the state. After three decades in business, what’s the secret sauce?
“It’s the sense of community,” Galaxy Diner owner Rebecca Cherry says.
When the original owner of Galaxy Diner, Michael Pace, retired in 2022, Cherry took over as general manager. The following year, along with her husband, James Henderson (whom she met when she first started working at the diner in 2010), she purchased the restaurant from Pace.
“It was my first restaurant job. I was in my early 20s, shy and reserved, and I feel like this job really helped me break out of my shell,” she says. While Cherry held other gigs, she says, “I just would always come back.”
Many of the staff have been with Galaxy Diner for at least 15 years, and similarly, the concept of the business, complete with its retro tabletops and red spinning barstools, has remained consistent. The Carytown building has existed as a diner virtually since its beginning. Dishes such as the “Knock Me Up Scotty,” a plate featuring fried pickles and ranch dressing with a hard-boiled egg and scoop of ice cream on the side, have been on the menu nearly as long. As for customer favorites, Cherry says, the Nuclear Waste Dog is a classic, as are their milkshakes, which come served in a metal tin.
“We’ve had people come in here and tell me this is the first place they came to when they moved here; we’ve had people tell us it was their first date here, and now they’re married with kids,” Cherry says. “That’s one of the reasons I love it, too, because it’s kind of like an old-school diner.”
