Corner Booth: Henrietta's Cafe Opens, Chris's Coffee & Custard Relocating, Cigars and Hot Dogs, a Look at Leonore's Pizza

Welcome to our food column, Corner Booth, where each month Layla Khoury-Hanold will guide us through what’s happening in Roanoke’s food scene. We’ll feature restaurant openings and closings, changes in cuisine concepts or locations, a first-impression review of a new eatery, and our Ask Layla section, where Rambler members can get their burning questions answered on the best places to eat or drink for any occasion. Simply leave a comment with your question or email us at editor@roanokerambler.com. Enjoy! 😋

Henrietta’s Cafe Now Open in Melrose Plaza

Henrietta’s Cafe, a counter-service eatery inside Melrose Plaza, is now open at 2502 Melrose Avenue NW, Roanoke. Here you’ll find a selection of grab-and-go sandwiches, salads, drinks, and desserts, as well as meal combos from the hot line ($4.99 to $7.99), including fried chicken, baked chicken, beef ribs, pulled pork and hot dogs, as well as sides such as macaroni and cheese, braised mixed greens, green beans, mashed potatoes and coleslaw. Henrietta’s is an extension of Market on Melrose and part of the Melrose Plaza development project, which also includes The Excel Center (Virginia’s first adult high school), Wellness on Melrose and a Bank of Botetourt branch, and aims to address food insecurity and health disparities in the Northwest community. There was a grand opening held for the plaza last Thursday.  The cafe is named for Henrietta Lacks, the Roanoke native whose cancer cells were used for successful research and created a line that is still being used today. The Henrietta Lacks Plaza outside the Noel C. Taylor Municipal Building includes a statue of her.

“What Henrietta’s hopes to do is, first of all, provide fresh, healthy food options, hot food options, grab-and-go for people in the community, students that are attending Excel — it’s a place they can come and gather,” says Mindy Boyd, chief operating officer of Goodwill Industries of the Valleys, the operations arm of Melrose Plaza. Henrietta’s will also serve as a food education hub: “We’ll have cooking classes; we’ll teach people how to eat better, cook better, and use fresh produce in their cooking,” Boyd says. The cafe will also partner with the Wellness on Melrose to offer a market kiosk with shopping options, recipes and coupons. “It’ll really tie it all together on how you shop for food, how you cook it and how you change your health through food,” she says.

Chris’s Coffee & Custard Relocating to Historic Starkey School Building

Chris’s Coffee & Custard — a cafe that serves coffee, frozen custard and light fare and gives employment opportunities for young adults with special needs — will close its current location in Southeast at the end of August.

Beth Woodrum, executive director of LovABLE Services Inc. and managing member of Chris’s Coffee & Custard, says that plans were already in the works to secure a permanent location before the restaurant was notified in March by landlord Robbie Hebert that he was seeking a long-term tenant to take over the space. Woodrum launched a capital campaign and raised funds from local donors to purchase the Starkey School (6426 Merriman Road SW, Roanoke) at the end of last year.

“The Starkey School is the last historic building in the original Starkey community so we’re really excited about being able to save and renovate this historic building as well as create a community hub in southwest Roanoke,” Woodrum says.

Woodrum shares that the goal is to re-open Chris’s Coffee & Custard at their new location on Jan. 26. The plan is to add an outdoor seating area and to expand the menu to include a non-dairy frozen dessert and a new kids’ menu, including steamers (frothed milk drinks with flavoring) and more kid-friendly food options. The new space will also allow the team to increase their LovABLE Services workforce training program, which teaches social, job and vocational skills to young adults with disabilities.

Chris’s Coffee & Custard will hold an open house celebration and fundraiser on Aug. 23 at the current location (1824 9th St SE Suite B, Roanoke) when they’ll share renditions of the new location and offer food and drink specials.

Elleagant Pop-Up Returns to Food Hut on Aug. 7

Downtown eatery Food Hut is as much known for its creative comfort food as a venue for local chefs to do pop-ups or test-drive new concepts. Next up, Elle Walton — who also works as a pastry chef at Food Hut and at bloom and attends culinary school at Virginia Western — returns with her pop-up, Elleagant. Each iteration has a different theme, with a menu united by Walton’s flair for kitsch and nostalgia and penchant for baking. The Aug. 7 event, from 4 p.m. till sold out, will feature a farm-to-table theme celebrating late summer produce. Menu highlights include fried summer squash with garlic aioli ($8), braised pork with plum glaze and cold kimchi noodles ($18), poached peach pavlova ($8) and blackberry-bay leaf cheesecake ($8). Follow Elleagant for more information and menu updates.

7 Stars Lounge Brings Chicago-Style Hot Dogs to West Downtown

7 Stars Lounge, a cigar lounge, bar, and cafe, opened at 420 Church Ave SW, Roanoke on June 20 with a menu of hot dogs, sandwiches, snacks and coffee. The impetus for the concept was a cigar lounge. 

“I’m retired now so I wanted to create a place where my wife and I could both work,” says Larry McKee, who co-owns 7 Stars with his wife, Mini. “My idea of a nice retirement is to sit in a cigar lounge with a cigar, smoke a cigar, look at big screen TVs, and chat with my friends,” Larry says. The dedicated lounge (closed off from the cafe area) is outfitted with leather recliners and pool tables, next to a humidifier room where cigars are for sale.

McKee plans to have a bar with beer (draft brews like Stella Artois and Heineken plus bottles and cans) and a selection of wine; Virginia ABC laws stipulate that food must also be sold, thus the addition of a cafe.

The menu highlight here is the Chicago-style hot dog ($5.99), which Larry says some people call “the salad hot dog.” The McKees import Vienna beef franks (known for their signature snap), as well as the Chicago outfit’s Chicago-style relish (a bright green, sweet relish) and sport peppers.

The hot dog is tucked into a squishy poppyseed bun, topped with mustard, relish, chopped onions, half-sliced tomatoes, a pickle spear and the sport peppers, which gives each bite extra crunch and a jolt of heat. The menu is rounded out with a roster of breakfast sandwiches ($6.69 to $7.19), sandwiches ($6.49 to $7.89), lattes ($3.95 to $4.95), coffee ($2.79 to $3.59) and baked goods such as muffins and scones (prices vary). 7 Stars is currently open Monday through Saturday, 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., Sundays 12:30 p.m. to 9 p.m.

First Impressions: Leonore’s Pizza

I didn’t think I needed another pizza place in my restaurant rolodex until I finally stopped into Leonore’s Pizza, a small strip mall eatery (four tables plus carry-out) at 1776 Apperson Dr in Salem next door to a karate studio and two doors down from Roanoke Euro Market. The pies here boast a thin-ish base and a lightly puffy crust with a distinct crisp-chewy texture, with strategically placed toppings (small $12.99 small; medium $17.99; large $22.99). It’s no wonder that owner Miguel Liendo says that he’s especially proud of his pizza dough. And that’s saying something, given that several other menu items, including wings (marinated then baked whole wings) and Venezuelan specialties like arepas and pabellón criollo, are also standouts.

Liendo opened Leonore’s Pizza in 2023 with the intent of serving pizza and wing, including the same pizza he served at his Roanoke eatery, Leonore Restaurant. When he closed his downtown location, in 2024, after 12 years in business, Leonore’s Pizza inherited most of the Venezuelan and Italian specialties too. The arepas, a cornmeal round, are served griddled, split and over-stuffed with fillings, like reina pepiada (a shredded chicken salad mixed with avocado and mayonnaise) or perico, a mix of tomatoes, onions, bell peppers and eggs (arepas $7 to $9).

The aforementioned pabellón criollo ($16.99)  features a heap of shredded beef plated with creamy black beans, avocado slices, nicely caramelized sweet plantains with lightly charred edges and rice topped with a perfect over-medium fried egg. The entrée’s shredded beef and black bean combo also inspires an arepa filling, where it’s augmented with mozzarella, and a specialty pizza, where the duo is accompanied by plantains.

Seek out other traditional Venezuelan eats by looking for menu items denoted with the country’s flag. I’ll be back to try the pepito, a sandwich that reads like a meat lover’s pizza fever dream and comes stacked with steak, chicken, sausage and bacon, plus mozzarella and parmesan (half $9; whole $15), and the Caracas-inspired street dog, where the all-beef frank comes topped with coleslaw, matchstick fries, mustard and ketchup ($4).

 Ask Layla: Where to Eat

“Where can I find good arancini at local restaurants?” – A. Elliot, Roanoke

When this Roanoke Rambler sustaining member posed this question to me, she shared that arancini is one of her favorite comfort foods but that she hadn’t found a version that struck her fancy at any local restaurants. I plan to keep investigating a little further afield, but in the meantime, I recently tasted another crispy rice ball that might provide a cravings stopgap.

Dragon Balls are a signature dish at The Maridor, a restaurant tucked inside its namesake historic Grandin Village mansion. The eclectic menu, overseen by chef Seth Brubaker, ranges from Southern comfort to global street food, east Asian- inspired eats to sushi. The Dragon Balls are a carryover from Brubaker’s food truck, Home Sushi; for the uninitiated, he describes them as Japanese arancini. Sushi rice is stuffed with your choice of filling—say spicy tuna or salmon, avocado and cream cheese — then formed into a sphere and fried until the rice achieves a deeply caramelized texture, which contrasts nicely with the fluffy rice and filling within. I recommend sitting at the bar and ordering one of the seasonal cocktails, say, a spicy Sunshine Margarita, to go with Dragon Balls ($15; two per order) and a few sushi rolls and small plates to share.