Restaurant entrepreneur Corey Bartlett has moved from Olde Towne Marketplace to the Roadway Inn at 5321 Richmond Road.
Bartlett has leased the hotel’s former restaurant area, where Corey’s Chicken Shack is now operating. The large meeting area with its adjacent bar has become Corey’s Southern Catering and Events.
He has closed The Sammich Café and C&D Caribbean take-out restaurant formerly on Olde Towne Road. He operated Corey’s Country Kitchen from 2015-2018 when he repositioned it to Corey’s Chicken Shack.
Bartlett has also operated Southern Pancake & Waffle House at 1605 Richmond Road since 2008.
“You’re learning in the restaurant business every day,” said Bartlett, who for about 20 years worked with Williamsburg’s late Angelo Mageras, a Greek restaurant and hotel owner. “You have your ups and downs and your failures, but you move on.”
Mageras’ daughter Georgia Salih, general manager of Roadway Inn, call Bartlett one day and said she had an idea to talk with him regarding the inn’s restaurant and special events space. The result was Bartlett’s move to Richmond Road.
“I was looking for more visibility,” he explained, saying the Olde Towne Road location didn’t have much walk-in business in the evenings. We’re open here now from noon to 7 p.m., but will extend our evening hours later in the summer.”
Chef Arnell Moore of Isle of Wight County plans to lease the space previously occupied by Bartlett’s C&D Caribbean to operate his own restaurant — Hibachi Buddha — at 5242 Olde Towne Road.
According to Moore, the restaurant is scheduled to open on July 1 in time for the Fourth of July holiday.
The hibachi-style cuisine “will be cooked fresh, made to order” and will have steak, shrimp and chicken options along with other seafood, he explained.
Moore has been using the crowdfunding site GoFundMe to raise money to help start his restaurant. Currently nearly $2,400 has been raised toward his goal of $5,500. The money, he said, will cover his first two months’ rent and the necessary licenses and permits to operate his restaurant. Extra funds will be used for promotional material
Wagsters Magic Theatre begins new season
Brandon and Hannah Wagster are back with the second season of The Wagsters Magic Theatre with an entirely new show entitled, “Finding Magic.”
Wilford Kale
Brandon and Hannah Wagster opened their magical theater in June 2022. (Wilford Kale/freelance)
Beginning June 15, the season’s shows will be at 7 p.m. daily except for Mondays. A 2 p.m. afternoon matinee is scheduled for Thursdays. There will be a special Christmas/holiday show with different schedules later in the season. (There are select dates available before June 15.)
The couple has put about $20,000 into a new show with special effects, costumes and a variety of upgrades including seating, which has been increased from 63 to 79. Front row seats can now be reserved for premier seating and a VIP booth experience has been created for up to four people, who can enjoy free goodies and merchandise.
For general seating tickets, it’s $29.95 for adults 13+, $27.95 for seniors 65+ and active military, and $21.95 for children up to age 12. Premier front row seating is $29.95 for all ages. The VIP booth is $175.
The theater, which opened in June 2022, will have featured 200 performances by the time the new season begins . For the year, attendance averaged 58 of the 63 seats with many shows completely sold out.
“Last weekend on Memorial Day Sunday we had two sold out performances,” Brandon Wagster said. “The new seats allowed us to have 30 extra people on that day and that was a big deal.” Last week they also had their 10,000th guest.
He and wife Hannah agreed this show “is our best” with unique magic and illusions, including one that includes a television screen. The Wagsters are only one of two magical programs in the world to currently use that electronic device.
“This is more than a show,” Hannah Wagster stressed. “We’ve designed it as an experience.” Brandon Wagster added, “In almost any state you can find a magic show, but you’ll only find the Wagsters here. Some only focus to fool you, but we want you to escape from reality and have fun.”
Enterprise Center property is sold
Lovett Industrial of Houston, Texas, has purchased The Enterprise Center at Hazelwood Farms, a 328-acre parcel in western James City County, for $12 million.
Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer and Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices RW Towne Realty handled the sale negotiations on behalf of the three Hazelwood family members who owned the property.
The Enterprise Center is one of two parcels, including the 79-acre Village Center proposed by the family and approved last year from the county Board of Supervisors for development. The center is located on the southwestern side of Interstate 64, at exit 227.
When the project was first proposed, the Hazelwood family had stressed that they wanted one operator to buy the entire Enterprise Center and “not piecemeal it out,” according to Christopher Johnson, James City County’s director of economic development.
According to a news release, Lovett “plans to develop Class A facilities targeting manufacturers, importers and warehousing and distribution companies. The site was selected by the developer due to its close proximity to the Port of Virginia along the Interstate 64 corridor between Hampton Roads and Richmond.”
Geoff Poston, senior vice president at Thalhimer, said, “We look forward to the next phase of development and lease-up, attracting highly coveted industrial users to the region in support of the Port of Virginia.”
Wilford Kale, [email protected]
