The Charlottesville 29

Ever since Mike Stewart first experienced the feeling of a true pub while traveling abroad, he has never been able to shake it. It’s not the drink, or even the food, he says. At his favorite village pubs, it’s something less tangible — a sense that the pub belongs to everyone who walks into it. He’s long wanted to bring that feeling to Charlottesville, and now, with two partners and a building that has been feeding people for three-quarters of a century, he’s ready.

A veteran bartender and former beverage director for the late Wilson Richey’s restaurants, Stewart is opening Maggie’s Midtown in late March at 606 West Main Street — the former home of Blue Moon Diner — alongside James Beard-acclaimed chef Tarik Sengul and restaurateur Bradley Geist. Follow their Instagram page for updates. From the setting to the food to the drink, the trio seems to have it covered.

The Setting: 150 Years of Brick and Wood

For a pub to feel like a pub, the setting matters. That was clear from Stewart’s time abroad, where the structures he visited were often hundreds of years old. Maggie’s Midtown’s home is the Hartnagle-Witt House, built in 1884 as a tenement house, and the site of a restaurant for 75 years — first the Waffle House (not the chain), then Blue Moon Diner until it closed in 2024.

For its latest tenant, the building has undergone renovation, but the historic bones remain. The brick interior is original from 1884, as are the floors in the upstairs dining room. Stewart marvels that only his shoes separate him from the same wood Virginians walked 150 years ago. It’s the kind of history you can’t fake.

Guests will encounter the bar upon entering and can choose between the casual bar area or a more polished upstairs dining room. The dual experience is common in pubs, and Stewart hopes it signals to the community that Maggie’s is the kind of place that fits any occasion, from a daily tipple to a night out worth dressing for.

The Food: Virginia’s Bounty Meets Its British Roots

Pubs have a long history of thoughtful cuisine, a tradition that has taken off in the age of the gastropub. Overseeing Maggie’s food is Tarik Sengul, James Beard semifinalist for Best Chef Mid-Atlantic and chef-owner of Smyrna, where his refined Anatolian-inspired cooking has made him one of Charlottesville’s most celebrated chefs. Sengul remains chef and co-owner of Smyrna, as his role at Maggie’s is building and overseeing the culinary vision.

Sengul’s food philosophy is to honor one’s place. “You have to respect the land you are in,” said Sengul. “You have to present that in your plate.” And so, Maggie’s food may draw influence from England, but it is grounded in Virginia, England’s first American home. This is similar to his approach at Smyrna, where he applies his French classical training and flavors of his native Turkey to Virginia ingredients to create a cuisine all his own. At Maggie’s, he will apply that same expertise to Virginia’s bounty, drawing on British and Virginian traditions.

What surprised Sengul during his research was how similar the underlying techniques of classic British dishes are to those he practices daily at Smyrna: butchery, braising, patient reduction. The traditions differ; the craftsmanship is the same.

As at Smyrna, that interplay of technique, terroir, and foreign influence will yield dishes new to Charlottesville. Take oyster rarebit. Virginia is known for oysters, and oyster rarebit is a British classic mash-up of oysters and Welsh rarebit. Poached Virginia oysters join rarebit’s traditional cheese sauce atop toast.

Scotch olives, meanwhile, riff on a Scotch egg: olives encased in Meadow’s Pride Farm lamb sausage, breaded, and fried into a savory pub bite. There will also be Sengul’s Virginian interpretation of other pub classics, like fish and chips, shepherd’s pie, and bangers and mash.  Like the setting, the aim is comfort, not dazzle.

The Drink: Classics, Enhanced

For Stewart, a bar program exists to complement a restaurant’s food and hospitality. The best a beverage director can do, he says, is deepen an experience someone else has already defined. At places like Keswick Hall, Kama, and The Milkman’s Bar, his creative mixology earned a following. At Maggie’s, he has pulled back toward the classics, tailoring the beer, wine, and cocktail menu to match the spirit of the place.

With his touch, of course. Negronis and Vieux Carrés will both be barrel-aged. The piña colada is clarified. And for pub purists, there’s Stewart’s version of a Pimm’s Cup: Pimm’s No. 1, cucumber, lemon, strawberry, ginger, and CO2.

That, in the end, is what Maggie’s is reaching for: a place that feels like it belongs to whoever walks through the door. With 150-year-old floors underfoot, Stewart hopes his Virginia pub might feel like it’s been here all along.

When people ask me about entering the restaurant business, the same conversation always follows:

Do you have a fireplace?

Yes.

Here’s what to do:
Light the fireplace.
Get a large bag of cash. Dump it in.
Same result. Much faster.

It’s hyperbole, but not by much. Almost no one who opens a restaurant for money succeeds. Why? Return on investment. Investors soon learn that a restaurant’s meager margins are attainable elsewhere with far less effort, anguish, and sacrifice.

Then why do some restaurateurs succeed? For the same reason others fail: return on investment. The difference is that, for successful restaurateurs, the measure of return is not just monetary. It’s what my father called “non-financial income.”

They endure the same hardships as anyone else in the industry: long hours, constant stress, and relentless criticism. But their reward is far greater: the joy of serving. With a passion for hospitality grounded in empathy, their guests’ happiness is their own. That happiness is the return. Those who don’t experience it are nearly certain to fail.

Few have captured this better than Gabrielle Hamilton, who once wrote:

I’ve been driven by the sensory, the human, the poetic and the profane — not by money or a thirst to expand . . . I still thrill when the four-top at Table 9 are talking to one another so contentedly that they don’t notice they are the last diners, lingering in the cocoon of the wine and the few shards of dark chocolate we’ve put down with their check.

“More Work for Less Money”

But passion has its limits. And in 2026, those limits are being tested. Inflation, a staffing crisis, and other post-pandemic pressures have conspired to squeeze margins that were barely sustainable to begin with. Again and again, I hear the same refrain from those still hanging on: “More work for less money.”

Some have closed their doors, concluding that the math simply no longer adds up. As one industry veteran said when closing: “I can’t stress enough how much I commend those who have been able to succeed in this environment. It takes a special person to be in the full-service business right now and be successful and be willing to put in the work to do it.” 

There are only two kinds of restaurants in the world. Those with love, and all the rest. For those with love, we are blessed.

Maybe do what we can to keep them around.