If your experience of a coffee shop is multiple parties of one sitting alone at tables for two, wearing earbuds, staring at a screen, bouncing between tapping quietly on a keypad and texting on a phone while intermittently scrolling through social media, Eva Rodriguez-Cué invites you to step into her way-back machine at Haywood Famous, the charming Cuban coffee-centric café she opened earlier this month in West Asheville.
Rodriguez-Cué was nostalgic for the type of gathering place she had never experienced — dark and cozy coffeehouses of the 1960s and ’70s filled with a mishmash of shabby-chic furnishings, earnest young people writing poetry, girls with guitars singing sad songs, regulars dabbling in flirtations, building friendships and engaging in lively discussions of ideas, art, literature and politics.
Or, in a more contemporary frame of reference, what she saw watching reruns of the sitcom “Friends.” “They’d all meet at Central Perk after work and talk about their day,” she says. “I craved a place like that. So many of the coffee shops we know open early in the morning and close in the afternoon.”
She adds, “I’m Cuban-American, and we drink coffee day and night!”
Perched cross-legged on a gold-velvet upholstered vintage sofa she bought on Facebook Marketplace, in the shotgun space that has been a tattoo parlor, barbershop and florist, the 23 (and a half)-year-old-entrepreneur fairly brims with ideas, positivity and an earnest desire to create connection for a technologically connected but personally disconnected generation.
Raised in Greenville, N.C., Rodriguez-Cué immediately knew the first time she visited her older brother in West Asheville 10 years ago that she’d found where she was meant to be. “It felt authentic and artsy and right for me,” she says.
After high school, she enrolled at UNC Asheville, but midway through the second semester of her freshman year, the COVID-19 pandemic struck. “I was already home for spring break and didn’t get back for six months,” she says. “I lost the heart for school, but my heart to start a business of my own grew.”
Rodriguez-Cué got an apartment in West Asheville with her twin sister and created her own hospitality industry apprenticeship, working back and front of house in restaurants and coffee shops. She made a business plan and found a small space on the lower level of a house on Westwood Place behind Harvest Records, then began previewing Haywood Famous on social media.
The name, she explains, is an inside joke with friends. “I was walking down Haywood [Road] one day, and two different people I didn’t know said hello to me by name,” she recalls. “I was working at Flora at the time, and they knew me as customers there. My friends and I started joking about being ‘Haywood Famous,’ and it seemed perfect.”
The name really fit after the Westwood spot fell through and she stumbled upon the available space at 508 Haywood Road across from Golden Pineapple and The Whale. Through a series of serendipitous events, she signed a lease on it in April.
One week before her Aug. 1 soft opening, much of the room was still a work in progress, except for the mural on the back wall painted by her friend, tattoo artist Ash Grey. Also installed were the counters built by Evie Horton and Matisse Araque and the shiny equipment used to make the Cuban coffee drinks that distinguish Haywood Famous — the Cubano, cafecito, café con leche, cortadito and, for sharing, the colada. Friend Mel Hanley‘s Brown Sugar Boulangerie provides the Cuban pastries, cake and macarons.
Rodriguez-Cué sees Haywood Famous as a place where high school kids can go after school to do homework or in the evening to hang out; a home for poetry readings, movie screenings, book clubs, knitting circles and, yes, maybe girls with guitars singing sad songs.
“My generation is statistically the most sober and the most socially isolated,” she says. “I wanted to create a gathering place for people to get off their phones, get off social [media] and be with each other. Come to Haywood Famous: I’ll make you a cup of coffee, and we’ll talk.”
Haywood Famous is at 508 Haywood Road. August soft-opening hours are 5-10:30 p.m. daily except Wednesday. Permanent hours will be 3:30-10:30 p.m. Monday and Tuesday, 5 p.m.-midnight Thursday-Sunday. For more information, follow Haywood Famous on Instagram at avl.mx/dzo.
Dinner with chef Jay Medford
Storm Rhum Bar owner and executive chef Jay Medford will present the second in an ongoing series of private chef dinners on Friday, Aug. 9, in partnership with Sage and Spice Catering and Market.
“I’ve started working with [owner Tori Frasher and chef Sergio Castro] on some catering and rehearsal dinners at the market,” he says. “We decided to do some pop-up dinners because it’s a really good space and gives me a chance to stretch.”
For the debut dinner’s menu, he mined inspiration from his time in New York cooking Asian cuisine. For the second installation, he stays closer to home with five courses of what he says are comfort classics from his North Carolina roots. “I’m sourcing everything from the farmers and vendors at the North Asheville Tailgate Market,” he says. “And the entire dinner will be gluten-free.”
That includes the upside-down peach mochi cake, the sweet finale to courses that include a chilled cucumber gazpacho, heirloom tomato salad, Sunburst Trout Farms trout with succotash and sous vide pork loin with stone-ground grits and skillet-charred greens.
Sage and Spice is at 1056 Patton Ave. The dinner begins at 6:30 p.m. and is $75 per person or $120 paired with wine. Reservations can be made through Sage and Spice Market’s Instagram at avl.mx/dzf to avoid fees or through Eventbrite at avl.mx/dzg.
Cocktail collab at Nine Mile
Devil’s Foot Beverage Co. is the local talent behind two new draft cocktails just added to the drinks menu at Nine Mile, perennial winner of multiple Xpress Best of WNC awards, including Favorite Restaurant.
Both beverages complement Nine Mile’s Caribbean-inspired, vegetarian-friendly fare. Dancing Feet hits the beat with Muddy River Spice Carolina rum, Devil’s Foot Fuego ginger beer, plus a touch of guava and lime. Roland’s Rita is made with Espolon Blanco tequila, Grand Marnier and Devil’s Foot Sparkling Limeade, and finished with fresh orange and lime juice.
Both drinks are available at the Nine Mile Montford location. For more information, visit avl.mx/ax3.
New Cúrate Spanish-style cider
In the U.S., it’s cider; in Spain, it’s sidra. At Cúrate, La Bodega by Cúrate and Botanist & Barrel, it’s Cúrate Cider, a new Spanish-style cider made for Cúrate by Botanist and Barrel. Launched in late July, Cúrate Cider is made from crabapples and heirloom apples grown in North Carolina and Virginia orchards, finished in cognac and chardonnay barrels, then bottled for its final fermentation. Called the ancestral method, this process yields very little residual sugar for a dry, slightly effervescent cider.
Curate Cider is available by the glass or bottle at Cúrate, La Bodega by Cúrate and Botanist & Barrel in Asheville. It can also be ordered online through Cúrate at Home at avl.mx/dzi.
Wine releases at Addison Farms Vineyard
On July 26, Addison Farms Vineyard released four new wines for summer quaffing at home or at the winery in Leicester.
Coming Home 2022 Cabernet Sauvignon is sourced from the first vines planted at Addison Farms in 2009 and was aged for 18 months in French oak. Bottle Rocket 2023 is a bubbly blend of Petit Manseng grapes from Addison Farms and Spring Branch Vineyard in Mount Airy, bottled just before fermentation.
Jovis 2022 is a half-and-half blend of Cabernet Franc and Sangiovese grapes aged for 18 months in French oak. Bellatrix is the latest installment in the Lore series of experimental wines, a dry, bubbly blend of Chardonel piquette and Chambourcin with flavors of tart cranberry and candied orange peel.
Addison Farms Vineyard is at 4005 New Leicester Highway, Leicester. Tasting room hours are noon-5 p.m. Thursday-Saturday and 1-5 p.m. Sunday. For more information, visit avl.mx/dzh.
Summer dishes at Golden Hour
WNC farms and farmers markets are bursting with summer produce, which in turn is showing up in the kitchens of local restaurants. Golden Hour’s new chef de cuisine, Kevin Chrisman, a North Carolina native, has worked with executive chef Jacob Sessoms to add several freshly harvested dishes to the menu of the wood-fire restaurant in the Radical Hotel.
New options include marinated Carolina peaches with Blue Ridge Mountain Creamery blue cheese and Gaining Ground Farm herbs; tomatoes from The Culinary Gardener Evan Chender, cut and served with seasoned tomato water, olive oil and dehydrated, slightly fermented tomato dust; summer succotash with butterbeans, Tuxapeno hominy, Sleight Family Farm corn, peppers, sweet onion, fresh garlic, fried corn nuts and herbs; North Carolina Berkshire peach- and chili-glazed pork chops with smoked Hendersonville peaches and smoked eggplant purée; and Edna Lewis’ Sunday cornmeal cake with peach marmalade and sorghum marshmallow roasted on live coals.
Chrisman is also adding weekly specials to showcase the seasonal bounty.
Golden Hour is on the ground floor of The Radical boutique hotel at 95 Roberts St. It opens at 5 p.m. daily with brunch served 10:30 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. For more information, visit avl.mx/dzj.
Editor’s note: This article was updated on Aug. 7 — an earlier version misspelled Jacob Sessoms last name.
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