It’s not often I can genuinely blame a restaurant for limiting my culinary choices, but Saturday, July 5, 2025, was one of those rare opportunities. My wife, Kathy, and I had just wrapped up covering the bustling Farmers Market in Abingdon, Virginia. The day was hot and muggy, and our thoughts immediately turned to lunch. Our usual Abingdon haunt, The Girl & The Raven Coffee Bar and Café at 380 East Main, was the only place that came to mind. No “Where do you want to eat?” debate needed; we knew where we were headed. Where there is consistently great food, and great people.
As we stepped toward the entrance, a gentleman sitting outside, radiating warmth, offered a welcoming “Come on in and enjoy your meal!” His demeanor suggested authority, so I paused, wondering if he knew the owners. “I am the owner,” he said with a smile, introducing himself as Hugh Belcher.
I immediately mentioned that I’d been meaning to contact him. I’d heard whispers about The Girl & The Raven’s commitment to sourcing local produce and meats, and I was eager for an interview. “Come on in and have a seat; I’ll join you shortly,” he replied, handing me a full-page card detailing the restaurant’s fascinating origin story.
We settled in, and I promptly devoured what might just be the best Reuben sandwich on the planet. Seriously. The meat was top-notch, the blend of flavors and textures was sheer perfection, and the bread? Simply amazing. I ate while eagerly reading the card – this place is truly unique. Kathy, meanwhile, was happily savoring her Butter Bibb Salad.
The origin story itself is captivating, but for the full tale, you’ll have to do as I did: visit and read it for yourself! Here’s a quick taste:
A Raven’s Return: From Broadway to Abingdon
When Broadway’s lights dimmed during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, actors Ariane Ireland and her husband, Cillian Hegarty, both seasoned restaurant professionals, returned home to Abingdon. Their homecoming coincided with the permanent closure of the town’s only coffee shop. Seizing the moment, Ariane, Cillian, and Ariane’s parents, Hugh and Julie Belcher, developed a plan: purchase the building and create a new establishment focused on high-quality coffee and creative culinary arts.
Named “The Girl & The Raven,” the cafe embodies hope and new beginnings. “The Girl” represents Ariane and, more broadly, women of all backgrounds, while “The Raven” symbolizes hope, rebirth, and renewal, drawing on its deep significance in various cultural traditions. The cafe’s inclusive vision is beautifully captured in its commissioned branding art by Seattle-based artist Craig Kosak, featuring a “mudhead” style portrait to represent diverse races and cultures. The Girl & The Raven truly aims to be a beacon of unity and excellence in the community.
Smiles win people every time
This place is a delightful blend of classy, well-executed food and a wonderfully laid-back atmosphere. The walls of this converted old house are adorned with fascinating art, some of which is for sale by local artists. One particular observation that really stood out: unlike many establishments, every server here was busy, yet they moved with genuine smiles on their faces. It wasn’t just the practiced “customer approaching” smile; these folks were genuinely cheerful, even when not directly addressing guests.
Focus on what you do best
Another point worth noting is the menu isn’t overwhelming. They offer a concise breakfast menu with six choices and seven sandwich options, plus two salads and a soup of the day. You can add sides and breakfast add-ons, and there’s a small kids’ menu. The brilliance here is their philosophy: do a few things exceptionally well rather than many things poorly. And they absolutely succeed! The scratch-made biscuits at the table next to us were enormous, stuffed with scrambled eggs, avocado, and more (I confess, I stared a bit and got a funny look!).
The Interview
Soon after we finished eating, Hugh approached and sat down for our interview. Before we even began, I had to be honest: “Hugh,” I told him, “Your restaurant is directly responsible for keeping us from trying new places to eat in Abingdon. We only want to come here because the food is just that good!”
Here’s how our conversation unfolded:
CREIGHTON: So, I’m here with Hugh Belcher, the owner of The Girl & The Raven restaurant in Abingdon, Virginia. I wanted to do a quick interview because I heard a rumor — I don’t even remember who told me — that you source a lot of your produce and meats locally.
BELCHER: We do as much as we can, yes.
CREIGHTON: Tell me about that. Who are you buying from and why?
BELCHER: Red Tail Farms are amazing; he’s a local grower here in Abingdon. Flaccavento Farms has amazing produce. The Zooks do hydroponics.
CREIGHTON: I met them today at the Farmers Market!
BELCHER: Yeah? They’re also amazing. Let’s see, I’m trying to think.
CREIGHTON: Where do you get your meat?
BELCHER: We source meat from Benton’s Bacon, which is a famous pork farm in Tennessee, not too terribly far. We also source our meat for our hamburger and cheeseburger, which I think is—and I hear all the time—the best cheeseburger on the planet. You have to come back and try that sometime! Snows Fine Meats provides that.
CREIGHTON: Okay, they’re just up the street, right?
BELCHER: Yes! Always fresh, never frozen.
CREIGHTON: Obviously, I can tell by the quality and flavor, and we’ve been here a number of times…
BELCHER: Oh, have you?
CREIGHTON: In fact, you have a server named Chloe, I think?
BELCHER: Yes. Oh, she’s fantastic. We really like her.
CREIGHTON: We usually get her; she is amazing. I can tell by looking at the place that there’s a philosophy behind it. And now that I’ve read the story about the beginnings of this place, I think that’s obvious. Can you just describe what that philosophy is for you?
BELCHER: Yeah, well, you know, the restaurant business is the hospitality business, and I think that’s been lost a lot on the current generation. We travel a lot, and we always look for locally-owned restaurants. It’s not dead, but it’s more difficult to find. We want to convey to people that we are truly appreciative of them coming to us and trusting us with their choice for breakfast, for lunch, for coffee, for pastry. And, you know, we said if we do this, we want everything about the experience here to be done with love and appreciation for our clients. So, everything here is truly from scratch.
It’s truly a scratch kitchen. We have a bakery on site where everything is made every morning. We make about—we probably go through about eight dozen to ten dozen biscuits every day. They’re all done fresh every morning.
All the pastries, all the coffee is roasted every day. The coffee, by the way, really has a designation that’s new to me, and I don’t think it’s been around that long. It’s Smithsonian Bird Friendly designation, which I really enjoy. This means the coffee growers intentionally leave the canopy trees up. Coffee grows faster without them, but it’s not as rich or full-bodied. By keeping the canopy, you get a better-tasting coffee, and it’s also bird-friendly. So, we’re thrilled about that.
CREIGHTON: Interesting! That is very interesting. Tell me about this building.
BELCHER: This building is really interesting. It’s an 1886 Sears Roebuck catalog home.
CREIGHTON: Really? Wow!
BELCHER: So, it was actually delivered on pallets by rail about a hundred yards from here, from the railroad, in 1886. But yeah, this was a Sears Roebuck catalog home. It’s amazing. And the folks next door liked this one so much that they ordered one in 1887. So, both of these homes are Sears Roebuck catalog homes. By the way, everything was included, from doors and windows and everything. It was a complete package, and they were less than $1,000 apiece.
CREIGHTON: My grandmother’s house was one of those, too! That’s amazing. I can’t believe they… this is much grander than her house was. Hers was just a little bungalow, but this is amazing. Do you own the building? And you must have had to do a lot of work to get it ready to be a restaurant, right?
BELCHER: Yes. We converted it five years ago during COVID, a difficult time for construction and remodeling. But we did it in about five months, and it was about a half-million-dollar investment.
CREIGHTON: I’ll bet. It shows. But the place is nice and homey. It’s a great restaurant. The dining rooms are warm and friendly. The servers have always been perfect. So, I’ve got to hand it to you. It’s very clear that you put a lot of thought into this. It’s very clear that you had something more than just, “Hey, let’s start a restaurant.” It was a vision, I can tell. And it shows.
BELCHER: It’s a vision and a mission. We love people. We try to touch every table that comes in the restaurant. We’re not always able to touch every single table, but we have about 40,000 or 50,000 people a year that come through here. So over five years, that’s about a quarter-million people that have been through. We’ve made a lot of lasting friendships. There are folks that come in here year after year. They pull in and say, “The kids have been talking about this ever since we left.”
CREIGHTON: That’s amazing. We just live in Bristol, but every time we come up here, we want to come here. As I mentioned before, the Reuben is amazing. I like the name of it, too, by the way: “Not Your Rabbi’s Reuben.” Which I think is phenomenal.
BELCHER: The bread on the Reuben, by the way, we source from New York. Tribeca Bread Company.
CREIGHTON: Oh, interesting.
BELCHER: Very good. Yeah, it’s my favorite bread.
CREIGHTON: So, you have an accent, but it doesn’t sound like you grew up here.
BELCHER: I did grow up here.
CREIGHTON: You did?
BELCHER: I tell people I grew up in these parts. I grew up in Haysi, Virginia. Have you been to the Breaks Park?
CREIGHTON: No.
BELCHER: You must make it to the Breaks Interstate Park. The Breaks Interstate Park lies on the Kentucky-Virginia border. It’s actually, interestingly enough, only one of two interstate parks in the United States. Every other park is either a national park or a state park. But there are two interstate parks: The Palisades Park in northern New Jersey, and then the Breaks Interstate Park, which is Kentucky and Virginia. So that’s where I grew up.
CREIGHTON: Excellent. Well, it’s good to know, because that didn’t sound like this side of Virginia. The accent, I noticed it.
BELCHER: I’ve lost a little bit. I’ve watched a little bit too much television.
CREIGHTON: Oh, gotcha. My wife was born in Memphis. She’s more used to it than I am. I was raised in California.
BELCHER: What part of California?
CREIGHTON: San Bernardino Mountains. So, yeah, that’s where we came from when we moved here. Crestline, California, a little tiny town at 5,000 feet. We looked into this area and found it pretty much checked a bunch of boxes for us. So, we moved when I retired.
BELCHER: Well, welcome! Let me grab a card. Thank you. Great to talk to you all. Thanks so much.
CREIGHTON: Thank you.
I also had a chance to chat briefly with Julie Belcher about some things. She mentioned that planning, establishing, and running The Girl & The Raven involved a tremendous amount of work, but given the circumstances preceding their decision – with COVID-19 raging across the country – it was a welcome distraction. She also keeps busy with her chickens, which she raises close by the restaurant. One, in particular, is more of a pet than a farm animal, and she noted it gives her a profound appreciation for the effort it takes to produce the food we eat.
It’s truly impossible not to fall in love with this place. I don’t want to leave anything out, so I have to bring up the coffee, the juice, and the bar! The coffee menu is extensive, featuring all the varieties, blends, roasts, and grinds you could ever desire: Espresso, Macchiato Picolo, Magic, Latte, Americano, and so many more. If you can’t find something you like here, perhaps coffee isn’t your drink!
They serve a delightful variety of fruit juices like Orange, Blood Orange, and Natural Lemonade. And for the hardcore juice enthusiasts, they offer a vibrant blend of Pineapple, Kale, Zinc, Spinach, and Celery. In addition to all that, yes, they serve cocktails too!
If you haven’t been to The Girl & The Raven, you need to get there soon. It’s a perfectly funky, yet sophisticated place with excellent service and truly superb food, all done with creative flair and a clear, heartfelt vision.
