Character at the Coffeehouse

Article and photography by Fitz

Lead photo of the gravlax club at Lynnhaven Coffee Company

Normally I find it to be a good rule of thumb to stay away from writing about food at coffeehouses. Often the bites take a back seat to the beans. While ordering a coffee to go at Lynnhaven Coffee Company a few weeks ago however, I happened to see, and smell, a full smoked chicken being hustled through the coffeehouse’s front door and into its tiny kitchen. Suffice to say, I wanted to learn more.

After first stealing and crushing a leg, maybe two, I struck up a conversation with the man with a sweaty brow who had hustled in the chicken. He turned out to be the managing partner of the place, Chris Bailey. Two things immediately struck me while chatting with him. First, he has a story about damn near everyone working in food around Hampton Roads, and second, he sounded a lot like the comedian and director Bobcat Goldthwait.

Managing partner and Chef, Chris Bailey, at Lynnhaven Coffee Company

It was first back in his Seattle days that Chris started to enjoy and, as he explained to me in his gravely, cigarette sculpted voice, “benefit creatively” from going out with and getting to know fellow cooks and chefs after work. Having returned to Hampton Roads in 2007, he’s continued to do the same with many of his peers in the seven cities. He has also spent time in a who’s who of well-regarded restaurants in Virginia Beach including, most notably, Terrapin, The Leaping Lizard Cafe, and Byrd and Baldwin.

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It’s that experience and ultimately his learned talent for slow cooking that led me to want to write about his coffee shop food. The smoked chicken I saw him hustling in, for example, is smoked next door for four hours, has his secret rub worked ever so nicely into the skin, and is used in Lynnhaven Coffee Company’s chicken salad sandwich. It’s fitting that this would be one of the most popular items on the menu. It was as a cook next door at The Smokehouse and Cooler, now Agave (where he smoked the chicken I sampled), that he first fell in love with smoking meats.

Bailey salting salmon for his gravlax club

Then there is his gravlax club, which one should be careful not to confuse with gravLOX– typically referencing smoked salmon. With this sandwich, Chris uses one of the oldest known methods of cooking as he cures the salmon in dill, coriander seeds, fennel seeds, kosher salt, Hawaiian sea salt, and brown sugar. It’s a perfect way around the lack of a standard kitchen at the coffeehouse.

Bailey applying dill for his gravlax

Time will tell how far Chris decides to take the food at Lynnhaven Coffee Company. There are in fact rumblings about possibly doing dinner in the future as well as kitchen upgrades. Presently, however, the sandwiches clearly stand out amongst many of the bites I have had at other coffeehouses. It’s an example of how passion, paired with a bit of ingenuity, can often overcome circumstance to create something special.

For more on Lynnhaven Coffee Company visit www.lynnhavencoffee.com