Country Café gets lease extension for 30th anniversary celebration
Inn: “We have extended the rent free arrangement with David at the café to November 1.”
The Country Café’s owner/chef David Huff had two regrets of late.
The biggest, of course, was receiving notice that he must vacate the café’s familiar space at 389-A Main Street in Washington by September 30th.
The other was not being able to celebrate the café’s 30th anniversary on October 16th.
Now, the Rappahannock News is reporting that Patrick O’Connell, owner/chef of the Inn at Little Washington — and Huff’s longtime landlord — agrees that the café should remain open through the end of October so that the anniversary milestone may be properly observed.
“We have extended the rent free arrangement with David at the café to November 1,” the Inn’s general manager Robert Fasce told us. “We did not really realize their 30th anniversary was in October and it would mean the world to them if they could be in the space with their loyal fans.”
“Let the party begin!” a very pleased Huff told this newspaper upon receiving word of the extension.
The question now suddenly is whether everybody who will want to attend the 30th anniversary celebration will be able to squeeze into the café?
“We might have it in the street!” Huff laughed, adding that he is “indeed” appreciative of O’Connell’s gesture.
Fasce said he has “postponed discovery construction inside the café side of the building to accommodate the extension.”
Huff, meanwhile, remains hopeful that he will still be able to find a suitable building, preferably within the county seat, to reopen for his many customers.
Washington Mayor Fred Catlin has also disclosed (see the mayor’s Letter to the Editor in this week’s edition) that an unnamed group of individuals is working behind the scenes to find a new location for the café within the town.
Inn: “We did not really realize their 30th anniversary was in October and it would mean the world to them if they could be in the space with their loyal fans.”