Norfolk dining mainstays close permanently
Saint Germain, Pourhouse on Granby Street casualties of coronavirus pandemic
“We are grateful for our wonderful clientele and our amazing staff who pushed the boundaries and came with an adventurous palate hungry for a new experience in Hampton Roads.”
— Owners David Hledik and Tiffany Kidwell
Two of the most distinctive restaurants in downtown Norfolk have closed.
Saint Germain and Pourhouse, which neighbored each other on Granby Street, were very different spots — a yin/yang of upscale bohemia and down-and-dirty drinking, respectively. Both were helmed by the brother-sister team of David Hledik and Tiffany Kidwell.
The restaurants announced temporary closures in March, after the state restricted dining room capacity. But their owners announced Thursday that the closures would be permanent: Saint Germain and Pourhouse are now the first highprofile downtown restaurant casualties of the coronavirus pandemic.
“It’s official. Norfolk’s very own satanic lair of demonic filth and desecration is not reopening. We are leaving Norfolk, VA in the dust and gonna keep on truckin’,” read Pourhouse’s social account Thursday, in characteristic fashion.
In a much more measured way, Saint Germain said its farewell.
“With the onset of changes in the ways restaurants are operating now and moving forward (curbside pick up/delivery/patio only) it is not sustainable enough for us to keep ourdoorsopen,norisitourvisionor passion to continue in this manner,” wrote Hledik and Kidwell.
“The intimate setting of Saint Germain, along with our craft cocktail program and theatrics of presentation of food & drink, is no longer viable in a new post corona environment where capacity & seating restrictions would further bring down the number of diners in our establishment.”
Saint Germain, which opened in 2015, looked a bit like what would happen if a chef from New Orleans took up taxidermy. Chef Hledik’s menu was home to high-end ingredients and often unhinged culinary inventions: a rich bone-marrow burger, an Italian market’s worth of charcuterie, a salmon sauced with Tibetan tea dashi and preserved lemon gel.
Pourhouse, next door, was instead a self-conscious nest of weirdo debauch with lewd mannequins, even ruder cocktail names, trash bags on the toilet tank and self-scrawled graffiti on the bathroom walls. It was the sort of place that hosted shows from the Murder Junkies and members of Bad Brains, where you might find free boiled eggs written on the chalkboard as a Sunday special.
Hledik and Kidwell’s previous restaurant in the Pourhouse space, Elixia, was an early outpost in Norfolk for modern cocktail craft, a distinction shared with Saint Germain.
Early bartenders at the restaurants, including Hunter Heri (Luce, Glass Light Hotel) and Josh Seaburg (Saltine, Crudo Nudo, Heirloom), have been behind some of the most distinguished bar programs in town.
Hledik has been an often controversial presence in downtown Norfolk. But that spirit is also what made his restaurants interesting: They displayed a penchant for leftfield risk-taking otherwise rare in the neighborhood. Pourhouse, especially, often felt like a bar in a much different city that somehow sneaked into Norfolk in the dead of night.
But while Saint Germain and Pourhouse are gone, Hledik and Kidwell did not rule out more experiments in the future.
“We are grateful for our wonderful clientele and our amazing staff who pushed the boundaries and came with an adventurous palate hungry for a new experience in Hampton Roads. We will take a break and look to see what the future of restaurants is all about before bringing our next vision to life,” wrote the owners. “But for now…… ‘laissez le bon temps rouler.’ ”