Jenny Kincaid Boone covers retail and real estate.

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Jenny Kincaid Boone

Retail Roundup columns

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• Bastians Bar-B-Q to reopen
• Woolworth's space is being renovated in downtown Roanoke

The Storefront blog

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A Salem barbecue restaurant site is for sale, and the owners want to relocate the enterprise elsewhere in the city.

Chris Bastian, and his wife, Karen, owners of Bastians Bar-B-Q on Apperson Drive, put their 2,350-square-foot building and its surrounding land on the market this month.

They opened Bastians, a restaurant and catering business, on Apperson Drive 15 years ago in a nearby building. Later, they combined the business into a smaller structure at 1020 Apperson Drive.

But Bastians' lunchtime and dinner crowd has slimmed in the past few years. Some nearby businesses have cut back on staffing or closed, said Chris Bastian. The Bastians relied on employees from these nearby companies to boost their lunch business.

They'd like to relocate Bastians to the busy West Main Street stretch in Salem, which Chris Bastian coined "restaurant row." The strip houses a cluster of fast food restaurants and retailers.

The Bastians already are eyeing new sites, and they've talked with doctor's offices and other restaurants about buying their Apperson Drive property. The sale price is $350,000 for the building and its land, which measures about a quarter of an acre.

The Bastians plan to bring back an old feature -- dinner hours. They cut back on dinner hours two years ago, after evening business waned.

Once they relocate Bastians, they'll revive dinner time.

Freestyle closing shop

This spring, a Roanoke County ski, snowboarding and skateboard shop will pack its bags.

Freestyle, based in Charlottesville, will close its shop on Electric Road in late May because the rent rate has escalated, said Don Cochrane, general manager of the company.

Freestyle's lease is up at the space beside f.y.e., Cochrane said. The retailer has considered relocating elsewhere in the Roanoke Valley, though those plans are not definite.

All gear, clothing and other merchandise is discounted by 30 percent to 70 percent. Cochrane said employees are being offered jobs at other Freestyle locations.

Freestyle opened its Roanoke County store in 2004, after purchasing some ski equipment from the now-defunct CMT Specialty Sports.

The company has stores in Charlottesville and at the Wintergreen Resort and a seasonal shop at Lake Anna.

Bank seeks more room

Valley Bank wants new digs in Roanoke's Grandin Village.

The Roanoke-based bank will relocate its small branch from inside a multi-use building in Grandin Village to a separate space next door, which houses Wachovia Bank.

This Wachovia branch will close on Feb. 24, said Aimee Worsley, a Wachovia spokeswoman. She said the bank was forced to close its branch for lease-related reasons, and it could not find an appropriate nearby space to relocate.

Valley Bank opened its tiny, nontraditional branch in 2005 at 1327 Grandin Road, inside a former CVS Pharmacy building, shared by a pharmacy and a florist at the time.

Ellis Gutshall, president and CEO of Valley Bank, said this new space was attractive to the bank because it has a drive-through. Drive-throughs significantly increase deposits and related transactions at the company's bank locations, Gutshall said.

The new Grandin Village spot also is 1,000 square feet larger than Valley Bank's current branch.

The bank will take over the new lease on April 1, though its opening date is not yet set.

News from the Storefront blog at blogs.roanoke.com/rtblogs/storefront/

The owner of Mamma Maria's Italian Restaurant in Salem wants to open Mamma's Pizza at Lakeside Plaza in Salem.

Cheddar's Casual Cafe will open in October, beside Valley View Mall in Roanoke.

You can donate to Haiti relief efforts at the Kroger checkout line.