Larry Bly

Larry Bly runs an ad agency and does freelance writing in the Roanoke area.

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• Bubblecake: Aren't you a sweet little cupcake?
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• Recipe of the day

Teaberry’s started out in a little cottage out near Troutville and quickly grew beyond its two rooms.  What once had been a small shop of gifts, trinkets and handmade items soon became a really nice restaurant.

The restaurant is experiencing not only growing pains, but moving pains, as well.  Its new temporary location (which, if successful, could become a second permanent location) is in the back of the Cundiff Drug Store on Cleveland Avenue in Vinton. While the new location is home to at least two previous attempts at restaurants by others, Teaberry’s is hoping to bide its time until a new location is finished, while building a local clientele in Vinton.

The old Teaberry’s served both lunch and dinner (specializing in uptown fare), but the Vinton iteration serves only lunch. Lunch was fine. It wasn't necessarily up to Teaberry's old excellent standards, but it was fine. The lasagna, while good, wasn’t exceptional in any way; the meatloaf was a bit dry. Teaberry's sandwiches, on the other hand, are stacked high and served on thick homemade bread, with fresh meats and toppings.  The breads and homemade desserts are the jewels in the Teaberry’s crown.

The restaurant offers nearly a dozen sandwiches, including roast beef, turkey, tuna, homemade pimiento cheese, and crab; and the prices are quite reasonable—in the $6.50 range mostly — and seemed to be are the luncheon fare of choice among diners.  Sandwiches are served with choice of macaroni salad or chips.

Soups and salads are homemade, as well, and perfect for this time of year.  As with most lunch-only places, the soup is announced on the board daily.

Plates include a salad sampler, chicken salad plate, spinach walnut salad, Chef salad, broiled crab-stuffed tomato and side salad.

The restaurant offers daily cooked specials, and every day’s a holiday when it comes to desserts.  Every pie, every cake, every cookie — everything is homemade, including the Derby Pie, the chocolate silk and pumpkin pies, the apple pie, and my very favorite (always a Teaberry's standard menu item): the butter-fried pound cake. Oh my goodness. Take a big old slab of buttery, homemade pound cake and then fry it in a pan of butter. Is there anything more decadent than that? Yes. Have them put a dollop of ice cream on top of it. Now, we’re talking about something really decadent. I’ve tried that one numerous time at the old Teaberry’s location.

Teaberry’s is waiting out the completion of its new digs (historic old digs, to be exact) in Daleville. Hopefully, within six months or so, the smells of lunches and dinners (by far what Teaberry's has always excelled at) will fill a historic house on U.S. 220.

The current Vinton location is giving the restaurant's owners a place to earn a living in the meantime.

I’m looking forward to an expanded Teaberry’s, whether it is one or both locations, because dinners at the old location were excellent. It’s difficult for me to review a lunch-only restaurant, as menu selections are purposefully kept lean.