Where is the friendliest place to go in Roanoke to get everything you need? No, not Big Lots. In this particular place, all the shops are owned and run by locals. Your neighbors can be found in this one family-friendly village on Grandin Road.
On the last few blocks of Grandin and around the corner on Memorial, anyone should be pleased with shops, restaurants, bakeries, and theatres the Grandin Village offers.
What are you craving? Chances are Grandin offers something fit for your appetite.
Grace’s Place qualifies as one of the more popular restaurants on Grandin. This pizzeria attracts those shoppers wishing to place an order for a later pick up or those hoping to sit down to rest their feet while they enjoy a delicious meal. Grace’s Place offers a few tables outside to sit and admire the busy traffic and other shoppers.
Meanwhile, both the Village Grill and Community Inn propose a wide variety of meals including sandwiches, burgers, soups, salads and more. These restaurants also provide the choice of a bar and televisions to give you an update on the latest sport scores.
Local Roots and Rockfish, on the other hand, offer accommodations for fine dining with the appropriate atmosphere for a romantic date. The Rockfish not only has delicious cuisine, but a variety of wines for you and your date to enjoy. Local Roots, alternatively, provides locally grown food in a suitable atmosphere.
Dessert? Grandin has a good selection there too with a bakery, an ice cream parlor, and a coffee shop.
Viva la Cupcake, a cupcakery, serves more than your typical cupcakes. The menu lists assortments of ordinary flavors such as lemon, blueberry, and their four chocolate signature cupcake, the Viva. Some of the specialties include chocolate chip cookie dough, banana split, and peach melba. Seasonal cupcakes such as pumpkin spice, caramel apple, and blackberry cobbler also make mouths water. The bakers prepare the cupcakes right there in the shop with fresh ingredients producing warm, enticing aromas.
Pop’s Ice Cream & Soda Bar provides another enjoyable dessert with an atmosphere of the fifties. As implied, they serve ice cream. But the founders and owners also serve milkshakes, old fashioned sodas, and malts. They offer a variety of uncommon flavors such as black raspberry and some more common flavors such as mint chocolate chip.
With ice cream and cupcakes, what else do you need for dessert? Some cheesecake? Walk over to CUPS Coffee and Tea. This coffee shop offers cheesecake, scones, and biscotti along with the varieties of coffee. But wait until you see the cup sizes. Instead of serving the usual small, medium, or large or any other size of coffee cup, here you can get an A cup, B cup, or C cup of coffee!
The Grandin Village has more than food though. An assortment of shops aligns the street. Here you can get anything from groceries to clothing to furniture to antiques to books.
The grocery store near the corner of Grandin and Memorial differs from the usual Kroger or Food Lion. Instead, the Roanoke Co-op sells only organic and whole grain food and offers customer friendly service. Every summer and fall, the Grandin Village hosts the Farmer’s Market behind the Co-op and it brings even more business to the shops and restaurants. The Co-op is also opening at a new location downtown.
Up the street, a small boutique known as New To Me contains all sorts of treasures. They sell jewelry, doors, furniture, flags, clothing, and much more. With beautiful window displays, window shoppers find the boutique a unique place. Like New to Me, the Urban Gypsy sells clothing; and like the Co-op, the shop is “earth-friendly.” The environmental friendly fabric of the clothing offers a different, and possibly new, style.
If you’re looking for some stylish, modern furniture Reid’s Fine Furnishings is the place to go. This large store promotes all sorts of furniture such as couches, end tables, and room accessories. The store also presents sensational window displays of the extraordinary furniture.
So you collect books? The Grandin Village grants that wish also. Too Many Books crowds a variety of used books on a maze of shelves. If you can’t find the book, then the neighborly owner will inform you of other used book stores in the area. But the Grandin Village entertains more than shoppers and book lovers.
With flashing lights and a sidewalk of donated “stars,” the Grandin Theatre takes its place as one of the best local theatres in Roanoke. Although it often shows foreign films and documentaries, the Grandin also premieres big hits like Star Trek, Despicable Me 2, and The Lone Ranger. During the summer, the theatre offers Loony Toon Cartoons on Friday and Saturday mornings.
Parking has been greatly improved in recent years and even if you are unable to find a spot in front of your exact destination the short walk allows you to look in all the shop windows, smell the variety of aromas in the air, and listen and talk to the people that regularly enjoy this wonderful addition to the Roanoke Valley.
– Jessica A. Roberts
What about Mick or Mack? It’s been there longer than any of these other places.