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FXBG Neighbors Podcast
Fredericksburg Neighbors Podcast
FXBG Neighbors Podcast
EP #22 From Scratch: The Journey of Galvin's Delicatessen & River's End Speakeasy
From scratch-made bagels to a secret speakeasy with family roots dating back to Prohibition, Galvin's Delicatessen and Rivers End Speakeasy represent a culinary adventure unlike anything else in Fredericksburg.
Meet Emma and Paul Stoddard, whose passion for authentic, handcrafted food led them to open this dual-concept establishment at 216 William Street. After nearly 18 years in the restaurant business, including co-ownership of the beloved Sunken Well Tavern, Paul brings seasoned expertise to their new venture. Emma's design sensibilities transform the historic space into something both nostalgic and fresh.
What makes Galvin's truly special? Everything – and we mean everything – is made from scratch. Their New York-style deli serves house-cured corned beef and pastrami, fresh roasted turkey, and bagels baked daily on the premises (they're actually the only establishment in Fredericksburg making fresh bagels in-house). Meanwhile, the upstairs Rivers End Speakeasy pays homage to Emma's great-grandfather who ran a speakeasy during Prohibition in Jersey City. This atmospheric cocktail bar features craft drinks with house-made syrups and thoughtfully prepared entrees in a jazzy, sophisticated setting.
The couple shares candidly about entrepreneurial challenges, the importance of adaptability, and finding balance between business demands and family life. They're expanding beyond their counter service and dining room to offer catering, delivery services for business lunches, and special events including private parties and upcoming ticketed experiences like wine dinners and history nights. Whether you're seeking the perfect pastrami sandwich or an unforgettable evening of cocktails and conversation, discover why locals are raving about Fredericksburg's newest culinary treasure.
Emma and Paul Stoddard
Galvin's Delicatessen and River's End Speakeasy
Galvinsdeli@gmail.com
540-940-6565
This is the Fredericksburg Neighbors Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Dori Stewart.
Speaker 2:Welcome to another episode of the Fredericksburg Neighbors Podcast, where we share the stories of our favorite local brands. Today, I'm excited to introduce you to Emma and Paul Stoddard. They are the owners of Galvin's Delicatessen and River's End Speakeasy. Emma and Paul, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much. Good to be here Morning.
Speaker 2:I'm excited for this, so let's start off by sharing with the listeners a little bit about your business.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we have Galvin's Deli at 216 william street in downtown fredericksburg, um, and then we have a riversend speakeasy which is like a cocktail bar and restaurant upstairs. Um, Galvin's Deli was, uh is, inspired by like a new york delicatessen, so we are sort of jewish inspired, but we kind of, you know, branch off of that a little bit as well. Um, our main focus is like just everything is from scratch, made in-house. Um, you know, corned beef, pastrami sandwiches, um, we do fresh turkey, we make fresh bagels every day, um, and baked goods and sides and all that stuff, yeah, amazing, amazing, so needed in the Fredericksburg area and very exciting, and you have a ton of five-star reviews, so congratulations on your success, thank you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so tell me how did you get into this, tell me about the journey and and what inspired you to open.
Speaker 4:I mean, I've been in the Fredericksburg area since I graduated from Mary Washington in 2001. I basically worked in the Fredericksburg area since I graduated from Mary Washington in 2001. Basically worked in the restaurant business for the last 18 years. I was one of the co-owners of the Sunken Well Tavern. That's where I met Emma and kind of developed, you know, my love for restaurants and kind of business acumen and everything kind of working through all the issues with owning a restaurant over the last, you know, 18 years or so. Um, but we uh, it was kind of through like a fortuitous situation that we found out about this location downtown. Um, emma just happened to go into the hyperion coffee shop and then she doesn't usually go to, and then she ran into a friend of ours who let us know about the place becoming available and I found out that I actually know the owner of the building and kind of quickly went from there where we were like, oh, can we take a look? And then we were like let's do this.
Speaker 4:It was meant to be yeah, and we kind of always talked about a deli type situation. We didn't have like a written business plan, but we had talked a lot about it at some point in the future or something we could do that we would really enjoy. And, like I said, the opportunity just kind of came up and we went for it. I mean, the building had a previous tenant for about 30 some odd years and so it was a little rough in there. So it took us a better part of a year to fix it up and really make it.
Speaker 4:But everyone's been complimenting Emma on all of her design choices and everything. So you know, like I said, it took about a year to get it going, but we opened up our doors on April 1st and we're just kind of still getting into the swing of things, trying to get into the flow. That's kind of what got us here.
Speaker 2:Very cool, very cool. I love, I love the story. So tell us about River, uh, River's End Speakeasy. How did, how did that come about?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so um so I guess, like the, the historical background is my, um, my grandmother, I guess, just grew up in a speakeasy. So my great grandfather ran a speakeasy during prohibition in the twenties in Jersey city and it was named Galvin's and so when we were deciding to name you know, the restaurant, we're like it's really hard naming businesses in general but we're like you know, hey, this is the family name and the building happened to have that sort of side secret entrance upstairs and we just love the idea of kind of like marrying the concept of you know the deli and just this you know kind of historical reference to our family ties to the business upstairs.
Speaker 3:Plus, you know, with Paul's experience of just you know owning a restaurant and having you know that kind of expertise of doing like entrees and kind of like a finer dining experience. We love the idea of creating this really just you know kind of jazzy sort of adult environment up there which is like good cocktails, good food and just feels very like relaxed and kind of just like a fun sort of nice environment to have dinner and grab a drink.
Speaker 2:Very cool, very cool. I love that so much. So do you find that there are any myths or misconceptions about, about the industry or about your business?
Speaker 4:I think getting the word out that we do make everything from scratch. I think our menu is not overly extensive. We try to keep it simple but of high quality. I think a lot of people they come into restaurants and they think it's like a magical place where everything is perfect all the time.
Speaker 4:But I think one of the biggest misconceptions that people have is that you know the restaurant is a business full of different types of people. You know everybody's trying really hard and you know sometimes people make mistakes here and there, but like, ultimately it's just like a group of people that are really pushing it together and it's not easy. It's not easy to kind of hold everybody together and make sure that you know you cross all your T's dot, all your I's, all that kind of stuff. So I mean, I think that's one thing. I think sometimes people customers they take it for granted how much work goes into putting up a restaurant.
Speaker 4:And that goes across the board for all restaurants.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. People need to show a little grace sometimes that we're all human, yeah.
Speaker 3:And we're all doing the best we can. Yeah, and we're people too that we, you know, we always want to make wrongs, right, you know. So you know we really appreciate it too when we get the feedback in person, you know, and like, right, when it happens, and we're like, okay, yeah, let's have. Like, how do we fix that? You know, I think in restaurants too, you know, people are so quick to jump online and give you these negative reviews, like right off the bat, without ever actually talking to you as the owner or talking to you, know, an employee, to kind of like right those wrongs in the moment. And you know, it's just, it's nice when somebody comes to you directly hey, you know this happened and we're like, oh, okay, I'm so sorry, like this is how we can fix it, you know. So, yeah, that's something we'd like to see more of. I guess, if we are doing something, you know that that could be fixed.
Speaker 2:We want to fix it yeah, absolutely, and we used to do that back in the day. You would address things and work things out instead of immediately going online and I know.
Speaker 4:I know, yeah, we've got a lot of good reviews, yeah you do it's not so much that much of an issue we have had a couple people who called in, you know, and said, oh, you forgot this or you didn't do this, and uh, we thank those people because we were able to address those things and especially when you're a new business. I think a new business is the hardest because you have this idea of what you're going to be doing.
Speaker 3:And then and you don't have the reputation yet.
Speaker 4:Yeah, but then you get, you get in there and things change, you know, and you just have to kind of bob and weave, at least for the first couple of months, to get comfortable and get into a routine, and then you can be more consistent, and that's kind of how it moves along.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. Well, you've done very well through the beginning stages and working out the kinks, because you have rave reviews, so congratulations. So can you describe a hardship or a life challenge that you have overcome that you feel like has made you stronger or better because of it?
Speaker 4:You know we were talking about that yesterday. You know we've been very fortunate not to have too many crazy life experiences, you know, at least negative in the last you know 10 years or so since we've been together, and I think that right now, in this moment, is one of those experiences that we're going through, because we put everything into this and so maybe in a year we come back on the podcast we can tell you all about how we overcame it. But I feel like right now we're in it and you know we're doing everything we can, we're working really hard. I think that's all you can do when things get difficult. You just got to put your head down, have faith and just keep working.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think all entrepreneurs know. You know it's tough when you're like following your dreams, and those beginning stages of making that dream happen is difficult. So you know, we're again just trying our best every day and hoping it all works out.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So you know, kind of kind of piggybacking off of that. Is there some advice that you would give new entrepreneurs maybe who are where, were where you were a couple years ago and are thinking about starting the business of their dreams?
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think the biggest thing is obviously you know it's not always going to be smooth sailing, so you've got to kind of go into it knowing you're going to have days where things aren't going to go right and you can't make everything right all the time. There's so many moving parts. You just need to always be moving forward towards your eventual goal. I think that's really important. And then you've got to be able to sacrifice. When you open a business, it's way different than going into an office somewhere, getting a new job, where you sit down, they tell you what to do, you complete your tasks for the day and then you're successful and you walk out the door. When you start a business, it goes with you everywhere. You think about it at night, you stress about the slow times you're excited about, about the busy times, and you really just got to be consistent and just constantly uh, you know attack, you know at the best of your ability every.
Speaker 3:Every day is a new adventure there's always. There's a list of 40,000 tasks and then the next day there's another list of 40,000, and you can't be too rigid, I mean that's the thing like so we opened up.
Speaker 4:You know we kind of changed our hours a little bit trying to figure it out. You know we were opening up a little bit earlier, hoping people would come in and get the bagels. You know, because we, you know we did notice that when there was another bagel shop opened up last year they'd closed down but there were lines out the door for bagels and they were getting them delivered. They weren't even making them. You know, we're making fresh bagels. And then we opened up a little bit early. Nobody came and got the bagels. They knew you know what I mean. Like. So we thought that that was going to be something that we were really going to focus on right off the bat. You know we thought that people would be coming in for the bagels.
Speaker 1:Uh, it's starting to pick up now.
Speaker 4:I think it's just more letting people know about it. I don't think people know that we're there. I think within our circle and our you know our social media, we have a really good following and good friends and people in town. But there's another layer there that we don't, that don't even know we're there, and that's that's kind of the challenge right now is to kind of get our get our name out there, continue to do good jobs. We get good reviews and people obviously want to come back, but those are the kinds of things that you know you got to be able to change.
Speaker 4:You can't be too set in their ways. You know you got to people really tell you what they want. You know, and it's all about the customers and the community and so that's really who you're you beholden to. You know, is the customers ultimately. And so if you know it seems like they like to come in on this day or that day, you know you got to just be able to accommodate.
Speaker 2:Very good advice. Got to just be able to accommodate. Very good advice listening to your customers and pivoting when needed and going with the flow, not being too rigid. Thank you for that advice. So you two are obviously very busy people. You also have a family, so talk to me about how are you able to step away from the business and have a little bit of fun.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so, as we talked about, we closed on Sundays, which is really nice. I do run a real estate business too, so that business never shuts down. So I do potentially work all day, like all week, but it's, you know, balancing the kids, especially like Sunday was such an important day, like we need a day off from the restaurant where we can also be with our children, you know, because they're also off of school or whatever. So that really helps, because then it's just like, hey, let's go out as a family and we'll go downtown or, you know, go eat at a restaurant or, you know, at our house here, you know, we love to garden and we have a pool and so just those little things, that just taking those moments out when we are not at the restaurant to really like kind of be together and, yeah, just kind of like have fun, it's really nice.
Speaker 2:Nice, I'm glad you get that day off so important. So what is something that you wish the listeners knew about? Your business? So what?
Speaker 3:is something that you wish the listeners knew about your business. So I mean, I think the bagels is a big one Like we. Again, we're making these fresh bagels. It's like we're the only business right now making fresh bagels in house in the entire Fredericksburg area, as far as I know. So I think that's that's a huge side of it that we'd love to have more people come in and come grab. You know, we do like bagels with lox, we do bagels with cream cheese.
Speaker 3:Right now we're sort of limited with our toppings, but we hope to kind of grow that if the demand is there, and then yeah, and again just from scratch, like there's so much labor and like love that goes into every aspect of our menu and that's for upstairs as well. At the speakeasy you aspect of our menu and that's for upstairs as well. At the speakeasy, you know, we're trying to use all local meats when we can find it, which is really nice. And just, you know, higher end ingredients and all the cocktails use all house-made syrups and yeah, we're just trying to put out a good product, I guess.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean, and also you know, as far as the deli is concerned, like we're willing to come to you. You know my goal every day is to sell as many sandwiches as possible. So if you call ahead of time we can get a tray a platter deliverered, I'll deliver them to somebody you know as long't leave in the middle of the day, so you know we'll be.
Speaker 3:we've been accommodating deliveries and stuff for lunch during the week, which everybody seems to really appreciate because you know you can't always step out for 30, 45 minutes, so we're happy to accommodate that as well.
Speaker 2:That's amazing. I love that, so you shared your address.
Speaker 3:That's amazing. I love that. So you shared your address. So if someone wants to learn more about your catering or just wants to, maybeailing is great, especially if you want to plan any like events. We do special events upstairs at the speakeasy. We've already had five, six, seven events up there, anything from like anniversary parties to birthday parties, to we're hosting a brunch in a couple of weeks and then we're starting to also plan for like special, maybe ticketed events, like wine dinners and like history nights and things like that. So always email us if you have a question or want to book something farther in advance. We look at our email 40 times a day, so yeah, we'll get back to you quickly.
Speaker 2:Wonderful, wonderful Well, paul and Emma, thank you so much for joining me on the Fredericksburg Neighbors Podcast. I appreciate you sharing your business with us.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thanks so much for having us on. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Fredericksburg Neighbors Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to fxbgneighborspodcast. com. That's fxbgneighborspodcast. com. That's fxbgneighborspodcast. com, or call 540-534-4618.