Yummvees To Go’s new location at 2118 W. Cary St. (Jackie DiBartolomeo photo)
Another former tenant of a recently shuttered local ghost kitchen is moving on to a new brick-and-mortar space.
Vegan takeout spot Yummvees To Go, previously housed in ChefSuite before it shut down at the end of July, is relocating to the former TBT El Gallo space at 2118 W. Cary St.
Yummvees is slotting into the small, 700-square-foot building likely in mid- to late October, owner Tracy Flitcraft said. It will be takeout-only.
Yummvees offers animal-free iterations of standard fare such as burgers and Reuben sandwiches. Flitcraft said she’s doing a menu rework ahead of the opening and will include many customer favorites and some new options.
Flitcraft had operated at ChefSuite at 4711 W. Broad St. for a little over a year. She said that though ChefSuite’s closure came as a surprise, her lease was coming to an end, and she’d already been planning on moving out and reopening Yummvees as a stand-alone operation.
Yummvees first opened at at 3511 Courthouse Road in Chesterfield in 2021 as a renewed version of Flitcraft’s former home-based catering company of the same name, which was founded in 2016 and did vegan catering and prepackaged meals for three years.
The restaurant operated in the Chesterfield location before closing around 2023. Flitcraft took some time off to plot her next move before being approached by ChefSuite to be a tenant. She felt switching to a takeout-only business could be successful.
“What I started to find in the Chesterfield restaurant was a lot of my business was takeout orders,” Flitcraft said. “But I think it’s just the way of the world now.”
While Flitcraft said ChefSuite’s location within Richmond city limits brought her plenty of new customers who hadn’t previously taken the trip to Chesterfield, she missed the face-to-face interactions with customers she had at her former brick-and-mortar location.
That led her to the idea of finding her own place in the city, where she will be able to interact with customers as she makes their food.
“It’s back to that face-to-face interaction,” Flitcraft said. “And that’s really important to me and this business.”
Her new Cary Street space came available this year after TBT El Gallo relocated to the former Kreggers at Hand building at 2614 W. Cary St. Yummvees is subleasing the building from TBT El Gallo owner Carlos Ordaz-Nunez, Flitcraft said.
The new Yummvees will have a counter area where customers can place orders or pick up orders placed online. It’ll also have a small patio outside, where Flitcraft said she’ll place a few tables for customers to eat.
The space will also have a grab-and-go area with premade meals, salads and desserts.
“I envision it like a little vegan cafe within this little weird vegan restaurant on West Cary (Street),” she said of the grab-and-go section.
Flitcraft said one of the benefits of the small space is that customers will be able to see Yummvees’ cooking up close. The restaurant makes its own vegan cheeses and proteins for its menu options. She said a team of about four people will be working at the new location. She operated Yummvees with only herself and one prep person during her tenure at ChefSuite.
“That’s sort of the charm of it. If a customer’s coming in, not only are we getting to interact with them, but they’re actually watching their food being made,” Flitcraft said. “There’s nowhere for us to go.”
Yummvees is working to outfit the space with hopes of opening in the third week of October.
Flitcraft is the latest former ChefSuite tenant to find a new home. Eric Mungo, who ran pizza spot Fire & Char out of ChefSuite, is launching a new concept, Pizzeria Mungo, in the former BigWife’s Mac n’ Cheese at 1017 N. Arthur Ashe Blvd.
Other former ChefSuite tenants included Chef Sha’s Wings, Smoothie Kingdom, Sunrise Caribbean Cuisine, Whack Cakes & Desserts and Wing Command.
ChefSuite co-founder Jarnail Tucker said in a statement in mid-June that the ghost kitchen’s closure was part of a “broader strategic realignment,” with the owners evaluating new possibilities for the space, including “interest from new operators” who would keep the building as some sort of food establishment.
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