Restaurants encourage tourism, Fat Canary owners say, but growing meals taxes hurt
Happy income tax deadline day! We were off for our birthday so this is an abbreviated edition.
Williamsburg’s push to raise meals taxes threatens the independent restaurants that are important to the city’s tourism economy, the siblings that run the Fat Canary and Cheese Shop say.
Mary Ellen Power Rogers and Thomas Power Jr. joined other restaurateurs who descended on the Williamsburg City Council meeting last week to push back on plans to increase the meals tax by another 1.5%. The siblings, along with their sister Cathy, are the second-generation owners of the Williamsburg food group that began with a wine and cheese shop founded by their parents in Newport News more than 50 years ago.
They met with us late last week in the Fat Canary’s dining room to explain how local independent restaurants are suffering from a combination of rising prices, employee shortages and lack of affordable downtown parking for their workers.
“The Fat Canary this time of year should be open seven nights a week; we’re open five,” Mary Ellen said. “The Cheese Shop should be open seven days a week. We're closed on Mondays.”
When restaurant employees call out, they are forced to close Downstairs at the Fat Canary, a more casual venue that takes customers without reservations.
Rents continue to rise, added her brother Thomas Jr., who is Fat Canary’s executive chef.
“There's all these pressures, we don't go a day that we don't feel squeezed by something,” he said. “And we keep figuring out how to get past it and how to be creative and how to not allow it to over stress our company and ourselves. Everything is pressure.”
He explained taxes can add more than $20 to an average meal, which can impact visits by the repeat customers who are 60% of their business.
The Power siblings said Williamsburg needs to spread the tax pain beyond local businesses. They said good independent restaurants enhance the visitor experience and help promote tourism.
“There is a quality that independent businesses, especially restaurants, bring to a community that is a value. It's special,” Thomas said. “Nobody goes, ‘they've got a great Taco Bell in Williamsburg’.”
“To raise our taxes specifically to restaurants, it's kind of a gut punch,” he said, asking “is the city a partner (of local business) or not?”
What would it cost James City County if it held a referendum on the proposed $189.5 million government center and voters turned it down?
We asked the question because, in our admittedly unscientific poll, 155 readers voted 91%-9% in favor of holding a referendum on the government center in the November elections.
The center’s projected cost has nearly doubled from the projections of consultants who recommended it in 2022. At the time, the consultants said building a consolidated facility and selling off the current Mounts Bay county complex would be cheaper over time than expanding and renovating the county’s existing offices.
The county has already paid $3.9 million for initial design work and has signed up for another $12.4 million in work toward additional design on the county complex and an adjacent library building, according to Brad Rinehimer, the county’s assistant administrator.
The cost of those two buildings – a quarter of a billion dollars – comprise the bulk of the county’s proposed capital improvement budget request for the Fiscal 2026 year that begins in July.
Williamsburg’s city council appointed its first Poet Laureate, Lacroy Nixon, who proposed a slam contest for youthful poets.
At its April 10 meeting, Williamsburg City Council voted to appoint Nixon to serve a two-year term beginning July 1, 2025, at a stipend of $1,500 a year.
His responsibilities include:
• Create at least two original works on behalf of the City of Williamsburg.
• Present a reading of his original inaugural poem at an event selected by the city.
• Work with the Williamsburg Public Art Council (WPAC) to create and execute a project as outlined in his application.
• Help build networks and opportunities for poets and other literary, performing, and/or visual artists to create and engage new audiences.
• Present additional readings at events mutually agreed upon by the City and the WPAC.
In his application, Nixon described his proposed project as a citywide youth slam poetry program that culminates in a final competition.
Nixon, who has worked with the city’s Human Services Department on youth programming, was born in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Nixon grew up in Williamsburg and earned a bachelor’s degree at Liberty University in graphic design. He currently works as the regional director of teen programming at the YMCA. Nixon has been writing and performing spoken word poetry for the last eight years and is the founder of Slam Connection, a local slam poetry-based organization that uses poetry as a means for community action. Nixon also serves on the Executive Board for the Writers Guild of Virginia.
Slam poetry is a form of performance poetry that blends performance, writing, competition, and audience participation.
The Williamsburg Public Art Council will administer the Williamsburg Poet Laureate Program, which was developed to spotlight the City of Williamsburg community through a poetic voice that champions the arts as a whole. Established in 2021, the Williamsburg Public Art Council is composed of nine members, including representatives from City boards and commissions and two at-large members.
Passings
Williamsburg is pricing all business out they are greedy. That’s why we are losing more restaurants and it absolutely affecting all local businesses. Shame on you people for being greedy and packing your pockets.