The Virginia Gazette always focuses on local news, but it also includes major state, national, and international stories. Today’s front page caught my eye because it is a totally local set of stories and I am interested in all of them.
The “above the fold” story features one of our favorite places to go out to eat – the Yorktown Pub, about 30 minutes away from us in Yorktown. This is truly a down-home type of place, with a casual pub-like ambiance, background music, and sports on the televisions around the room. It is just across the street from Yorktown Beach on the York River. This is not an ocean beach, so you don’t have the waves and surf noises. But it is a very swimmable beach that attracts a lot of families. The Yorktown Pub is the kind of place where you can take your sandy self to have a snack, a meal, or a drink to punctuate your day at the beach. The pub first opened to outside dining during the pandemic, but it has continued to offer this option in the years since. The plans discussed in this story include upgrading the existing outdoor space, extending the pub to incorporate a nearby restaurant, and building an additional structure on the other side of the pub on top of a bluff overlooking the river.
Although Yorktown gets its share of tourists, the town itself remains more accessible than Colonial Williamsburg while still offering a range of historic sites to visit in addition to the beach.
The second story focuses on Williamsburg’s “Grand Canyon” – a bit of an exaggeration but a real hazard to people driving around Williamsburg. This eroded area near a very busy intersection was washing away at a rapid pace, fueled by poor outflow management from the building of Route 199 (a bypass around Williamsburg) in the 1990s. The ‘canyon’ was deepening at the rate of about one foot per year. The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) surveyed the problem and, in cooperation with the City of Williamsburg, James City County, and the College of William and Mary (which owns the adjacent 1,200-acre woodland impacted by the erosion), is currently working on restoring Strawberry Creek (the stream causing the erosion) to its original elevation) to solve the problem.
The third story is fun – focusing on “Dancing With the Williamsburg Stars,” a fundraiser for local nonprofits scheduled for this weekend. The beneficiaries this year include Literacy for Life, a program where I have taught classes and tutored individuals who need to improve their English language fluency. I am particularly interested in this year’s program because one of the dancers is my friend Stacy Kern-Scheerer, who is a law professor and director of the immigration clinic at the William and Mary Law School. And oh yeah, she’s also a member of the Williamsburg City Council. This year’s theme is “Steppin’ to the 50s,” and should be a lot of fun.
And the fourth story is featured in the little box at the top of the page – the Beach Boys will be in Williamsburg on June 21 as part of the Virginia Arts Festival. The show will include original members Mike Love and Bruce Johnson and will be touring North America through September. The venue is held on the lawn of the Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg (just a block off Merchant Square) and is a ticketed event that includes a variety of performances and food trucks. The article notes that this year’s festival also features Islandic-Chinese singer-songwriter Laufey on June 23. I don’t have any idea what this means but it might be more interesting than a Beach Boys concert.
😂
Yea, home!