WE C-VILLE SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION
A R E
Inside stories from more than 100 local businesses
As a Charlottesville-area resident since the late 1960s, I’m often asked about the “changes.” Mostly this comes from people worried we are overbuilding roads, houses and stores, and diluting the small-town character that brought us or kept us here. My answer is that Charlottesville is better than ever. This isn’t because I especially like retail experiences far from the old town center, or that I don’t worry that the latest hair salon will finally tip the scales against barbershops such as Staples (where I got my first cut). It’s because the mix of old and new makes for a fascinating and engaging small town. An award-winning winery in the county, a modern architect on the Downtown Mall. A vegetarian menu over here, a carnivore’s dream over there. As we huddled at the Blue Moon Diner 30 years ago, hatching a plan for a “C-Ville” newspaper, it was appropriate that we
sat on a Main Street that reflected the Old Charlottesville—think tire stores, radiator shops, the bus station—while surrounded by the hipsters who evolved into the creative class that helped make C-Ville (the town and the newspaper) what it is today. In the following pages, you will see ads from a mix of businesses, from Settle Tire Co. (they fix my cars) to Wiley Real Estate (Peter Wiley was my neighbor 35 years ago and later worked here at the paper) to Blue Mountain Brewery (a pioneer in the huge local beer movement and founded by another C-VILLE office alum, Mandi Smack). By joining our “We are C-VILLE” campaign, these advertisers are reaching out to our readers and underwriting our work as a community newspaper in a community that needs one. Love them back to find out how rich life in C’ville can be. BILL CHAPMAN, FOUNDING EDITOR