New Chapter for Reedville Market
On the surface, Eric and Lara Chandler might seem like an unlikely pair to take over a waterfront restaurant.
Eric owns Chandler’s Firearms Estates, a gun shop on Main Street in Kilmarnock. Lara is an artist and co-owner of Rappahannock Hang Ups, the framing shop and gallery just down the street. Neither had ever run a restaurant. In fact, neither was particularly looking to run one.
But when an opportunity arose to breathe new life into one of Reedville’s longtime gathering places, the newlyweds found themselves doing exactly that.
“We were just at the right place at the right time,” Eric said.
Their introduction to Reedville Market happened almost by accident. Last fall, the couple was looking at a house directly across the river from the Market. A neighbor offered to show them around, and before long, Eric was considering not just the house but the restaurant property as an investment.
The house eventually sold to someone else, and their first offer on the Market did not work out either. Eric and Lara moved on, purchasing waterfront property in Fairport instead.
But Reedville Market remained on Eric’s mind.
By then, the restaurant had closed, and as the months passed, no buyer emerged. Eric and Lara began noticing something else: Reedville was missing a place where people could gather for dinner, meet friends for a drink, or simply spend an evening together.
Local residents noticed it, too.
“So many people were saying, ‘Somebody needs to buy it,’” Lara said.
Eventually, Eric decided perhaps they should be that somebody.
“The only reason we bought it was because the community needed it,” he said. “Neither one of us had any idea how to run a restaurant. In fact, we had no inclination or desire to run a restaurant.”
Lara laughs when Eric says “we” decided to buy it.
“He decided,” she said. “Then he talked to me and tried to influence me for months that this was a good idea.”
His best selling point may have been that it would give the couple, who married in June, a business they could share. They closed on Reedville Market in July, and six weeks later, they held a soft opening. The speed with which it all came together still surprises them.
General manager Andrea Wiles, who previously managed the Black Duck for four years, assembled a staff in a matter of weeks. Several employees had worked at Reedville Market previously or at other area restaurants, and many live remarkably close by.
In a region where finding employees can be one of the greatest challenges facing a business owner, Lara said the way the staff came together felt almost providential.
“It feels like divine intervention to me, that it was meant to be,” she said.
The community’s response has been just as remarkable.
Eric had experienced strong local support when he opened his Kilmarnock firearms store, but he said the response to Reedville Market has been on another level.
“I thought I got a lot of support when I opened up the gun shop,” he said, “but this is like 100 times more than that.”
For Lara, it is not simply the number of people coming through the doors but the way the community has embraced the new owners.
“The loyalty is unbelievable,” she said. “They’re just really generous at heart.”
Customers have offered suggestions and feedback, much of which Eric and Lara have incorporated as they learn the restaurant business. The couple welcomes it.
“We want it to be good for everybody,” Lara said.
They have been careful, however, not to change what already worked. The center portion of Reedville Market is more than 130 years old, with additions made by previous owners over the years. Eric and Lara appreciated the character of the building and wanted their changes to feel like another layer in its history rather than a reinvention.
They created a lounge where guests can enjoy a quieter drink or date night away from the activity of the bar. Outside, sailcloth shades replaced umbrellas that once had to be taken up and down with changing weather.
And there are small pieces of the couple themselves tucked throughout the building. Several of Lara’s paintings hang on the walls, including a crab painting behind the hostess station titled “Dinner in a Pinch.” Eric added antique firearms to the décor.
“There are pieces of every owner that has had this place,” Lara said. “We’ve not changed it too much, but we’re making it ours.”
The property itself was a large part of what convinced Eric that Reedville Market was worth taking on.
Sitting on Cockrell’s Creek in the heart of Reedville, the restaurant offers waterfront dining, ample parking, and 10 boat slips available for customers arriving by water. Golf carts are a familiar sight as well, fitting naturally into the rhythm of the Reedville community.
“It was everything,” Eric said of the location.
The couple also sees possibilities beyond the dining room. A large outdoor area offers space for music and community events, while the size of the building makes it well suited for private parties, business gatherings, and holiday events. Several have already been booked.
They hope eventually to expand the restaurant’s hours as well, beginning with Sunday brunch and potentially adding more daytime offerings in the future.
For two people who entered the restaurant business with no restaurant experience, Eric and Lara have quickly discovered that their very different strengths work surprisingly well together.
Eric is the big-picture thinker.
“He sees what this could possibly be,” Lara said.
He is also the people person. Lara jokes that walking into the restaurant with her husband can mean waiting 20 or 30 minutes before they ever reach their table because he stops to talk with so many people along the way.
Lara, meanwhile, gravitates toward the details. She designed the menus and lounge, handled much of the point-of-sale programming and technology, and took on decorating projects throughout the restaurant.
“She can concentrate on the details,” Eric said. “while I’m a big-picture person.”
He is handy; she is technical. He casts the vision; she figures out what has to happen next.
That partnership extends beyond Reedville Market.
Lara grew up in the Northern Neck after her family moved from Annapolis when she was seven. She attended Northumberland High School and later studied communication art and design at Virginia Commonwealth University. Her love of art eventually became part of her career through Rappahannock Hang Ups, where she has her own gallery in addition to the framing business.
Eric grew up in Chesterfield but had been drawn to the Northern Neck and its waterways for years. As a child, he remembers coming to Dividing Creek to crab, and later he spent decades watching local real estate before eventually purchasing a home in Deltaville.
After retiring from Verizon, he moved his firearms business into a storefront in Kilmarnock. The business grew rapidly, eventually leading him to purchase and renovate the building at the corner of Main and Church Streets.
But what Eric found here went beyond business opportunity. He found the community he had been looking for.
That desire to be part of a community eventually brought Eric and Lara into the same orbit through their neighboring Kilmarnock businesses. The two married in June, then quickly embarked on what would become their first major business venture together.
They are finally getting the chance to enjoy what they created, and, more importantly, to see the community enjoy it. On any given evening, the restaurant may be filled with fishermen unwinding after getting off their boats, friends meeting for drinks, couples having dinner, or groups simply enjoying one another’s company.
That, Eric and Lara say, is exactly what they hoped Reedville Market could once again provide.
“It gives people a place to go,” Eric said.
That matters in a community like Reedville, where gathering places are fewer and therefore perhaps more precious. It also reflects what both have come to value most about life and business in the Northern Neck: relationships.
“Treat them like family,” Eric said of his philosophy toward customers. “Be sincere, honest, and treat your customers like family.”
Lara believes people here recognize and appreciate the effort local business owners put into their communities — and return that investment with loyalty of their own.
It is something she understands perhaps even more deeply after spending much of her life here.
Her father used to call the Northern Neck “the Garden of the East Coast.” As a child, Lara did not fully understand what he meant. It took traveling and seeing other places to appreciate the history, rivers, Chesapeake Bay, and quiet beauty she had grown up around.
They may not have set out to become restaurateurs. But on a waterfront corner in Reedville, in a building that has welcomed generations through its doors, Eric and Lara are discovering that sometimes the best opportunities are the ones you never planned for.
And sometimes preserving a community gathering place begins with two people simply willing to say yes.