The Church Hill Food Map Has A New Northern Spine

For years, if you told a friend to meet you for coffee or dinner in Church Hill, you were sending them to East Broad Street or the stretch of North 25th between Broad and Nine Mile. That was the map. In 2026, the map has a second axis, and if you live here you have probably already felt it in your walking habits.

The tell is a bright blue storefront at 32nd and Q.

The Shift Toward Church Hill North

Peaberry Coffeehouse opened this spring at 1301 N. 32nd St., taking a ground-floor space in a mixed-use building at the corner of 32nd and S built by local development firm Cava Cos. The owner is Alexa Schuett, and the origin story is worth pausing on. A friend of a friend told her, "I walk all the way to Riverbend. I'd love if we had a Riverbend-esque space over here." Schuett listened, and the fourth concept in her Church Hill lineup was born from that walk.

Why does that matter to a resident? Because it confirms something the neighborhood has been quietly demonstrating for a while. Church Hill North has been asking for more coffee shop options closer to home for some time now. Peaberry sits a few blocks from Oakwood Playground and Soul N' Vinegar, and there had not been a coffee shop in that part of the city in a long time.

The hours are built for the neighborhood, not the tourist. Peaberry is open Monday through Friday from 6:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday from 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. That is a weekday commuter schedule with a weekend flourish, not the noon-to-three brunch pattern of a destination cafe.

"I don't want to feel like going into a space is work. Everybody makes enough choices every day." — Alexa Schuett, on Peaberry's ordering philosophy, via Style Weekly

If you have not been in yet, the shop sells five different roasts, including one using its namesake peaberry bean, and each is named after a powerful female figure — the Duchess, the Witch, and the Queen Peaberry among them, a nod to Peaberry being owned and operated by women. The banana bread latte uses made-from-scratch banana syrup, and the cookie butter shaken espresso has been an early favorite.

What Is Still Coming To The Same Corridor

Peaberry is not a one-off. Two more openings are queued up nearby.

Oro, a Church Hill pasta project, is renovating a natural-toned interior with wholesale fresh pasta planned to follow. FABLE, a coffee shop and florist combination, is preparing a space up the street from Sub Rosa for a winter 2026 opening. A coffee-and-florist hybrid a short walk from Sub Rosa's wood-fired loaves is the kind of combination that only works in a neighborhood dense enough to support it, which is the point.

For context on the older restaurant row, the North 25th Street stretch between East Broad and Nine Mile has anchored the last decade of Church Hill dining, with The Broken Tulip, Sub Rosa Bakery, and Alewife holding down the block. What is happening now is not a replacement of that spine. It is a second one, running roughly parallel four blocks east.

The Anchors That Are Not Going Anywhere

If a friend visits and you have exactly one dinner to plan, the choices remain deep. Grisette sits at the intersection of N. 32nd and E. Marshall, with off-street parking around Chimborazo Park and a short walk through quiet residential blocks to get there. Grisette serves dinner Monday through Saturday from 5:00 until close.

The Roosevelt has been making waves since opening in Church Hill in 2011. Chef Lee Gregory was named a James Beard semifinalist for Best Chef in the Mid-Atlantic Region in 2014, and the restaurant puts an elegant but unpretentious twist on southern cooking in an early 1900s building.

The Hill Café at 2800 E. Broad St. has been the neighborhood's original since 1989, with a Sunday brunch from 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Sunday dinner from 4 to 9. Proper Pie brings New Zealand's savory pies to Richmond with a menu that changes daily. Alamo BBQ describes its location as just five minutes from downtown, and much closer than Texas.

None of that is new. The point is that the shorthand "Church Hill dining" no longer means one block. A weekend now has room for a Riverbend or Peaberry morning on 32nd, a Sub Rosa loaf on 25th, and dinner at Grisette or The Roosevelt without doubling back.

The 2026 Calendar A Resident Actually Needs

The events calendar is where a lot of generic neighborhood posts fall apart. Here is what has already happened this year and what is still ahead, with the dates locked down.

Two details worth flagging.

The 40th annual Irish Festival ran 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. both days at St. Patrick Catholic Church, added a Saturday morning parade this year, and Sunday morning brought the HillTopper 5K. The festival offered free parking with a shuttle at 16th and East Broad Street dropping at 24th and Broad, with a second shuttle from 200 Orleans Street to 26th and Broad running all day. If you live inside the festival footprint, the shuttle map is more useful than the band lineup.

The 2026 Church Hill Juneteenth Celebration begins at 8:30 a.m. Friday, June 19 at St. John's Church, 2401 E. Broad, with a 9:30 celebratory parade covering 1.4 miles from St. John's to Peter Paul RVA at 1708 N. 22nd St., followed by a worship service featuring Michael Paul Williams, the former Richmond Times-Dispatch columnist and 2021 Pulitzer Prize winner in Commentary.

The 4th Annual Church Hill Spring Fest & Market at Libby Hill Park (28th and E. Franklin) is a free, family-friendly gathering with local businesses, artists, live music, food trucks, and community nonprofits from noon to 5 p.m., plus free yoga on the lawn starting at 12:15.

A Half-Day, Built Around The New Map

Here is a walkable Saturday that only works because of the northern shift.

• 7:30 a.m. — Coffee at Peaberry on N. 32nd. Grab a banana bread latte and a pastry from the case.
• 8:30 a.m. — Walk south along 32nd to Chimborazo Park. The river-bluff views most guidebooks send you to Libby Hill for are also here, with fewer people at that hour.
• 10:00 a.m. — Cut west to N. 25th for a loaf from Sub Rosa. Detour through the residential blocks between 27th and 25th to see the Federal and Italianate rows.
• 12:30 p.m. — Lunch at The Hill Café on E. Broad, or a savory pie at Proper Pie.
• Late afternoon — If the calendar cooperates, Libby Hill Park for Spring Fest in May or a picnic bench any other weekend.
• Dinner — Grisette on E. Marshall, or The Roosevelt.

That itinerary would have been impossible three years ago because the morning coffee stop did not exist within walking distance of the northern edge of the neighborhood. A single storefront on N. 32nd changes the shape of a weekend.

The Read For Residents

The reason to notice all of this is not that Church Hill is being discovered. That framing has been recycled for a decade. The specific 2026 story is different. The retail footprint is redistributing. A new taqueria, Taco Vegana, is preparing to open at the corner of Oakwood Avenue and P Street, on the same corridor. Small owner-operators are choosing sites that assume a resident base, not a tourist stream. That is a healthier signal than any median-price chart, and it is the kind of thing you can watch happen from a porch.

If you have lived here for a decade, the map you carry in your head is probably out of date. Take a walk up 32nd this weekend and update it.

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