Shakers: The Mall Survivor is New Again
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Robert West
Shakers Fried Cheesecake
The fried cheesecake is wrapped in a tortilla and is served with vanilla ice cream with caramel sauce for maximum decadence.
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Robert West
Shakers Manager/Chef Bob Plunket
Shakers manager/chef Bob Plunkett says being the only independent restaurant at Valley View “is what we hang our hat on.”
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Robert West
Shakers Fried Cheesecake
The fried cheesecake is wrapped in a tortilla and is served with vanilla ice cream with caramel sauce for maximum decadence.
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Robert West
Shakers Ribs
The Shakers ribs are tender and understandably flavored enough to take our reviewer "back to summer barbecues at my grandfather's cabin."
No, it’s not a chain – maybe just seems so because it’s at Valley View. Yes, it’s recently undergone a total renovation. Yes, the food is distinctive and the service superb. And then there is this: Fried cheesecake!
They put a parking lot on a piece of land where the Huff Farm used to stand. Of course, that was 25-plus year ago, and it’s been the dominant retail destination in this part of the world ever since. And when they were putting it together, they knew that all those shoppers were likely to bring along appetites. So there’s never been any shortage of hospitable places there to eat and drink. But one by one, every restaurant in the entire mall complex, be it fast food, national chain, or mom-and-pop enterprise, has followed the Huff Farm into history.
Except Shakers.
Of all the places to eat at the mall, Shakers is the one survivor from the early days. It’s thriving, and lest you think it’s just another chain – like a Bennigan’s without the fake brogue – be assured that there’s only one other location to this regionally owned eatery, a companion store at Lynchburg’s River Ridge Mall. Owner John Buckels and manager and chef Bob Plunkett opened the Lynchburg location in 1986, and the Roanoke spot followed two years later. Plunkett takes a fair bit of pride in being the only independent restaurant at Valley View: “That’s what we like to hang our hats on.”
The dining rooms have come and gone at Valley View. Once upon a time, the TGI Fridays was a Chi-Chi’s Mexican restaurant. The Buffalo Wild Wings was a place called Spinnaker’s, which served bread cooked in flowerpots and had a sign over one of the tables designating it the “worst in the house,” in true ‘80s fern-bar fashion. (I guess they went with “Spinnaker’s” as a name because “The Regal Beagle” was taken.) The Olive Garden was an elegant joint that my associates and I called the “BK Lounge.”
But Shakers is still Shakers, and the realization that it was creeping up on its 25th year in business prompted a recent visit. My wife and I spent a couple days reminiscing about the restaurant as we remembered it (neither of us had been for years) and preparing to marvel at the dated décor and menu options that haunted our memories. But alas, as usual, the joke was on us. A month-old total renovation had completely transformed the place, and hinted that our preconceptions about the place may have been misguided.
Hey, I can admit when I’m wrong. If you haven’t been to this place since back when Hechinger was across the street and Wal-Mart was across town, you’re in for some surprises, too. Plunkett and Buckels are firm believers in the notion that a restaurant needs to be gutted once a decade or so to keep it fresh.
“We like to joke that we make profits so that we can remodel,” Plunkett told me. It’s hard to tell whether he’s got more pride in the renovations –“we even did the outside. Every blade of grass is new” – or the staff who stuck it out during an eight-day hiatus while the remodel went forward. He saved a bit of pride for the restaurant’s new banquet room, able to seat 40 and wired with AV and laptop computer capability, in true 21st-century fashion.
When my wife and I arrived one blustery night, the host staff may have sensed my bewilderment at the new surroundings; they seated us in the section of a remarkably accommodating server who seemed determined to make our every whim come true. She worked hard to anticipate our needs and agree with every dumb thing I said, all without making it look like an effort.
I can’t say Shakers has the most impressive wine list in town, but there are roughly a dozen by-the-glass selections and several more served by the bottle, meaning that most middle-of-the-road wine enthusiasts will find something drinkable. The bar also offers a half dozen specialty martinis and other house cocktails, but the list of draft beers was a bit surprising for its lack of regional choices; I would have loved it if a local success story like this carried a local beer.
A quick look at the menu revealed a mixture of surprises and industry standards. Amid a wide, if familiar selection of sandwiches, there were a couple of interesting choices that made me look twice, such as a trio of catfish tacos, and the “Sam I Am” burger, featuring American cheese, a fried egg, ham and Pride of Virginia relish. The last time I saw a burger like that, Homer Simpson was salivating over it.
To start our meal, we ordered mussels, steamed and served in a broth of white wine, butter, sautéed onions and diced tomatoes. The sauce was rich and garlicky, and set off the shellfish nicely. We also sampled the Buffalo wings, and I have to say, Shakers does this right. Fried crispy without a bit of breading (a chicken wing needs breading like a fish needs tartar sauce – only when it’s got something to hide), and drenched in a plain, honest hot sauce and butter combo. These weren’t the most amazing Buffalo wings I’ve ever had, but they reminded me of them, and they weren’t lacking in heat.
“I like a little pain with my food,” my wife told the waitress, adding, “Wait, that sounded bad…”
“No, ma’am,” she replied, “that sounded exactly right.”
Entrees are served with a choice of two sides from a list of around a dozen, an option which is refreshing in its freedom, but precludes the chef making any inspired pairings. To accompany my half rack of baby-back ribs (why did I not get a full rack? What is wrong with me?), I chose au gratin potatoes and a medley of broccoli, squash and carrots. The vegetables were light and crispy, and the potatoes were satisfyingly decadent, cut shoestring-thin with roughly a pound of cheese.
The ribs were a real winner. Every second bite I took sent me back in my memories to my childhood, to summer barbecues at my grandfather’s cabin. Any food that can evoke that powerful and pleasant a memory has to be doing something right. They were tender, but not to the point of mushiness, and the sauce was pleasantly understated, allowing the superior flavor of the meat to shine through. I’d tell you more about them, but the greasy, saucy fingerprints are obscuring all of my meticulous notes.
My wife enjoyed her filet mignon, finding it to be almost tender enough to cut without a knife, and pairing it with steamed broccoli and an order of tasty sautéed green beans. She added on a lobster tail, and reported that this was also delicious. But I didn’t trust her. So I commandeered a healthy piece. It was firm and flavorful. Turns out she was right. This time…
When our waitress came back toward the end of the meal to try to sell us dessert, I was firm in my refusal. Its New Year’s Resolution time, after all, and I’ve got a swimsuit to fit into. But one item caught my wife’s discerning eye.
“You want to share the fried cheesecake?” she asked.
“Gee, babe, I don’t know. I thought we’d skip dessert tonight.”
“Listen,” she said, grabbing my face with both hands and staring at me like a diminutive Rasputin. “Fried. Cheesecake.”
Well, when you put it like that… wrapped in a tortilla and deep-fried, then served with vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce, this item is definitely worth a try. I would have preferred the tortilla to be a bit crisper, in the manner of a sopapilla or a crepe, but the flavors were still quite decadent.
Much of our conversation at dinner that night ran toward reminiscences about things we’d done and people we’d known over the course of Valley View’s retail reign. The stores that have come and gone, old friends who got into various degrees of mischief at the mall and its restaurants, the fact that the approach to Runway 34 goes right over the Olive Garden (there’s a great view of the flight path from the back windows at Shakers)…. But mainly, what we talked about was the importance of keeping an open mind and remembering that even when a restaurant has been around since your shoes had fat laces and you could still find a decent pair of leg warmers at the mall, it can still surprise you.