The Batesville Market.

Overview

The Batesville Market sits on Plank Road in Batesville — a wide-spot-in-the-road village south of Crozet on the way to North Garden and Wintergreen, far enough off the main highways to still feel like a destination. The building has been there since around 1880. It has been almost continuously open since. For three generations of the Page family (1914 through 1994), it was *Page's Store*, and the Charlie Page who ran it became famous enough to be the subject of the song *Old Plank Road*, which Garrison Keillor later picked up for the Prairie Home Companion movie soundtrack. After a long gap of convenience-store and restaurant attempts in the 2000s and early 2010s, the Market reopened in its current form: country store, deli, and music venue, all out of the same old building.

A 145-year-old building

The bones of the place are 1880s. Wide-plank floor, original counters in spots, the proportions of a 19th-century general store. The current owners have updated what needed updating without trying to hide what the building is. The result feels accurate rather than themed — you don't have to be told this is an old store; you walk in and the room tells you.

In the deli case

The kitchen is the engine. Sandwiches are made to order, hot and cold. The Market smokes its own pastrami — not a common move at a country store, and worth the dedicated trip. Hearty hot meals run as daily specials. The peanut noodles with chives are an off-menu kind of favorite that locals order without reading. Salads are real. Baked goods rotate.

The grocery side leans local, organic, and made-nearby. Eggs from Albemarle farms. Cheese from the dairies up the road. Beer and wine with strong Virginia representation. A small case of Virginia artisan crafts that doubles as an impulse-buy aisle for visitors. It is not a big store. It is a curated store.

Saturday + Sunday music

The Market's reputation outside Batesville is mostly about the music. Saturdays 6:30–9pm and Sunday afternoons 1–3:30pm the kitchen pivots into venue mode. Tables get rearranged. Lighting comes down. Local-and-regional acts cycle through: bluegrass and string-band sets (Buzzard Hollow Boys, Ragged Mountain String Band, Rockfish Gap, Tara Mills), singer-songwriter nights (Sarah White, Willie DE), jazz (trumpeter Will Evans, guitarist Randy Johnston, drummer Robert Jospe, John d'Earth), and occasional bigger draws like The Pollocks — led by Jason Pollock, the founder of *Seven Mary Three*. The room is small enough that "intimate" is accurate; loud enough that "background music" is not.

There's no separate ticket counter and a tip jar on the bar that supports the band. Dinner happens around the music. Reservations are not part of the system.

Visiting

6624 Plank Road, Batesville VA 22924. Phone (434) 823-2001. Website batesvillemarket.com.

Hours run Mon–Thu 10–6, Fri 10–8, Sat 9–9:30, Sun 11–5. The Friday-and-Saturday extended hours bracket the music. Sunday hours run through the afternoon set. Parking is on the gravel lot beside the building and along the road shoulder when the lot fills.

From Crozet, the route is south on Plank Road or southwest on Garth Road; either way is about twenty minutes through pretty country. The Market is right on Plank Road on the south side; you'll see it.

Why it matters

A general store built in 1880 and run by one family for eighty consecutive years is a different kind of building than one that opened last year. Surviving as that building requires intent — and the current owners have managed it without turning the place into a museum or a tourist trap.

The Batesville Market is now a real grocery for the village, a real lunch counter for travelers, and one of the better small-room music bookings in central Virginia. For Crozet residents, it's a twenty-minute drive that turns into a Saturday-night dinner, a Sunday-afternoon grocery run, or a Charlie Page anecdote depending on the weather and who's behind the counter. Charlie's been gone since the 90s; the song stays; the store keeps going.

More specialty food in Crozet

Specialty Food

Crozet Seafood Supply

Fresh seafood market and lunch counter. Daily catch, house-made seafood salads, sandwiches, and sides. Sells from a brick-and-mortar in west Charlottesville and a food truck.

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