A Boathouse Restaurant Update

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Last week I toured the Boathouse Restaurant building site at Rocketts Landing with owner Kevin Healy. There is a lot of saw dust everywhere and loose wires hanging from the ceiling. But Healy reassured me that by mid-August it will be open for business.

 “I am more than satisfied with the building project thus far,” he said. “We are ahead of schedule and under budget.”

Healy said he is throwing a three-day party for friends and family when it opens.

Upon entering the restaurant, he said guests will come face to face with a massive wine shelf. In 2008, the Brandermill Boathouse Restaurant Healy currently owns and operates on the Swiftcreek Reservoir in Chesterfield won the Wine Spector Award of Excellence, an honor given to 3,249 restaurants in the U.S. that typically offer at least 100 wine selections. Healy aims to uphold that achievement at the Boathouse Restaurant at Rocketts Landing but also change a few things in terms of ambiance and tablefare.

“We’ll still have an open-air, wood-stone pizza oven and fire place, but the new restaurant will be less suburban than the one at Brandermill and more sophisticated,” he said.

Eight new Maki rolls, a larger selection of oysters, more “interesting” pizza ingredients and a wider variety of steaks will be the difference between the two restaurants’ menus, according to Healy.  All these new dishes will be cooked in a state-of-the-art kitchen with specialized equipment like a Ruth’s Chris broiler that can reach temperatures of 1,800 degrees and a la Plancha, which is a Spanish-style fish cooking surface that equalizes heat distribution.

“Because we have so many seats at the Brandermill restaurant, we have to do more with less,” Healy said. “The Rocketts restaurant will be much smaller so that is why we are able to expand the menu.”

The chef for the new boathouse restaurant has not been announced yet, but Healy did say that he will be “a local” and that the Rocketts Landing restaurant will additionally employ at least 35 servers and 18 cooks.

A total of 16 booths and an in-door/outdoor bar will line the restaurant floor and a community table for big parties will be at the center of the main dining area.  Also Healy said that private parties will be able to rent the Harbor Masters Head Quarters located on the top floor of the power plant building for special occasions. 

 “This will not only be my flagship restaurant, but we are hoping it will also be Richmond’s flagship restaurant and a premier restaurant in Central, Virginia,” Healy said.