Episode
Come Get Grit Faced
- Podcast
- The Valley Today
- Published
- Jul 7, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 1402
- Processing state
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- https://thevalleytodaypodcast.com/come-get-grit-faced
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Summary
Some restaurants are worth coming back for. And some people are worth partnering with to make that happen. On this Tourism Tuesday Winchester/Frederick County edition of The Valley Today, host Janet Michael and Justin Kerns catch up on the Zooms with Cheryl Ash and Drew Braithwaite — the team behind Gypsy Jane's Southern Food Lounge, a brand-new Creole-leaning New Orleans-inspired destination restaurant opening this month in Gore, Virginia. Cheryl is the chef and immersive-experience mastermind behind the beloved Sweet NOLA's Southern Food Lounge (which ran for eight years in Winchester). Drew is a lifelong Sweet NOLA's fan who moved back from Colorado last Christmas and made her food coming back to the area a personal mission. The conversation covers the origin story (a joke at Apple Blossom that became a business), the location (about seven minutes down Route 50 West past Walmart, in a building that's been a truck stop since about 1930, then North Mountain Family Restaurant), the menu (alligator sausage, award-winning shrimp and grits, po'boys with bread flown in from New Orleans, an old-fashioned bottled soda menu presented like a wine service, and a French Quarter Finale dessert menu that includes Bananas Foster pudding, Krispy Kreme donut bread pudding Napoleon, and a country cobbler flight), and the plan (open for lunch first, add breakfast, dinner, and private events as they grow). Plus: why the kids' menu will have real food (with a portion of every kids' menu sale going to Dakota's Dream Animal Rescue), why the walls will be full of hidden plaques honoring the customers who bolstered them, and why "Come Get Grit Faced" is a phrase that got its own shirt. VISIT INFO — GYPSY JANE'S SOUTHERN FOOD LOUNGE 5665 Northwestern Turnpike, Gore, Virginia About seven minut…