New restaurant slated for former Odyssey, Billy Pie spot at Patterson-Three Chopt

Prior to Odyssey Fish, the space was home to Billy Pie. (Mike Platania photo)

A restaurant space at one of the Near West End’s busier intersections has a new user lined up. 

Jessica Wilson is preparing to open Grace at 6919 Patterson Ave., the standalone building that was most recently home to Odyssey Fish and Billy Pie prior to that. 

A Vermont native, Wilson’s been a chef for over 30 years. She said she’s helped open and run the kitchens of nearly a dozen restaurants in New York City, and that she’s also cooked professionally on yachts, trains and at Alaskan heli-ski lodges. 

She’s been in the local dining scene for a few years, having run her pop-up, Gather For Grace, at the now-closed Broken Tulip space in Carytown and former Manchester food hall Hatch Local. Wilson said she’d initially been eyeing a space in Church Hill for Grace’s first stand-alone home, but that plan fell through last summer. When Odyssey, a seafood-focused concept from Alewife’s Lee Gregory and Bobo Catoe, closed last fall, Wilson took over the space. 

Jessica Wilson

Wilson described Grace as a “vegetable-forward” farmhouse-style restaurant, and that she’s planning to build the menu based on ingredients she’s able to source from farmers in the area. 

“That’s always what people ask: ‘Like, what is your menu?’ And I understand, because that’s what you want to know,” Wilson said. “But it’s like if you go to a farmers market then you see something  and you’re like, ‘Oh,’ and then you kind of play around with that.”

Wilson has retained the wood stone oven that once cooked Billy Pie’s pizzas when the local pizzeria operated there. Grace will have a cocktail menu, including cocktails on tap, as well as a selection of natural wines. 

She said Grace will operate with counter service and have seating for around 40. Renovations began last fall to give the space a new look, with new Italian tiles, a soapstone counter top and cherry wood tables. 

Wilson said she’s aiming to open Grace this spring. It’ll initially be open for dinner, but by the summer she said she hopes to be open for lunch a few times per week. 

Another Hatch Local food hall alum, Fat Kid Sandwiches, is also stepping out on its own. The sandwich shop is working on opening on East Main Street downtown. 

The post New restaurant slated for former Odyssey, Billy Pie spot at Patterson-Three Chopt appeared first on Richmond BizSense.