Owners of ZZQ and Ardent are flipping into the burger business enterprise

There is a reunion brewing in Scott’s Addition.

The entrepreneurs of Ardent Craft Ales and barbecue joint ZZQ are teaming up to open up Eazzy Burger in a garage adjacent to Ardent’s beer back garden at 3200 W. Leigh St.

The 2,100-sq.-foot constructing is not significantly from exactly where ZZQ entrepreneurs and few Alex Graf and Chris Fultz debuted their barbecue as a weekly pop-up on Ardent’s grounds in 2015 just before opening their have brick-and-mortar cafe close to the corner at 3201 W. Moore St. in 2018.

In the many years considering the fact that ZZQ’s residency at the brewery, Ardent co-operator Tom Sullivan reported they hardly ever could fairly get the right foodstuff setup at the brewery. It was never pretty the identical devoid of ZZQ.

“We’d struggled with food trucks and obtaining a high quality food items option about the several years. It was challenging to get the (foods vehicles) we genuinely desired, as usually as we desired them,” Sullivan said, including that they also started providing their own in-household sandwich menu in summer 2020.

Sullivan sooner or later linked with his neighbors at ZZQ, who’d been workshopping some burger recipes on the aspect.

“We go by way of a great deal of beef scrap that results in being beef grind which then goes into our sausages. In excess of the a long time we have experimented with burgers pretty a little bit and have produced some damn fantastic burgers,” Fultz reported.

“I’ve personally assumed that if (Graf) and I wanted to do one more cafe, it would not be one more barbecue cafe, it would be a suitable burger joint…We don’t see ourselves accomplishing good eating or everything like that. We’re heading to do some thing comfortable and quick.”

The strategy for Eazzy Burger was born, with Graf, Fultz and Sullivan as co-house owners. ZZQ culinary director Russell Prepare dinner will also get the similar part at the burger joint.

Function to convert the garage into a cafe started in current months, and the burger joint’s eyeing a late July or early August opening. Fultz & Singh Architects, the business at which Fultz is a husband or wife, is building it. Chopper Dawson Inc. is the basic contractor.

Ardent owns the constructing as section of its compound, which it acquired in 2017, and experienced been employing the garage for storage.

Eazzy Burger will provide what Graf describes as “pseudo-smash burgers” with patties weighing in at five ounces.

“The menu’s likely to be relatively very simple, it’s possible four signature burgers but also develop-your-have,” Graf stated. “We also want to do some exploration into cheese fries.” She additional they’ll also have vegetarian possibilities, a chicken sandwich and meatless burger alternatives.

Fultz claimed Eazzy Burger’s choices will be priced someplace in between that of a boutique burger cafe and a chain like Five Fellas.

“ZZQ is not the most economical selection when it will come to barbecue but that’s for the reason that we use the greatest-high quality proteins, as nicely as in our sides. There is a great deal of difficult get the job done and enjoy that goes into each one issue in this article,” Fultz claimed.

“We really don’t think that’ll translate immediately to the burger market. You really do not want to spend an arm and a leg for a burger. We really don’t see it as a boutique burger location at all, so you are not spending $14-$15.”

Searching forward, Graf, Fultz and Sullivan say they could not stop with just a single Eazzy Burger.

“We wanted the brand name to be recognizable as an extension of what we have designed right here (at ZZQ),” Fultz said. “We understood that we wished this to be a launching off issue to do a possible little chain of dining places. Undoubtedly in Richmond but also the point out of Virginia and further than sometime.”

The strategies for Eazzy Burger had been initially noted by Richmond Magazine.