Tom Tom Festival: Here’s to her
Charlottesville’s most successful women entrepreneurs aren’t resting on their laurels
Written By: Samantha Coon Jones
By The Daily Progress
A group of female food and beverage founders came together the evening of April 23 to share their stories as part of Charlottesville’s 14th annual Tom Tom Festival, a celebration of creativity and innovation in the city.
The event, titled “How She Built It,” started with a panel moderated by Athena Eastwood, the founder and owner of Eastwood Farm and Winery. Emily Harpster of SugarBear ice cream, Gail Hobbs-Page of Caromont Farm, Susan Sweeney of Cake Bloom and Kitty Ashi, whose Thai food empire began with Monsoon Siam, spoke about the importance of courage in small business ownership — an objectively frightening line of work, and not just in the present economy.
Once the panel wrapped, the real fun began: a four-course meal complete with wine pairings. The women’s passion and talent was evident from the creamiest goat cheese tart early on to the delicate strawberry cake and vanilla ice cream served for dessert.
Ashi, who grew up in her mother’s Bangkok restaurant, said she was considering moving back to Thailand when she had the opportunity to buy Charlottesville’s first Thai restaurant, Monsoon Siam, in 2011.
“I have nothing to lose. I started with just $500,” Ashi said. “I’m not afraid of anything.”
Eastwood called Ashi the “queen of expansion.”
Since taking the helm of Monsoon Siam off the city’s Downtown Mall, Ashi has opened Pineapples Thai Kitchen on Preston Avenue, Tangerines Kitchen in Mill Creek, Maple Pine Breakfast & Thai Kitchen on Pantops and Coconut Thai Kitchen in Crozet. In a deviation from her typical Thai restaurants, Ashi also has opened two Camellias Cafe, Bar and Roastery locations — one on the corner of Preston and Market streets, the other in the 10th Street Warehouses — where her crew serves up coffees, cocktails and baked goods.
“It started getting scarier when I opened [restaurant] No. 8,” Ashi said with a laugh. It’s important to her to “stay ready” so she can act when new opportunities present themselves.
Harpster’s SugarBear ice cream shop opened its first location on Market Street next to Hogwaller Brewing in 2024, but has been selling ice cream wholesale since
2022.
She started making ice creams with snarky names like “Reese’s Side Pieces” and “Wild Woman Whiskey” while nursing a broken heart at the end of her marriage. Then, her new love— Hogwaller owner Will Richey — died unexpectedly in a car crash in 2023.
“I realized when I went into the kitchen it was the thread that helped me pull everything back together,” she said.
Now, Harpster is preparing to open a second SugarBear in Ivy later this year.
“I didn’t know what I was doing the first year,” she said. “I’d like to try it again and see how it goes. What’s the worst that could happen?”
Meanwhile, Sweeney, whose shop, Cake Bloom, is neighbors with Camellias’ 10th Street location, is taking a step back after a challenging year.
Sweeney, who owns the shop with her sisters, was considering opening a second storefront and selling nationally through retailers like QVC and Goldbelly. She planned to keep the Cake Bloom tasting room on West Main Street and move production to a second location in the 10th Street Warehouses.
“I took out my lease and I realized I misread the lease: [Renewal] was due on the first,” Sweeney said to groans from those at the table.
“It did feel like I killed my business in that moment,” she said.
Fortunately, the sisters had the new second space to fall back on. The West Main tasting room closed in December; the 10th Street Warehouse location opened in January.
Sweeney said the move made the sisters refocus their business priorities.
“We’re much more balanced. It forced us to let go of things that weren’t making total sense,” she said.
Consolidating brought her work down from 80 to 50 hours a week.
Hobbs-Page, whose Caromont Farm has been in operation since 2007, said she found the “sweet spot” for her business through years of trial and error. In previous seasons, she said she was distributing cheese as far away as New York City, but found the “sit and spin of expansion” exhausting.
“I have figured out that I don’t have to be all things to all people. People in New York City don’t know Caromont Farm, but people in Charlottesville do, people in Richmond do,” she said. “If I just stay in my sweet spot then I can make the cheeses I want to make, I can grow professionally and I can have the life I want to lead, and that’s an accomplishment in itself to me.”
Now, Hobbs-Page said the farm produces about 400 pounds of cheese a month that is sold to restaurants, cheese shops and direct to consumers through almost daily farmer’s markets. Caromont Farm also offers cheesemaking classes and seasonal baby goat snuggling sessions on location.
In addition to rearing goats, Eastwood said that Hobbs-Page serves as a mentor for other women entrepreneurs.
“Find that person who loves you enough to tell you when you’re screwing up,” Hobbs-Page advised the crowd. “Compliments don’t make you grow.”
