New restaurant Daisy’s at Tredegar to open next to Allianz Amphitheater

Rawleigh Easley and Matt Kirwan at Daisy’s. (Mike Platania photos)

Fresh off the opening of a new music venue, the city’s riverfront is now set to get a new restaurant. 

Daisy’s at Tredegar is preparing to open at 500 Tredegar St. 

The new concept from industry veterans Matt Kirwan and Rawleigh Easley is opening in a space attached to The Foundry at Historic Tredegar event space, right next to the new Allianz Amphitheater at Riverfront music venue. 

Kirwan owns private dinner service HomePlate RVA and has previously been executive chef at The Roosevelt, Grisette and The Shaved Duck, while Easley has decades of experience in the catering world and also owns the Northside eatery Neighbor. 

The idea for Daisy’s was helped along by Annie Stewart Hazelgrove, who manages the Foundry building for NewMarket Corp., the local chemicals company that owns the property, along with the land on which the amphitheater sits. Until last year, the space Daisy’s will occupy had been an information area for the National Park Service. 

Daisy’s space is located in front of the American Civil War Museum along Tredegar Street.

Kirwan and Easley connected with Stewart Hazelgrove, who said with The Foundry and the Amphitheater, NewMarket’s been trying to help rejuvenate the riverfront in recent years. 

“We’re trying to bring some life back into this area,” she said. “We were trying to figure out exactly what we wanted to do with this space, and we really had a great team available. Daisy’s bloomed from that relationship.”

Daisy’s is planned to be open seven days a week, serving breakfast, lunch and dinner. The breakfast and lunch menus will be heavy on sandwiches and salads, and during dinner it’ll also offer shareables and small plates. 

In addition to serving folks heading to Brown’s Island, the amphitheater or the river, Daisy’s will be able to serve downtown workers, Kirwan said. 

“There are a lot of people here during the day. There are a lot of businesses but nowhere to get a coffee,” he said. 

Daisy’s, named for Stewart Hazelgrove’s golden retriever, will have indoor and outdoor seating with a capacity of around 100. 

Its breakfast menu will include an açai bowl, breakfast burrito, chicken biscuit and avocado toast, while its lunch and dinner menu will feature a burger, green goddess salad and mortadella on focaccia sandwich. Kirwan, a New York native, also said Daisy’s will have a chicken cutlet sandwich, an Italian sandwich common in the Northeast. 

Daisy’s will stay open later on the weekends, or whenever there’s a concert next door. It’s also planning to have a happy hour. 

“We’ll have a very small cocktail, beer list and wine list, but (they’ll be) very strong and very patio driven, at least to start with,” Kirwan said. “We’ll have more rosés than usual.”

Work is nearly complete on Daisy’s space, and the duo expects the restaurant to open in the next few weeks. Baskervill was the project architect and NewMarket’s Brian Dunn oversaw the build-out. 

Kirwan said the chance to open a restaurant along the riverfront felt like the opportunity of a lifetime. 

“We’re really, really excited to get the ball rolling and get going,” he said. “I feel like we can be the first great thing down here.”

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