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Good Food in an Unexpected Place

Posted on: Thursday, 25 August 2005, 12:00 CDT

BY TONY GERMANOTTA

THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT

CAPEVILLE, Va. How many gas stations can boast two writeups in Southern Living magazine? For their food?

Welcome to Sting-Rays, or, as its affectionately nicknamed in these parts, Chez Exxon.

This is no typical truck stop, although youll find plenty of big rigs out in the Cape Center parking lot, alongside trailered boats, pickup trucks and luxury sedans. Tucked in the back, behind the room full of snack food, engine additives and kitschy souvenirs, is the reason: a no-frills gourmet restaurant.

The first hint that this isnt a typical roadside joint comes while standing in line to place an order. On the left is a wall- long rack of wines. The ones with corks and vintage years.

It doesnt seem to jibe with the diner decor: the wooden captains chairs, the formica-topped tables, the row of booths, the easily hosed-down floor and the pine-paneled walls.

As Southern Living noted in its July 1998 article, framed and hanging beside one of the tables: Its about as fancy as a panel truck without hubcaps.

Then theres the ordering process: as many as three registers operating at once, set on a counter opening to the bustling kitchen. You select, then sit down, and a couple of minutes later, the wait staff delivers.

During the breakfast, lunch or dinner rush, customers often wind out to the front door waiting to pick their poissons: (Thats French for fish, and all of what gets fried or broiled here is unfailingly fresh. The better to keep area watermen and their families in the fold.)

Locals have been known to arrive early just to watch what the staff hand-letters on the colorful menu board. You can get tired just deciding among the vegetables.

On a recent night, there were 25 entrees, from shrimp etouffee for $10.95 to a crab imperial stuffed shrimp platter at $22.95. The vegetables, most grown locally, stretched to 16 items.

Then there are the desserts, homemade by the staff: Tennessee bread pudding with bourbon sauce for $3.95, creme brulee for $3.75 or the famous sweet potato pie with damson plum sauce for $2.95.

Frances Bender, 81, and her friend Virginia Ferguson, 85, of nearby Cape Charles, are regulars.

Were here a couple of times a week, Bender said. We used to come every night for dinner, but Im getting too old to drive after dark.

The two have been faithful since the Cape Center first opened as a real truck stop, long before Ray Haynie brought his award-winning chili recipe and taste for wines and gourmet meals to the gas station around 1985 .

Haynie gave the place its name, Sting-Rays (from his palate- burning chili), and over the years set a tradition of fine fresh food that the latest owners say they intend to maintain.

Theres no other place like this, said Michael A. Ioanou, one of the two Virginia Beach buddies who bought the place last fall from Ted Lemmon, whose father got it from Haynie in 2001.

All we did was pave the parking lot and put some lights up and buy some new equipment, Ioanou said. Why try to re-invent the wheel?

Ioanou still has his day job as an investment banker with Wachovia Securities . He commutes most nights and weekends over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel to work in the restaurant, which is about 5 miles north of the toll booths on U.S. Route 13.

His friend Angelo S. Manuel approached him last year and suggested they buy the restaurant, gas station and the nearby pottery outlet.

Weve been surfing buddies since we were 13, said Ioanou, who grew up in a restaurant family and ran his own before getting into the investment business.

Manuel, 47, was developing a lot of properties on the Shore and was approached by Lemmon, who wanted to move out of state. The friends decided immediately that retaining the staff and atmosphere would be key to making the investment work.

The food, the help, the cooks, they came with the deal; that was the agreement, Manuel said.

General manager Russell Moore, for instance, has been working at the restaurant for 20 years.

He lived five houses away and started working for Haynie right out of high school. Not much has changed since, he said.

Were still getting all the fresh seafood at the back door, he said. They come every day, unless a hurricane comes up.

They still sell a lot of chili, using Rays recipe, he said.

One of the few frozen foods they serve is soft-shell crabs. They get them fresh, of course, then put them up.

Nothing is coming in that back door already in a box and ready to go, Moore said proudly.

We freeze 16,000 crabs a year, he said. And theyre gone by December.

Ioanou likes to talk about the famous people who have stood in line for his food. Gov. Mark R. Warner ; football stars Bruce Smith, William Fuller and Emmitt Smith ; even Georgia Engel, the baby- voiced actress from the Mary Tyler Moore and Everybody Loves Raymond television shows, who visits a relative on the Shore.

Ioanou said he intends to create a wall of fame with autographed photos of the celebrity customers.

Were here for the long term, Ioanou said. Nothing has changed as far as the kitchen and the quality of the food, and it never will as long as were here.

* Reach Tony Germanotta at (757) 446-2377 or tony.germanotta @pilotonline.com.

Source: Virginian - Pilot

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