Jiminy Cricket , I have not seen this much heat on a local restaurant since Lulu’s or the Phoenician (see first quarter). Despite its “off the beaten path” location, The Black Sheep is packing the people in driven by positive reviews of MSM, “self-important” blogs 
, and the subsequent word of mouth…and that’s during the summer when VCU has been out. Proof, yet again, that excellence and value (presumably from the reviews) always trumps location and mediocre food.  I think the key term is value. Richmonders (including myself) love getting bang for their buck (Comfort, Mama Zu’s, the Johnny Giavos and Michelle Williams “chains”, etc). We’re not going to fall for expensive dishes for the sake of being expensive dishes. If an entree is $30+, there better be a reason ($’s in the plate) or there better be a sh*tload of food so we can convert it into next day’s lunch. Black Sheep is being creative with ingredients without adding the creative surcharge (chef dishes at Denny’s prices). I think that’s why folks are gravitating towards it.
So I haven’t been yet (I would go for their over-sized sub), primarily, because I am dead set on my current Italian sub rotation of 8 1/2-Rudino’s-Coppola’s-Jersey Mike’s (shut up, there is a time and place for chain subs…I’m actually looking forward to Jimmy John’s arrival). I’ll end up there at some point and promise a review in the future. In the mean time, See All Black Sheep reviews…
…And while, we’re on this topic, I recently updated the Richmond Good Life “search engine.” I basically added all of the local food websites (including restaurant websites and restaurant review blogs) for the spider to index. The results are pretty cool. Take the search term “Black Sheep”, for example:
Google Results:
- Black Sheep IMDB movie…Chris Farley, we miss ya!
- Black Sheep Official movie site
- Albino Blacksheep Software
- Black Sheep Bags - Knitting PatternsÂ
- Black sheep Wikipedia definition
- Black Sheep (hip hop group) Wikipedia definition
- Black Sheep - The Choice Is Yours Remember that song?…you can get with this or you can get with that
- MySpace.com - BLACK SHEEP Rap group’s Myspace
Richmond Good Life Enhanced Google Results:
- ‘Black Sheep: Quaint and Tasty’ Richmond.com review
- Black Sheep fuses Cajun and Creole with down-home goodness Times Dispatch review
- Carver & Jackson Ward News » Style gets to The Black Sheep CJWN review
- Style Weekly : Richmond’s alternative for news, arts, culture and …Style review (guys, update your page titling logic)
- Carver & Jackson Ward News » Black Sheep Another CJWN review
- River City Food and Wine: The Black Sheep - Good and Plenty Blog review
- ‘The Richmond.com Poll’ in Viewpoints Richmond.com poll results (best new restaurant)
- Carver & Jackson Ward News » more gold stars for Black Sheep Another CJWN review (Google loves your pagerank, CJWN)
- ‘Dish’ in Restaurants & Dining Richmond.com news
- The Black Sheep, Richmond, Virginia FINALLY, official website (don’t worry, you guys will float to the top…you’re just too new and not recognized by the algorithm yet)
In terms of the search engine, Restaurants, bars, and coffee shops are one thing, but right now, I’m trying to figure out whether there is any value in further spidering other local Richmond businesses like plumbers or car dealerships. Right now, I’m leaning towards not going there; instead, opting to index good meta-directories (like trade associations) for these kinds of vendors. I would still be adding unique stores/retailers (like the kind you see in an Austin Independent Business Alliance…sure wish ShopRVA was better) to the inclusion list (ie, the Plan 9’s, Chop Suey’s, and La Diff’s of the world)…