"The Guesthouse name is not without a lot of input," general manager Gregg Hilker told UVA Today when the Virginia Guesthouse opened. "It sounds like a small bed-and-breakfast, and that's by design – to make it feel welcoming, whether it's somebody from the University or somebody coming from afar."
The nine-story hotel at 2017 Ivy Road opened April 6, 2026, after more than six years of planning and construction. It has 214 rooms, and none of them is the reason to go. The hotel's own FAQ says Poplar, The Perch and The Counter Café all welcome the Charlottesville public, not only overnight guests. Between them they run from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. If you live in Farmington and the in-laws are in town, that covers the whole hosting day in one building on the drive in along Ivy Road, and nobody has to pack a bag.
One building, three schedules
Each venue keeps different hours, and the hours tell you how to use it. Here is how the official dining pages list them right now:
| Time of day | Venue | Posted hours |
|---|---|---|
| Early coffee | The Counter Café | Daily, 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. |
| Breakfast | Poplar | 7 to 11 a.m. |
| Lunch | Poplar | 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. |
| Rooftop, weekends | The Perch | Noon to 10 p.m. |
| Rooftop, weekdays | The Perch | 4 to 10 p.m. |
| Happy hour | The Perch | Daily, 4 to 6 p.m. |
| Happy hour | Poplar bar | Daily, 5 to 6 p.m. |
| Dinner | Poplar | 5 to 9 p.m. |
The café's hours have already changed once. At opening, UVA Today reported that it ran from 7 a.m. to noon and planned to stay open until 6 p.m. starting at the end of April. The live page now says 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. A young venue adjusts its schedule, so check the posted hours before a visit with guests.
The morning belongs to the ground floor
The café sits just inside the ground-floor entrance, beside a student-staffed UVA Welcome Center. Plenty of seating fills what the hotel calls its "living room." UVA Today reported that data science students were among the first to use the space for group work and study sessions. CBS19 reported that the public seating is open to the wider community.
The café's current menu goes beyond pastries. Alongside grab-and-go breakfast it lists all-day items such as a grilled-chicken orchard-crunch salad and a harvest-grain farro bowl. That makes it easy to pick up a quick lunch before a campus tour or an afternoon on Grounds.
Poplar handles the sit-down meals
The flagship restaurant is named for the poplar trees associated with Thomas Jefferson. It serves breakfast, lunch and dinner from an exhibition kitchen. The indoor-outdoor design includes a private dining parlor and the Poplar porch, a 1,695-square-foot open-air terrace that looks toward Central Grounds and the School of Data Science. On a clear October morning, that porch is the obvious table to ask for.
The live menu lists a Green Goddess Benedict with bacon, red pepper jam and Green Goddess hollandaise, and a UVA crab cake with charred corn and citrus-chili remoulade. C-VILLE Weekly's dining roundup in May called the cooking elevated comfort food. It singled out an egg-croissant Benedict, a lime-seared tuna Niçoise and a Dr Pepper bourbon bread pudding. Those were early-season dishes, and the menu has moved on since, but the comfort-food direction holds.
Chef Joseph Madzia Ponte leads the kitchen, and it serves Poplar and The Perch alike. An eHotelier profile says he brings more than a decade of resort, boutique-hotel and high-volume kitchen experience, and describes his cooking as eclectic and home-style. Poplar takes reservations through OpenTable or by phone at (434) 424-5490. A private parlor plus a reservation line makes it a practical choice for a family dinner when guests want something more polished than a quick lunch.
The Perch was built for the cold months
UVA Today reported that the terrace has retractable sunshades and built-in heating for year-round use, with views of Grounds and the Blue Ridge Mountains. In the same report, Hilker described it as a casual, shareable-plates concept for after-work gatherings, not a full dinner.
That fits with Poplar downstairs. The Perch suits a drink before or after dinner, and Poplar suits the dinner itself. A September feature in Charlottesville City Lifestyle says the bar aims to be quieter and more relaxed than big-city rooftops. The drink to order for visiting alumni is the Cavalier Club, made with Old Forester bourbon, Dr Pepper demerara, cacao and orange bitters. C-VILLE Weekly's May roundup mentioned $6 happy-hour drinks and complimentary barbecue-bacon popcorn. That pricing comes from the opening months, so it may have changed.
The Perch's page doesn't say whether it takes reservations. For a group, it makes sense to call ahead.
Parking without a room key
Most of the hotel's parking information is written for overnight guests. Here are the parts that apply to locals, from the official parking guide:
- The garage is the Emmet/Ivy Garage at 123 Emmet St N.
- Hourly visitor parking costs $3 an hour, paid through ParkMobile, Zone 5514, or at the pay stations on Level 1.
- The garage has four EV charging stations.
- The second floor is reserved for overnight guests, who pay $15 a night, so day visitors park elsewhere in the garage.
The guide doesn't mention valet service or parking validation for diners. At $3 an hour, a two-hour dinner adds about $6.
The week the hotel's neighbors get busy
Everything around the Guesthouse fills up during the week of October 21. The Virginia Film Festival runs October 21 through 25, 2026. The festival's Plan Your Fest page lists screenings at the Paramount Theater, Violet Crown and Culbreth Theatre. It points visitors to free and paid parking areas and to the CTS Free Trolley, which runs from UVA Central Grounds to downtown Charlottesville. On Friday, October 23, Virginia hosts Duke at 7 p.m., in the middle of the festival.
None of these sources says how busy Poplar or The Perch will be that week. Still, a festival and a home game in the same five days bring many visitors to Grounds at once. If guests are coming that week, book Poplar on OpenTable early, and plan a weekend afternoon at The Perch, which opens at noon, rather than a Friday evening.
What's still going up next door
The Guesthouse is one of the first finished pieces of a corridor that is still under construction, and it opened next to the School of Data Science. The Karsh Institute of Democracy is building a 65,000-square-foot home next to the hotel, scheduled to open in 2027. UVA's corridor site says the pond out front currently catches sediment and debris to protect Meadow Creek. After construction, it is planned to become a flowing stream with wetland plantings. In April, UVA Today reported that the School of Data Science's second building was expected to start construction that summer, and that the Center for the Arts was still raising funds.
Inside, there's one more reason to stop by between meals. The hotel planned a gallery on its lower level with rotating installations, starting with historical maps of the Emmet-Ivy Corridor over the years. Locally shot photographs of Grounds hang throughout the building. On a slow afternoon, you can show visiting family how the corridor looked over the years without leaving the building.
If family is visiting this fall and you'd like more Farmington-area recommendations, or want to talk through what's changing along Ivy Road, the Bobby and Alex Schwartz Team is glad to share what we know. Contact Us.
