The Boot is a Virginia Restaurant.

We are always working to explore and preserve our fine Virginia heritage food-ways. Our menu depicts inspiration of Italian cuisine yet we work closely with Virginia farmers and artisans to develop regional character. We are always looking for new products. If you know someone who is producing a fine Virginia food product please let us know. info at insidetheboot dot com.

Boot History (est. 2006)
We opened in November of 2006 and very quickly we might add. Our space has been a handful of other restaurants in the past but we intend to keep it Boot until rivers run dry.

Our cuisine is Italian because we love how their food history is fiercely local (go back far enough and everyone is fiercely local but ITLY held on the longest) plus we enjoy eating pasta with whatever we have on hand. When we first opened our longtime friend Brendan Vesey was asked to be the chef here and he managed the ranks for almost 2 years setting the tone before heading up North to get a better understanding of snow. Since then it has been Josh Wright and David Hausmann running the ship and Kristopher Harvey in charge of Fish of the Day. Over the past couple of years we have accomplished quite a bit and we feel that we are definitely coming into our own sense of being and now kinda know where we want to go in the future.

Owners David Hausmann and Josh Wright
We worked in restaurants and love music. After years of dishwashing and cooking we decided to open a record store in downtown Norfolk and it was loved dearly by a few. But really it was a difficult venture and wasn’t sustainable. While the record store was open we moved our interests for live music into the bar arena and ultimately came back to being serious about food. The record store closed and we’ve been open here at Boot for a handful of years serving up Italian inspired cuisine. For us it has been an intense and ongoing education but we love what we do. Getting in the dirt and knowing from where our food comes is very rewarding and provides a deeper sense of community. To us, the pleasure is far more heartfelt when we know honest hard work was involved. Come to Boot for your next celebration (of any caliber) and we’ll do our best to make it mean a little more.