As Told Over Brunch

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The Story of the RVA Brunch Bar

I don’t know if you know this, but I am a model. I may not be paid, but I have appeared in many coveted ads. People want to be me. I mean, maybe they don’t know they want to be me, but they want to be me.

You see, I am that hand you see in all the Instagrams holding the #RVABrunchBar. Wait. You don’t know what the #RVABrunchBar is? Well, grab a chair. You’re going to get so excited that you have to sit down. It’s a brunch-themed ice cream bar. Is there anything better in the world? I mean, probably. But it’s up there. We can all agree on that.

This March Nightingale Ice Cream Sandwiches, a local ice cream sandwich company, will be selling the Brunch Bar throughout Richmond. You’ll be able to find this sweet treat at multiple Richmond locations including:

The ice cream is a collaboration between Nightingale Ice Cream Sandwiches and Richmond Brunch Weekend. The bar will feature blueberry maple swirl ice cream (!!) and a French toast cookie crunch. Like I said, you need a chair! You don’t want to miss this bar – it’s only available in March, and best yet, 10% from each bar will benefit VCU Massey Cancer Center. So have two! Calories don’t count.

How did this collaboration happen? Well, as a model, I have a lot of influence. Nightingale launched my modeling career. You see, let’s flashback to the summer of 2017. A warm July evening. Your protagonist (me) wanted something sweet. He wandered over to his neighborhood Shields Market and found, wrapped in the cutest brown paper with a little bird on the packaging, Nightingale Ice Cream Bars.

What is this? I thought to myself. Cookie Monster? The Classic? Caramel Chai? I had to have one. I bought two.

The foot that launched an ice cream bar.

I happened to be staying at my friend’s that week, and she happened to have access to the pool at Cary Street Station. Stretched out by the pool, I snapped a photo of my Cookie Monster bar and my foot. (I’m a foot model. Spoiler!) The image blew up. On my personal feed. On As Told Over Brunch’s feed. And on Nightingale’s end – because they reposted my foot. I mean, they reposted the bar.

Fast forward another month. A Saturday night in August. I grabbed another bar – I think it was Caramel Chai – and took another Instagram that also included my foot. I swear it’s my photogenic pinkie toe. Nightingale also reposted that.

The thought came to me, what if we could pair my foot fame with fundraising for Massey Cancer Center with brunch with ice cream??? Four passions combined together!

My famous foot.

Thankfully, Hannah Pollack and Xavier Meers, the duo behind Nightingale, instantly agreed. I think the selling point of my intro email might have been mentioning my foot. (I actually left that part out of my first email. I can’t imagine why.) But they soon crafted the Brunch Bar you’re reading about – and soon will be eating!

Last month, Hannah brought some sample bars to our Richmond Brunch Weekend committee meeting. We couldn’t get much work done before we all tried them. The reviews glowed. The blueberry isn’t overpowering, but you can see specks of the fruit in the ice cream. And the French toast crunch…ermagherd. I deconstructed mine and ate the cookie first.

Our Richmond Brunch Weekend committee with the Brunch Bars!

There happened to be a couple extras on hand, so I brought two home – one for me and one for my roommate. For the last two weeks, my roommate has bewailed that it’s not March yet because she wants another Brunch Bar. This is not fabricated. Katherine swears with her hand on a Brunch Bar. I swear on my famous foot.

As for the other bar I brought home? Well, that’s the one in all the photos now. You know, the one with my hand. We’re trying to get my hand a modeling contract too. But I think the Brunch Bar is more popular. As it should be!

Go grab yours all through March at participating locations! Better yet, if you post a photo of your Brunch Bar with the hashtag #RVABrunchBar and post on social media (make sure it’s public), then you’ll have a chance to win a gift card from some of our Richmond Brunch Weekend restaurants. We will be drawing winners every Thursday in March. Like us on Facebook so you can find out if you won!

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