Rising Stars
Story by Leah Tuckwiller
Photos by Josh & Mary Baldwin
IN JANUARY 2022, STARDUST CAFÉ CAME UNDER NEW OWNERSHIP AFTER MORE THAN 15 YEARS. CO-OWNER SAVANNAH WEBB TALKS LEGACY AND LOOKS TO THE FUTURE OF THIS LEWISBURG ICON.
As we step inside from Washington Street, the door to Stardust Café hesitates for only a moment when it’s pushed open, protecting the toasty-warm interior from the chill that’s been growing outside. It’s lunchtime — the tables are full of friends catching up, coworkers making the most of their midday break, people who have all come indoors from the flow of the world just on the other side of the wide front windows.
One of the windows still bears the Clingman’s Market sign, painted onto the glass decades ago. To one side of the space, behind the bar, a couple of chefs move up and down the line, supplying all the food that circulates around the restaurant. Situated right off the corner where major highways meet in Lewisburg, Stardust is an easy stop from the activity on the downtown streets, a good place to pop in and meet up for a cheerful hello and a lovely lunch (or dinner!) while people watching.
At a high, glass-topped table in the calm eye of all this motion, owner Savannah Webb sits down to talk about taking over this local icon as she approaches a year of ownership.
Savannah Webb and Dan Perry took over Stardust Café in January 2022, right at the time most of the town quiets for the winter. Perry and Webb had both worked previously with Sparrow Huffman, the café’s original proprietor, at Stardust and at the General Lewis Inn. When it came time to make a big decision and sell the café, she went to Webb and Perry directly.
“Sparrow and Aaron Huffman told us, ‘Hey, we have a really special opportunity for you all, we want to sit down to dinner and talk about it.’ And they offered it to us, and basically said that they trusted us to keep it going, and that they knew we could do it,” Webb says. “It was a very good feeling, we were very honored.”
From there, she says, they resolved to do whatever it took to make that special opportunity into a special reality.
Despite the way retail and restaurant business tends to slow in the winter as cold weather keeps people indoors, Webb says that the support of Stardust’s loyal customers and the buzz over new ownership kept Stardust busy at the beginning of the year. After a brief closure to complete formalities, Stardust kept operating as usual, bolstered by a community that loves its icons and welcomes its newcomers.
Not entirely new, though — after the change, many of the chefs, including co-owner Perry, remained on the staff, which Webb says numbers fewer than 20.
“I’m from White Sulphur. Dan is actually from, like, a block away from here,” Webb says with a laugh. “We’re really proud to be here. Stardust is a staple of our hometown. The community has been more than supportive.”
“For a while,” she continues, “we were even talking about how we might have to move, to see what we could find, and that’s when Aaron came to us with this. We were like ‘oh, thank gosh! We didn’t want to leave!’”
Having this local staple remain in local hands has been a comfort to diners too, many of whom, Webb says, have expressed how glad they are that the restaurant went to them, familiar faces who already knew the café and loved it.
There’s a chill growing in the air, not unlike the chill in January when Stardust changed hands, but inside the café, it’s warm and inviting, just like it has been since 2005. The atmosphere is steeped in almost 20 years of welcome.
It’s not the only thing that remains the same. When asked, Webb emphasizes a commitment to running Stardust as it always has been, with integrity and a devotion to supporting the community that has nurtured the café. They source as many of their products as possible from vendors, farmers, and artisans in the area. This leads to local hands making desserts, homegrown spirits mixed into cocktails, and fresh greens from farms within driving distance.
“We definitely didn’t want to come in and change everything up. We aren’t trying to reinvent the wheel,” Webb says. “Why fix something that isn’t broken?”
With this access to local goods, creativity abounds in the Stardust Café kitchen. Despite just a year under his and Webb’s ownership, Perry has already orchestrated two menu changes with the seasons, one for spring-summer and one for the winter. Perry, as a chef-owner, has a major hand in these changes, and, according to Webb, gets incredibly excited about them. Their dinner chef, Jared, gets into it as well, helping to build dishes and recipes.
“It’s really cool to see the creative sparks fly,” Webb says.
Their dinner, she mentions, is something special, and something a surprising number of people are missing. The new menu features duck breast with parsnip puree, shrimp ramen, and their signature curried chicken, alongside delicate Italian clam pasta, other light fare, and small plates like beet hummus and an art board of meats and cheese.
Plus, each First Friday, Perry breaks out something a little extra fabulous — a house-smoked prime rib that, according to Webb, sells out each time they offer it. And for a recurring special, one that smokes for hours in herbs and shallots and butter? It’s really no wonder.
Webb also shares that it’s just as much fun from behind the curtain. “We got a smoker and [Dan] smokes it for like four hours. It’s insane, it is so good. Our servers love it too,” she says, laughing along.“We love prime rib night.”
The windows are frosted for Christmas when Webb sits down at Stardust’s middlemost table to talk her first year at the café’s helm. It’s warm and bright inside, there are garlands and ornaments strung along every one of the storefront’s flat surfaces, and the first chill of the season blows outside. It’s like something out of a movie, and, as Webb talks about the place, it becomes apparent that it’s a year-round feeling.
“This place really has a romance to it,” she says. “It’s just a special little spot.”
She’s not wrong. There’s a lingering history to the café that encompasses Webb and Perry’s family, as well as the Huffmans’, back into the past of the building itself. Perry and Webb’s son can often be found ducking between tables and engaging with guests, wishing everyone a good shift as he’s on his way out, just as the Huffmans’ kids were brought up within the walls of the restaurant.
Beyond menu staples and signature specials and even the local fare, the enduring charm of the café is bound up in its commitment to it community, its good, clean food, and the familiar faces that can be seen through the windows even two decades into its lifetime. The legacy of Stardust Café stretches back even to days before its own beginning, evidenced by its continued nod to Clingman’s Market (itself a community staple), and its new owners are proud to be part of the past and future of that legacy.
Over the 17 years the café has been in operation, each person who worked there has written their name on a chalkboard-painted pillar toward the rear of the space. “When we first bought Stardust and came in, we were looking at that pillar and we could see our names from where we’d worked here,” Webb shares. “We say all the time that we’re going to clear-coat it and continue it around the pillar for years to come.”
And with good fortune, community support, and more of the tangible care that’s already gone into the café, the next 17 years will bring just that for Webb, Perry, and Stardust Café.
