Best Home Décor Store
La Différence
125 S. 14th St., 648-6210
With 45,000 square feet of modern and contemporary international furniture, La Diff is dedicated to bringing urban renewal to downtown Richmond, says co-owner Sarah Paxton. La Différence opened its doors in Charlottesville in 1980 and later moved here. “I think we bring an international excitement and fun to Richmond,” Paxton says.
2. Crate and Barrel, 11800 W Broad St., 364-0820
3. Williams & Sherrill, 2003 Huguenot Road, 320-1730

Best Laundered and Pressed Shirt Service
Puritan Cleaners
Visit puritancleaners.com for locations.
Gary Glover, Puritan’s owner, takes his cotton shirts with no starch, but the 70-plus-year-old cleaners offers its laundered and pressed shirts in many different styles, catering to customers’ needs — at a rate of 30,000 shirts a week. Glover notes that, despite equipment upgrades, the shirt service remains very much hands-on. “A lot of people handle the shirts,” he says, from the front-desk staff at the cleaners’ 14 stores to the washers to the pressers to the truck drivers who deliver clean shirts back to the stores — a total of 23 handlers per shirt.
2. HandCraft Cleaners, various locations, including 5705 Patterson Ave., 285-3336
3. Princess Cleaners & Launderers, 9022 Woodman Road, 266-3373

Best Place to Buy Chic Eye Glasses
For Eyes
Visit foreyes.com for locations.
Michelle Wright’s not just assistant manager at For Eyes’ West Broad Street store, she’s a client. “I love jewelry,” she says. “Glasses are face jewelry.” And Wright has 59 pairs of glasses as testament to that belief, which she uses to dress up and down outfits. Of course, some folks have a hard time keeping track of one pair of glasses, but when you need them, For Eyes has numerous styles and labels.
2. LensCrafters, visit lenscrafters.com for locations
3. Pearle Vision, visit pearlevision.com for locations

Store with Worst Lines
Wal-Mart
See walmart.com for locations.
The lines get longer on Friday nights, according to a little bird at Wal-Mart’s well-traveled Short Pump store, and after 8 p.m. on weeknights. Saturdays and Sundays are predictably busy too, so now we know the times to avoid. Synchronize your watches, and we’ll meet you in the electronics aisle at 10:35 a.m. Tuesday.
2. (Tie) Food Lion, see foodlion.com for locations. Costco, 9650 W. Broad St., 273-0425; 3700 Price Club Blvd., Midlothian, 674-4343
3. Kroger, see kroger.com for locations

Best Pharmacy Service
CVS
Visit cvs.com for locations.
With 45 locations in the Richmond area, it’s no big surprise that our readers find CVS convenient. Mike D’Angelus, a CVS spokesman, says this is bolstered by the chain’s easy process for transferring prescriptions and the fact that some of the its stores are open 24 hours. Customers can also find vaccination programs, and home delivery is available for medications.
2. Ukrop’s, see ukrops.com for locations
3. Westbury Pharmacy, 8903 Three Chopt Road, 285-3428

Best Place to Test-Drive a Luxury Vehicle
Lexus of Richmond
9703 Midlothian Turnpike, 323-8000
In the film Gone In Sixty Seconds, Nicolas Cage has to get his hands on 50 of the world’s most exotic cars. Among them was the 1999 Lexus LS 400. If you fancy yourself a prospective owner of one of these bad boys, you can get the chance to drive a Lexus without going to such great lengths. Service Manager Tommy Kerns says there is a Lexus for everyone —from more affordable models like the IS 250 (at $30,855) all the way up to the swanky Lexus LS 600H (starting at $116,300).
2. Richmond BMW, 8710 W Broad St., 346-0812; 12100 Midlothian Turnpike, 897-2200
3. McGeorge Mercedes-Benz, 8225 W. Broad St., 755-9300

Best Local Store’s Web Site
Need Supply
3010 W. Cary St., 355-5880, needsupply.com
Gabriel Ricciopo, who designed Need Supply’s Web site, understands the value of using flash video to communicate the store’s attitude. “I was trying to showcase the culture of the store, and video does it so much better than pictures can,” he says. Click onto needsupply.com, and you’re face to face with blinking, smiling video headshots of the store’s staff. You can feel their giddy nervousness in front of the lens. It’s OK, though. They know, they know: You’re just browsing.
2. Ukrop’s.Visit ukrops.com for locations
3. (Tie) Romp and Roll, 10108 Brook Road, 249-1001; 11541 Busy St., Midlothian, 893-3142; 9677 W. Broad St., 249-5001, rompnroll.com; Circuit City, see circuitcity.com for locations; Posh Tots, see poshtots.com

Best Caterer for a Soiree
A Sharper Palate
553-0495 or asharperpalate.com
Of course the food is superb — the corn profiteroles stuffed with smoked chicken salad and the manchego-cheese lattice cup, filled with caramelized onion and currant compote, are perennial hors d’oeuvre favorites. But co-owner Leslie Stone says A Sharper Palate’s 15-plus years of success is because staffers do what they say they’re going to do and pay attention to details. These folks — 20 full-timers and dozens of part-time staffers, some of whom have been with the company for more than a decade — don’t rest on their laurels, even with 2,000 to 3,000 events each year.
2. Seasonings Fine Catering and Event Planning (formerly Great Seasons), 594-7008 or greatseasons.com
3. (Tie) Cateraide, 643-1000 or cateraide.com; Anything Goes Café and Catering, 399-6168 or anythingcatering.com

Best Wine Selection and Service
Total Wine & More
10036 Robious Road, 323-5866; 8099 W. Broad St., 935-7750
With 8,000 wines and nearly 1,000 beers, there’s no doubt that Total Wine & More has buying power. And we love the section devoted to Virginia wines, a great place to pick up a bottle of Barboursville Brut.
2. Kroger, see kroger.com for locations
3. River City Cellars, 2931 W. Cary St., 355-1375

Best Cheese Selection
Ellwood Thompson’s Local Market
4 N. Thompson St., 359-7525
Cheese manager Keith Crayton selects the rotating list of 160 different fromages, but he says it’s the customers at Ellwood who drive the selection. Here you’ll find everything from local cheeses (goat cheese from Goats R Us in Blackstone, for instance) to the more exotic, such as a sheep’s cheese made by Trappist monks at the Abbey of Bel’loc in France. Not sure if you’ll like something? Just ask and Crayton will let you taste just about any cheese.
2. Fresh Market, 1527 N. Parham Road, 282-3823
3. Ukrop’s, see ukrops.com for locations

Best Local Store for Gift Wrapping
(Tie) Mongrel
2924 W. Cary St., 342-1272;
Tweed
11743 W. Broad St., 249-3900
Two stores with special wrapping styles, two different customers. Mongrel is tops, according to our readers, if you’re wrapping a gift yourself. The Carytown store has an impressive display of paper, with a concentration on contemporary styles, high-quality prints and saturated colors, exemplified by the store’s own wrapping paper, Detango, says Stan McCulloch, Mongrel’s co-owner. Tweed, however, is great for people on the go, or folks who aren’t into wrapping presents themselves. The store’s employees do it, in the signature turquoise-and-brown Tweed bags. “Every two weeks, we’re ordering ribbon and tissue, all that stuff,” associate Ashley Fisher notes.
2. Lane Sanson, 3423 W. Cary St., 358-0053
3. Nordstrom, 11812 W. Broad St., 364-6900

Best Place to Shop for Manly Gadgets
Lowe’s
Visit lowes.com for locations.
For the man who needs a little balance in his life, we present: the Black & Decker Gecko Grip Level. It’s the hot blonde of Lowe’s tool department, according to a store on the South Side. Sure, the old standbys — table saws, toolboxes, knives, flashlights — got plenty of play on Father’s Day, but what the men really want is the level, which allows him to use one hand to measure, the other to hang a picture.
2. Brookstone, Stony Point Fashion Park, 560-4095; Short Pump Town Center, 364-9717

Best Dance Classes
Rigby’s Jig
5470 W. Broad St., 864-2300
Romance is indeed in the air at Rigby’s Jig — on any given night you can find singles connecting (owner Eleanor Robertson says some couples who met there have gotten married and, of course, returned to the studio to learn their wedding dance), longtime couples on “date nights,” or folks surrendering to a hot salsa beat. Rigby’s Jig has maintained success by keeping its lessons in Latin, country and western, ballroom and swing dancing straightforward and appropriate for customers “starting on square one.”
2. Jessica Morgan, 2021-C Huguenot Road, 272-2108; 6915 Chital Drive, 739-7600
3. Dancers Studio, 11000 Three Chopt Road, Suite F, 747-3373

Best Art Framing
Ben Franklin Crafts & Frames
Visit bf-crafts.com for locations.
“People come in with the oddest things,” says Ben Franklin’s vice president, Rawson “Buzz” Ingalls. The stores frame tens of thousands of pictures every year, but it’s the three-dimensional items that stick in his memory: a girl’s first ponytail, framed for posterity; snakeskins; trophy turkey feathers; Civil War swords and sheaths; mounted animals and — get this — a leather jacket worn by Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Terminator. No matter how big or unwieldy a customer’s keepsake, “we don’t ever say no,” Ingalls says. “We figure out a way to do it.”
2. Michaels, see michaels.com for locations
3. Main Art and Supply Framing, 1537 W. Main St., 355-6151     

Best Place to Find Unusual Home Accessories
La Différence
125 S. 14th St., 648-6210
From a curved, lime-green glass table to a purse made of pull-tabs from aluminum cans, La Diff has been one of Richmond’s go-to places for funky home and fashion finds since it opened in 1980. “We do shop all over the world, and we think we bring a different viewpoint on furniture. … with the emphasis on modern,” says owner Andy Thornton. Richmonders are glad to have an English-antiques-free zone somewhere to provide our homes with a little something unexpected. White-lacquer desk anyone?
2. Mongrel, 2924 W. Cary St., 342-1272
3. (Tie) Lane Sanson, 3423 W. Cary St., 358-0053; Pier 1, visit pier1.com for locations

Best Landscapers
Tilley’s Landscaping and Lawn Maintenance Inc.
12196 Washington Highway, 798-8560
“The strangest request I’ve had was people wanting me to attract frogs and turtles to their water features,” says president Jim Tilley, whose company does lawn maintenance, patios, weeding, seeding, irrigation and installation of waterfalls and other water features. Of course, being landscapers, Tilley and his staff are used to seeing their share of friendly and unfriendly wildlife. This year’s closest encounters were with snakes because of an early spring.
2. (Tie) Sneed’s Nursery and Garden Center, 8756 W. Huguenot Road, 320-7798; Lawn Cop, 822-2588
3. Virginia Green Lawn Care, P.O. Box 8623, 285-6200

Best Addition to Carytown
Can Can Brasserie
3120 W. Cary St., 358-7274
These days it’s just as impressive that Can Can has stayed in Carytown for going on four years, considering the area’s high turnover lately. Owner Chris Ripp says the brasserie fits the personality of the area. “It’s the restaurant that people want to take their friends from out of town to,” he says. Plus, Can Can caters to all types of people by opening early and serving late into the night (till 2 a.m. on weekends).
2. Ben & Jerry’s, 2901 W. Cary St., 359-1101
3. Karsen’s, 3411 W. Cary St., 353-5277

Best Local Shop for a Last-Minute Gift for Your Wife
Mongrel
2924 W. Cary St., 342-1272
Whether it’s the practical or the whimsical that your beloved other half cherishes, Mongrel covers the spectrum. Maybe she’d like some doggie doughnuts for her favorite family member or a set of martini glasses with elephants on them? Or maybe she’s a fan of Henry the Talking Gnome? An eclectic array of gifts (and every-occasion cards) is why the customers keep coming back after 17 years. “When they don’t know what to buy somebody, that’s why they come to our store,” says co-owner Stan McCulloch.
2. Tweed, 11743 W. Broad St., 249-3900
3. Penelope, 11533 W. Broad St., 364-4630; 1229 Sycamore Square, 794-1674, and 9972 Brook Road, 266-7300

Best Portrait/Family Photographer
Caston Studio
9000 Quioccasin Road, 754-2800
Strange thing: At Caston Studio, you can have your picture taken almost anywhere without leaving the building. The portrait photographer has a system with 1,000 digital backgrounds. Owner Laney Caston says the company has always kept up with technology. “We’ve been digital for 11 years,” he says. They also have indoor and outdoor studios to allow for many different types of portraits.
2. (Tie) Heather House, 1312 Sycamore Square, 794-0017; Portrait Innovations, 11736 West Broad St., Building 3, Suite 103, 364-8825; 11307 Polo Place, Unit C, 794-2583
3. Hayes and Fisk, 1003 N. Parham Road, 740-9307

Best Place for Finding a New Family Heirloom
Leo Burke
3108 W. Cary St., 358-5773
Owner Jack Burke takes the long view on furniture, an unusual attitude in today’s “throwaway society,” he notes. An heirloom — such as a cabinet or a chest — can last for 200 years if properly cared for, Burke says. His Cary Street store sells pieces by Henkel Harris, a Winchester company that has made furniture by hand since the mid-19th century. To protect a valuable piece for future generations, Burke says, “Keep it clean, and don’t abuse it. Make sure you don’t leave it in direct sunlight.”
2. (Tie) Caravati’s, 104 E. Second St., 232-4175; West End Antiques, 2004 Staples Mill Road, 359-1600; Hampton House, 5720 Grove Ave., (800) 833-3187

Best Locally Owned Boutique for Women
(Tie) Pink
3158 W. Cary St., 358-0884
Penelope
1229 Sycamore Square, Midlothian, 794-1674; 11533 W. Broad St., 364-4630; 9972 Brook Road, 266-7300
Richmond has long labored under a less-than-fashion-forward image, but Pink and Penelope offer hope of change. Penelope’s three stores sell clothes and jewelry that follow national trends, but in a thoughtful way. Vice president Missy Wheeler notes that they did not jump on the tunic-top bandwagon because Penelope customers are “proud of their shape” and don’t want to risk appearing pregnant. But you will find such fall trends as purple and yellow shades, plus “statement” necklaces at the stores, she says. At Pink, it’s all about bright colors, ever since a yellow, ruffled dress bought mainly for the window display flew out of the store within a week. The trend of bold hues extends to handbags as well. “I could sell a green bag before I sell a black one,” co-owner Deborah Boschen notes.
2. Need Supply, 3010 W. Cary St., 355-5880
3. Phoenix, 3039 W. Cary St., 354-0711

Best Pet-Grooming Service
PetSmart
Visit petsmart.com for locations.
Readers hold PetSmart’s pup parlors in high esteem, and given the range of services the chain offers, there’s no question why. The “top dog” package includes a bath, brush, haircut, special shampoo, nail trim and even an optional low-shed treatment. “Pet parents,” as owners are called, can order Rover a Mohawk (this calls for 20 minutes of brushing, possibly a bit much for the impatient dog), and some groomers can do a full dog-show-style makeover for poodles, including the puff on the head.
2. Dogma, 3404 W. Cary St., 358-9267
3. Barking Lot, 606 N. Belmont Ave., 358-4038

Best Custom Jewelry
Capri Jewelers
Short Pump Crossing, 364-6000; Virginia Center Commons, 553-1444
2. Vera’s Fine Jewelers, 16701 Midlothian Turnpike, 794-5671
3. Cocoanut Jewelry, Willow Lawn Shopping Center, 282-1335; Short Pump Town Center, 360-9634

Best Place to Pick Up a Bouquet on the Way Home
Ukrop’s
Visit ukrops.com for locations.
OK, fellas, we can tell you’ve been busy with the apologies (and, ladies, we know you don’t need an excuse to pick up some flowers). In an average week, Ukrop’s sells about 1,100 bouquets. With fresh flowers arriving almost daily, the chain’s floral departments stock a wide variety of blooms. The most popular sellers are the Everyday Bouquet, $4.99, (a six-to-seven stem seasonal assortment) and the Ukrop’s Signature Bouquet, $9.99, (a 10-stem European-inspired number).
2. Kroger, see kroger.com for locations.
3. Strange’s, see stranges.com for locations.

Best Place to Buy Organic Meat and Produce
Ellwood Thompson’s Local Market
4 N. Thompson St., 359-7525
Most folks know Ellwood’s got rockin’ produce, but meat lovers are welcome here, too. You’ll find all-natural seafood with an emphasis on local providers and sustainable practices, says Matt Musclerat, meat department manager. There’s also a vast selection of grass-fed and organic meats, including a relatively new producer from Virginia’s Nelson County — Black Eagle Farm, which provides lamb, goat and beef.
2. The Fresh Market, 1527 N. Parham Road, 282-3823
3. Ukrop’s, see ukrops.com for locations Best Fine Jewelry Selection

BEST & WORST 2008
Readers Picks: News/Media/Personalities / Dining / Entertainment/Leisure / Shopping/Services