RVA Magazine has a nice article on 821 Cafe and its current owners, who are celebrating their 20th anniversary of running the business. < follow this link and read the article. It also includes some cool history on the previous businesses at that location.

821 Cafe, the unassuming diner/restaurant/bar on the corner of Cherry and Cary streets – where Oregon Hill and the Fan meet – turns 20 years old in its current incarnation. Andrew Clarke and Chip Cooke bought the place from its previous owners back in 2004, and have since carried a torch we’d all be screaming about if it went out. 821 has been a staple in the neighborhood forever.
This place does really feel like it has a thousand fun ghosts partying in a hidden dimension just beyond our perception. If you tally up all of the hangovers put to rest in this place, the tonnage of awkward first dates, and the spillover of dank bro-downs, you get a a mere fraction of what this place really means to Oregon Hill, and Richmond as a whole. It’s much more than the sum of its parts. It’s a legend.
There were so many things that blew up at that time (2003 – 2005). Richmond was in a weird turning of the page/changing of the guard moment in time. The 90s dominant look in Richmond was raw and very grungy. At the turning of the millennium, its hardcore punk personality was giving way to sunnier, more fun expressions. I mean, we still screamed a lot but we danced more. It was like a tonal shift.