Ashland Coffee & Tea

Best live music venue: Ashland Coffee & Tea ( ashland )Residents of Ashland say their community is the “Center of the Universe.” Cooperative Living readers have voted Ashland Coffee & Tea the “Center of the Music Lover’s Universe” in Virginia .Partners Jim and Mary Leffler and Kay Landry opened the gourmet coffee shop and restaurant in 1996 and began featuring live performers a year later. As Kay Landry says, “We wanted to provide really quality music in a concert-like environment. Our music is diverse — lots of Americana and folk, blues, jazz and little bit of pop.”Some of the better-known artists who have performed at Ashland Coffee & Tea include Rodney Crowell, Tim O’Brien, Janis Ian, and Marshall Crenshaw.No more than 150 tickets are sold to each performance in the intimate “listening room,” where no talking and no smoking are allowed. “The performers love the energy of the audience,” Landry says, “plus we’ve got one of the best sound systems in the state. It’s perfectly tuned to the room.”Located downtown on Railroad Avenue, there is live music most every Thursday, Friday and Saturday evening. For a schedule of upcoming performers, visit www.ashlandcoffeeandtea.com or call 804-798-1702.