On a recent Friday night, my husband and I stopped by one of our favorite local pubs to grab some pints and a bite.

Named after an old Colonial thoroughfare running through the heart of Virginia, Three Notch’d Brewery and Craft Kitchen began in Charlottesville in 2013. It now has six locations around the commonwealth , including the one we visited in Town Center in Virginia Beach, which opened in 2021 in the former Gordon Biersch brewery.

Spacious and inviting inside, the restaurant features a dining area with booths and tables, a large bar and high-top tables facing two garage doors, which are opened during nice weather; it also has a small patio where well-behaved dogs are invited to chill out. (Sadly, ours aren’t so well-behaved so we are pup-less when we visit.)

We started with pints of Firefly Nights, a light, refreshing summer pale ale served in a mason jar, and Duke of Clouds, a hoppy hazy session IPA with citrus notes — the perfect way to kick off our weekend.

The beer list and the food menu are tailored to each location and change seasonally, though there are staples that anchor each. Lucky for us, one of our favorite appetizers has been on the menu for a while. The spring rolls, or lumpia, are lightly fried and crunchy on the outside, with a mixture of cabbage, celery, water chestnut, carrots, and onions on the inside. They are perfect for dipping into the tangy chili sauce.

For our entrees, I ordered the beef sliders with cheddar cheese and sweet potato fries. My husband ordered the Southwestern Black Bean Burger with regular fries.

Both hit the spot.

The three sliders, served with pickles on toasted potato buns, were the perfect small bites: juicy, well-seasoned and meaty without being overwhelming. The sweet potato fries were crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. Plus, I got all that extra vitamin A!

The hubby’s black bean burger was light but filling, had good char and tasted like a beef burger. It had a little kick, maybe from the chipotle aioli, but the avocado slice was a cool counterpoint.

“That was a satisfying sandwich,” he said, fishing out the last fries from the bottom of the basket.

Three Notch’d also features entrees such as fish and chips, a shrimp plate, and a Buffalo mac and cheese bowl with fried chicken tenders. The Beach Street Nachos and enormous Cobb salad are other family favorites.

Brunch is available on Saturdays and Sundays, though that menu is not extensive.

And if beer is not your thing, they offer a full bar menu, including cocktails made with bourbon and whiskey from Three Notch’d Distilling Co., Virginia-made cider, wine from Williamsburg and beyond, and interesting non-alcoholic drinks.

The wait staff is attentive and friendly, the space is relaxing, while the food and drinks are elevated beyond typical pub fare. Three Notch’d is worth a visit for anyone, other than ill-behaved dogs.

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If you go

Where: 4561 Virginia Beach Blvd., Virginia Beach

Hours: 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday; 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday

Prices: Drinks $7-$12; food $10-$24

Details: 757-916-8080; threenotchdbrewing.com/pages/vb

Sometimes, if enough days go by, it can be a powerful motivator, a warrior who rides beside you, whispering, “Do something.”

When our colleague, education reporter Sierra Jenkins, was killed in a shooting on Granby Street in March 2022, our newsroom was shocked and stung. Just 25, Sierra was a talented, joyous and popular member of the staff and a mentor to others.

We tried to make sense of it all. We followed the case closely and hoped for resolution when Antoine M. Legrande Jr. was arrested and charged in the shooting.

But just a few months later, charges against Legrande were dismissed after two witnesses failed to show for a preliminary hearing. No other suspects have been named since.

Once more, grief stretched out before us.

Meanwhile, many more shootings occurred, locally and nationally, after Sierra’s death. Nearly 3,000 Hampton Roads residents lost their lives to gunfire over the past 10 years, according to numbers from the Virginia Department of Health.

At the end of 2022, we honored Sierra by setting up The Sierra Jenkins Scholarship Fund to help support college students studying journalism in Virginia. It was one way to deal with our loss and to focus on the next generation of promising journalists.

Still, the shootings continued. A team manager at a Walmart in Chesapeake shot and killed six people in the store, then himself. A first grader shot his teacher at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News. Ten-year-old Keontre Thornhill was killed by a stray bullet in his home in Portsmouth.

Hampton Roads has a homicide rate that is about twice the national and well above the state average, according to Virginian-Pilot and Daily Press reporting and calculations. Portsmouth alone has counted 22 homicides so far this year, up from the 19 it had at this point in 2023 and on its way to its second-highest all-time homicide count.

Our newsroom reported on the shootings, and tried to make the victims more than just another number.

But we wanted to do something more.

Last year, we began work on “Shots Fired: Combating a culture of gun violence in Hampton Roads,” a yearlong series that will explore why gun violence is so prevalent here and what can be done about it.

We are launching this in June to coincide with National Gun Violence Awareness Month and plan to cover this issue throughout the year. Our intention is to explore the issue deeply and from as many angles as possible. To that end, we’ve enlisted the help of community leaders in the form of an advisory panel, with a focus on solutions.

We know this is a complex problem that no organization will resolve alone. We hope Shots Fired will spark conversation in our communities so no parent, no city block, no workplace ever has to feel the weight of avoidable grief again.

Do you have a question or comment about our series? Send an email to shotsfired@pilotonline.com.

Editorial: Understand the scope of region’s gun violence to pursue effective action

Does the 9-year-old consider herself a Swiftie?

“Yes! Definitely!” she said, hopping up and down beside the concession stand at The Regal Columbus movie theater in Virginia Beach.

Ava is one of the legions of fans expected to turn out this weekend for the opening of Swift’s highly anticipated movie. The concert film, scheduled for release Friday, came out a day early because of unprecedented demand. Box office analysts predict it could generate as much as $150 million during its debut weekend, a figure that would make it the highest opening of a concert film and also one of the highest openings of 2023, according to CNBC.

The pop star and style icon has been a musical and marketing powerhouse since her 2006 debut at age 16. She’s won 12 Grammy Awards and sold more than 13 million albums in multiple genres. 

Yet her fans — Swifties — say her real genius is how she connects with people.

“She’s the older sister I don’t have,” said Savannah Stamper, 26, of Virginia Beach. “I feel like I’ve grown up with her.” 

Decked out in Taylor Swift bracelets, shirt, sunglasses and sparkly eye makeup, Drew Johnson went to the movie with three other women, including her kids’ babysitter.

“I think because I’m close in age. When she was 15 writing, it was similar to what I was going through. And then we kind of aged together,” said Johnson, 29, who lives in Poquoson and was catching the movie at Cinemark City Center in Newport News.

“As she’s grown up, her lyrics, I think, they’re more intricate than people think.”

When Shelby Kline and Dylann Reilly heard the movie would be released a day early, they made sure to be at the first showing. 

“I watched the trailer on the way here just to get hyped up,” Kline, 26, said. 

The movie is a compilation of Swift’s three performances in Los Angeles from her current tour, which has been selling out venues across the world and breaking stadium records. When tickets went on sale last fall, the Ticketmaster site crashed, sparking fierce backlash from fans, a rebuke from Swift and a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in which lawmakers used the songwriter’s lyrics to make their case.

Reilly, 17, had a presale code when tickets went on sale and waited for seven or eight hours online. The show sold out right before her turn.

The movie is as close as she can get to the real T-Swift, at least for now.

“I think it’s really cool that she’s doing this because a lot of people didn’t get to see her perform,” said Kline, who compared the concert movie with the film version of the popular Broadway hit “Hamilton” in terms of making it available to the wider public.

Hailee Morse and Katie Hayden got lucky. They both saw Swift in Nashville, Tennessee.

“Literally the best thing of my life,” Morse, 25, said, despite a storm that delayed the show by four hours.

Alexandra Carter joined the fun at Cinemark. She was excited to share the experience with her 4-year-old daughter.

“It’s fun seeing it in her eyes,” she said. “She just gets really excited.”

Carter, 35, said she’s been a fan since the beginning.

“Her music is very relatable. She just makes it easy to like her.”

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Corrections/clarifications

Virginia Media publications will protect our credibility with a vigorous commitment to accuracy. We will remedy, in a timely manner, all factual errors with a correction or clarification. If a reporter becomes aware of an error in their own or others’ published work, reporters have a responsibility to notify the author or their editor as soon as possible.

A correction is used when a fact in the story is wrong. A clarification is used to shed more light on something that is not incorrect but might not have shown the entire, clear picture of a given situation.

Correction steps

When possible, the correction or clarification should be prepared by the staff member responsible for the error. (If it is a source error, the editor can decide who writes the correction.)

The correction/clarification should be approved by that reporter/photographer’s team leader.

A correction should clearly indicate what the error was unless doing so would unnecessarily perpetuate the error.

If possible, be transparent with readers about the source of the error — whether it was a reporting, editing or source error, say so.

Publishing a correction is necessary but painful. Correcting a correction is significantly more so. Be sure to have your facts straight before publishing it.

Digital guideline

Stories may evolve as we sharpen and improve them even after they have been published to the website. In cases where we know we will be adding information later in the day, note that the story is developing and will be updated. However, it is not necessary to put notes on stories stating they have been updated unless it is a substantive change.

It is necessary to use a correction, clarification or editor’s note to inform readers whenever we correct a significant mistake.

When an error is found by a reader and posted to the comment stream, the audience engagement team should indicate in comments that it has been corrected.

If we have sent out incorrect information in a mobile, desktop or email alert, we should send out an alert informing people that the news reported in the earlier alert was wrong and give readers the accurate information.

When we publish erroneous information on social networks, we should correct it on that platform.

Bound & Gagged uses silly sight gags to turn everyday occurrences upside down.

Additionally, The Virginian-Pilot and Daily Press are ceasing publication of Dilbert because of racist remarks by its creator, Scott Adams. Dilbert is a long-running comic that pokes fun at office culture.

Editors have chosen Grand Avenue, a strip about a grandmother raising a couple of boys, as a replacement.

Dilbert appeared in Sunday’s editions because the comics were prepared for publication and printed in advance. Grand Avenue will replace it in next Sunday’s package.

We do not tolerate such remarks. Like other news organizations across the country, we denounce Adams’ comments as racist, hateful and discriminatory, and we no longer will provide a platform for his work.

Dilbert is a long-running comic strip that pokes fun at office culture.

Last week, Adams described people who are Black as members of “a hate group” from which white people should “get away.”

Adams made his statements during an episode of his YouTube show, “Real Coffee with Scott Adams.” Among other topics, Adams referenced a Rasmussen Reports survey that asked whether people agreed with the statement, “It’s OK to be white.”

Editors have chosen Grand Avenue, a strip about a grandmother raising a couple of boys, as a replacement.

The change will take effect starting with Tuesday’s print editions. Dilbert will, however, still appear in this upcoming Sunday’s editions because those comics were prepared for publication and printed in advance. Grand Avenue will replace it in the Sunday comics package the following week.

Across the nation and here in Virginia, we’ve already seen unprecedented turnout. More than 84 million have voted nationwide and 2.3 million people have cast their vote in the commonwealth, according to the Washington Post.

That’s great for civic engagement, but not so good for swift and definitive returns. It is likely that we will not know who won the presidential election on election night. With more people voting by mail due to COVID pandemic, it will likely take time for each state to count the ballots. States have different rules and procedures as well, meaning that early indications of a winner may not hold once all votes are counted.

In Virginia, polls close at 7 p.m. Tuesday, and most of the votes should be counted by election night because localities can begin processing them once they are received. But ballots may arrive between Nov. 3 and the commonwealth’s receipt deadline of Nov. 6, and they can’t be fully counted until the end of the week.

Here’s what to expect from the newspaper on Wednesday: We will report from the field on election day, covering the local races as well as the situation at regional polling places. However, we will not publish vote totals in Wednesday’s paper and likely will not declare a race unless there is a definitive winner early in the night. Once we have more data about local, statewide and national races, we will publish those in print — ideally within a few days.

Online, we will update our elections information throughout Tuesday night on our Elections 2020 page at pilotonline.com and dailypress.com. There you will find data and graphics, as well as links to our voter guide and other race coverage. But we will be cautious in declaring winners.

If we’ve learned anything from this pandemic, it is that some things can’t be rushed. We appreciate your patience as we all wait for America’s election outcome.

Virginia Media recognizes and respects that.

This decision applies across all websites and newspapers in the Virginia Media Group, including The Virginian-Pilot, Daily Press, The Virginia Gazette, Tidewater Review, Inside Business and Style Weekly. It is the product of many newsroom conversations over many years. Those discussions became more frequent, focused and immediate over the last weeks and months.

The change is also in step with the Associated Press, which made the same style change recently, and other U.S. news organizations.

Because some news services we use may have a different style, you might occasionally see a lowercase “b.” That is especially true over the coming weeks as we and the AP transition to the new style. But we will work to limit those conflicts as much as possible.

While this is one change that has come from our ongoing discussions about race and identity, it will likely not be the last. We still have much more work to do regarding diversity and inclusion, both in terms of the language we use and the coverage we provide. We welcome your input and feedback as we continue this examination.

When we sold the building to Monument Cos., a Richmond-based developer, we knew we would have to deal with the decades and decades of items that lined the many walls, dark nooks and basement crannies in a space that seems ripe for the opening of a horror movie. The huge building, which opened in 1937, has endured many permutations since the newspaper moved in nearly a century ago.

“Don’t go down there without a buddy,” people would say if they heard someone planned to trek to one of the many abandoned spots on another floor (or half floor). Each office, conference room and storage space — some long empty as staff contracted and moved into other parts of the building — was filled with stuff.

Lots. Of. Stuff.

Office furniture of every stripe and era, bookcases and filing cabinets, white boards (with words still written on them), framed photos, artwork, dishes, stacks of old newspapers, accounting ledgers from the early 1900s, refrigerators, pica poles and highlighters, a foosball table, several Christmas trees and a ping pong table.

Essential files, furniture, decorations and personal belongings moved to our office in Newport News or the printing plant in Virginia Beach. A few local nonprofits took office furniture and other equipment. Employees claimed some coveted memorabilia. Lots of papers and files were recycled or trashed.

One category of materials needed special care — our archives. While we have a large collection of newspapers and other content in digital formats, we no longer have the storage space for dozens of shelves and filing cabinets filled with photo prints, negatives and newspaper clippings.

For 155 years, Pilot and Ledger-Star journalists were there to see our communities grow and change, and those eyewitness accounts are valuable.

As the first draft of history, the stories and photos produced by the talented staff over the years had to be housed in a way that both preserves them for the future and allows the public to have access.

Fortunately, both the Virginia Beach and Norfolk public libraries stepped up to the task.

Beginning last fall, a small team of Pilot employees worked with both library systems to identify what materials each would be interested in acquiring. We carefully itemized which parts of our collection would be most relevant to local residents and where they could be found in the building (“all the contents in the scary closet” was an actual description that made it on the list).

Once the various deeds of gift were signed, the libraries planned to pack up the collection and bring it to their respective institutions.

The Virginia Beach Public Library was ready to go just as the coronavirus pandemic started to hit. Racing against time, Mary Lovell Swetnam, special collections librarian, brought a colleague to the Brambleton Avenue building and spent four long days carefully packing and moving.

The collection, which includes Virginia Beach articles and photos from the Beacon, The Virginian-Pilot and the Ledger-Star, will be in place at the Meyera E. Oberndorf Central Library, on new shelving, by June 1. Anyone with a Virginia Beach library card will have access to the new collection, as well as the complete digital archive from 1865-1976.

The Norfolk-centric content will eventually go to the Sargeant Memorial Collection at the Norfolk Public Library, once the city is running normally again and the gift is approved by the City Council. Included in that collection are photograph prints and negatives from the 1950s to 1990s, bound copies of Portfolio magazine and city directories for Hampton Roads.

While we will miss our years of memories at Brambleton Avenue (well, not the scary closet), we are grateful for our local library partners helping to preserve the legacy of our work.

Jeff Hampton, our North Carolina reporter, profiled an Outer Banks distillery that is making and distributing hand sanitizer to citizens.

Photographer Jonathon Gruenke gave us a poignant portrait of a Williamsburg doctor who has tested positive for coronavirus — through a window, as his family stood framed inside a different window.

These are just some of the incredible stories the staff of Virginia Media, which comprises The Virginian-Pilot, Daily Press, The Virginia Gazette and Tidewater Review, has worked tirelessly this past month to bring to you.

We will continue to do this important work, but we will need your help and support.

Reporters have contributed to a daily live blog, which is constantly updated with new information from early morning until bedtime. Our Opinion pages have consistently encouraged people to adhere to social distancing guidelines, thanked our health professionals and first responders, and been a forum where readers express their concerns, suggestions and policy ideas during this crisis.

Reporter Peter Coutu has created maps and graphics to track the increase of COVID-19 cases across Hampton Roads and all of Virginia. Marie Albiges, who covers state government, updates news from Gov. Ralph Northam’s daily briefings. Food writer Matthew Korfhage helped build a database of local restaurants that are offering takeout or delivery during this crisis.

All while working from home.

Yes, like a lot of you, we are just trying to do our jobs, while also taking care of our families, home-schooling our kids, confusing our pets (why are the humans home again?) and attempting to order groceries online for the first time.

If we have learned anything from this crisis, it is that we are all connected. Like it or not, no matter what we look like or who we vote for or how we worship, we all share the same Earth, the same air, the same vulnerabilities, the same strengths. We need each other to survive.

My staff and I have been awed by some of the things we’ve seen during this crisis. The way people have pulled together, stepped up to help.

Health reporter Elisha Sauers outlined what folks could donate to Hampton Roads hospitals because so many people wanted to contribute. Dave Ress told the story of volunteers who showed up hours early to help distribute food for the Virginia Peninsula Foodbank’s drive-up pantry. Katherine Hafner wrote about three local Girl Scouts who were selling cookies — virtually — to donate to hospital staff.

This is who we are.

For the readers who have sent us tips, questions or encouragement, we appreciate you reaching out. This is a challenging time for businesses and Virginia Media is not immune. We rely on support from readers and advertisers to continue providing this public service. And many of you have stepped up by becoming subscribers or activating your digital subscription. If you haven’t yet, please go to join.pilotonline.com to subscribe.

We love what we do as journalists, we love Hampton Roads and we want to help move us all forward to better days. Thank you for your support. It makes all the difference.