Mug night started on Sundays back then and still continue to this day. The Homer Simpson quote T-shirt debuted at this time and is still available at the Leafe to this day. Amy Adams was running the place and she imbued the place with her brassy Jersey-girl style. Thanks to her the ceiling is red. . .you don’t want to know what it looked like before. She took that sense of color and moved off to Philly for art school. She is still dearly missed by staff and regulars alike. A guy named Matt Churchill was in charge of the beers. Churchill or Church as he was known by those who know and love him, has forgotten more about beer than you and I will ever know. In fact even though he’s an accountant now, he knows more about alcohol than most working bartenders. Another quiet, dark and handsome fellow somehow found his way to the Leafe around this time and promptly found himself a home in its warm bosom, too. Tony Wilson was a man without a country before he and the Leafe found each other. Now the daytime Leafe would hardly be as hospitable and warm as it has been since 1995 with him.

The tap system was great but it was people like this that made the Leafe truly one of a kind.

So the Leafe had the best beer selection in the state, probably in much of the mid-atlantic; probably BOTH sides of the Atlantic since we figure that the Portugese are satisfied with their selection of fortified wines. But once again, Glenn was on the move. Not satisfied with improving the beers alone, Glenn focused on the kitchen. After all what goes better with great beer? Great food of course! (So maybe we did things a little backwards.)

Everyone knows that even if you have the best quality ingredients, good eating just doesn’t happen. You need people who know what they are doing in the kitchen. There have been many chefs and cooks who have put there mark on the Leafe’s menu but probably none so memorably as Matthew Richardson. A country bumpkin cum rockstar who took a detour on his rocket to stardom (he’s still waiting for that bus) to raise the Leafe’s food to a new level. His crab cake recipe still lives on.

Time ticks by. Fire rages through the downstairs (yes, there is a downstairs to the Green Leafe) storage and office area on April 9th of 1999. Thanks to the lighting quick reaction of one Scott Iroler the Leafe is spared destruction. Thanks to the Williamsburg Fire Department the damage is contained to the lower floor. The Leafe is besieged with calls from hysterical alumni fearing the worst. The management is happy to tell them that all is not lost. In fact, the Leafe opens to a relieved Williamsburg that same night.

And like a phoenix from the flames, the Leafe is born again new. It turned out that the destruction and subsequent rebuilding offered a great opportunity for Glenn. The Leafe would improve its tap system and bump it up to 30 drafts.

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