Ben Watters and Rachel Best. the couple behind Blue Atlas Restaurant and Market in Richmond, Virginia, started their business and their family during the pandemic.

For Watters, Blue Atlas was born out of his passion for food and learning how other cultures eat.

"I love being a food dork," Watters told Scott Wise and Robey Martin during his Eat It, Virginia podcast interview. "If I find something on Instagram that I've never heard of before, like the Georgian flatbread we now serve, we both do the deep dive on why they make it the way they do, why they're using this certain type of yeast, why they do this with the cheese, and all these cool components. So that we're learning along."

It's that curiosity which has shaped Blue Atlas into its current mission.

"We're a shared, small plate experience of global cuisine," Watters said when asked to describe Blue Atlas. "We have the menu broken up into the four regions of the world and we try and represent them to the best of our ability."

Learn about the couple's journey toward opening a restaurant during the pandemic, their attempt to balance restaurant ownership with parenthood, and the meal that helped Ben win Rachel's heart.

Also on this episode, Scott and Robey share their Best Bites of the Week, Robey's at Parterre Restaurant in Richmond and Scott's at Fine Creek Brewing in Powhatan.

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