For most of the last decade, a weekend in Forest Hill meant one thing: the park. You went to the market on Saturday, walked the trails, maybe grabbed a pint at O'Toole's on the way home, and called it done. Forest Hill Avenue itself was a pass-through.
That is no longer true. In the last eighteen months a new mixed-use building opened across from Little Nickel, an Irish pub older than most of its regulars got a quiet refresh, a sushi concept from Scott's Addition crossed the river, and the park's playground was replaced. None of these are headline events on their own. Together they mean the park and the Ave now work as a single connected weekend for people who live in 23225. Here is how to actually use it.
Saturday, 9 a.m.: Start at the market, not the coffee shop
The South of the James Market runs Saturdays from spring through fall inside Forest Hill Park, with dozens of vendors offering produce, baked goods, prepared foods, and live music. If you have lived here more than a season you already know this. What is worth knowing is that the market anchor is more useful than it used to be, because the rest of your Saturday can now happen within a ten-minute radius of it.
Bring the kids or the dog first. The playground was replaced as of June 2025 with modern equipment and shade, which changes the calculus for parents who used to drive to Powhite or over the river to Byrd Park for a better setup. It is now the closer option, not the compromise.
A quick geography check for planning purposes:
Anchor | Address | Walk from market |
|---|---|---|
Forest Hill Park playground | 4021 Forest Hill Ave | on-site |
The Evelyn (Lucky AF, Janet's Cafe & Bakery) | 4701 Forest Hill Ave | ~10 min |
Little Nickel | across from The Evelyn | ~10 min |
Väsen Brewing (Kobop RVA) | Forest Hill Ave corridor | short drive |
Saturday lunch: The Evelyn is the piece that connects everything
The building most likely to change how a Forest Hill Saturday feels is The Evelyn at 4701 Forest Hill Ave, a mixed-use building from Evolve Development and Dodson Development Group that added roughly 3,900 square feet of restaurant space plus 40 apartments to the neighborhood. Two tenants matter here.
The first is Lucky AF. EAT Restaurant Partners brought its Scott's Addition sushi concept over with the same name, menu, and hours, including miso salmon, sesame chicken, and bento boxes. If you have driven up to Scott's Addition for it, you no longer need to.
The second is Janet's Cafe & Bakery. The Evelyn also signed on Janet's Cafe & Bakery, a new concept from a pair of Charlottesville bakers. As of the most recent Yelp roundup for 23225, Janet's Cafe & Bakery appears alongside Little Nickel, Laura Lee's, Kobop RVA, The Locker Room, Maldini's, O'Toole's, Bliss Cafe, and Y Tu Mama as one of the top restaurants in the Forest Hill zip code as of July 2026, which tells you the neighborhood has already absorbed it.
The reason The Evelyn matters more than a normal restaurant opening is location. The new building sits directly across Forest Hill Avenue from Little Nickel. Two anchors on opposite sides of the street change how the corridor is used. Before, you picked a destination. Now the block itself is a destination, and the market crowd flows into it rather than dispersing to Carytown or the Fan.
Saturday afternoon: The park is more interesting than a lap around the lake
The park was in succession a quarry, an estate, and an amusement park. It has a lake, tennis courts, picnic shelters, and a partial wetland with wildlife, and it is listed on Virginia's Historic Register.
That description is close to what the City of Richmond publishes about Forest Hill Park, which was once a quarry, an estate, and an amusement park before being listed on Virginia's Historic Register, and now contains the historic Stone House, a restored lake, tennis courts, picnic shelters, a playground, and a partial wetland with wildlife. Fine. Every guide says this.
Here is the part most guides miss. The singletrack trails winding through Forest Hill Park link directly with the James River Park System, drawing mountain bikers, hikers, and runners for the technical features, creek crossings, and river views. That connection is the reason you can start a walk at the Stone House and end up looking at the James forty minutes later without ever getting in a car. If you are new to the neighborhood, that is the walk to take, not the loop around the lake.
From 1890 to 1932 the park operated as an elaborate amusement park with a carousel, roller coaster, dance hall, fun house, penny arcade, golf course, bathhouse, and a boat lake occupying what had been the granite quarry pond. The lake you walk past on a Saturday is the quarry. That fact does not change your afternoon, but it does change how you look at the water.
Saturday night: Three rooms, three different evenings
The corridor now supports genuinely different kinds of nights out without any of them feeling like a stretch.
Kobop RVA inside Väsen Brewing. Kobop RVA operates inside Väsen Brewing Company in Forest Hill. A Korean-leaning menu inside a brewery taproom is not what this stretch of the Ave used to offer. It is now the default for anyone who wants dinner and beer in one room.
O'Toole's. The Irish pub has been here forever. What is new is small and worth noting: Richmond's oldest Irish pub, the Forest Hill mainstay O'Toole's, is showing brand-new booths after decades of visitors. A refresh at a place that could easily coast is a signal about the corridor, not just the pub.
Maldini's Ristorante Italiano. Still doing what it does. Housemade pasta and the kind of room where the server remembers you. Keep it in the rotation.
Sunday: The concert series most residents forget until October
The Sunday move most people miss is the concert calendar. The Music in the Park Concert Series at Forest Hill Park runs on Sundays in September and October, with a neighborhood-scale rather than festival-scale feel. If you moved in over the summer you have not seen it yet. Bring a blanket, walk in from the residential side, and stay for one set. It is the closest thing the neighborhood has to a shared evening ritual, and it is about to start again in a few weeks.
If you would rather move than sit, this is the morning to test the James River Park System connection from the Stone House side. Trails are hilly and rooty in patches, so wear shoes with some grip.
What this all adds up to
None of the changes above are dramatic on their own. A new building. A new playground. A refresh at a pub. A sushi menu that already existed three miles north. Read together, though, they explain why the neighborhood feels different than it did in 2023.
The park used to carry the weekend by itself. Now the market, the playground, the corridor across from Little Nickel, The Evelyn's two tenants, the brewery taproom, and the Sunday concert series form a loop you can walk between. That is a real shift for a neighborhood that spent years being described as quiet and residential. Quiet is still accurate. Self-contained is newer.
For anyone who bought here in the last five years and has watched values move with the corridor, that is also the honest answer to what is driving it: not one restaurant or one building, but the fact that Saturday and Sunday no longer require leaving 23225.
If you are thinking about what your Forest Hill home is worth in this changing corridor, or you are eyeing one of the smaller houses off the park and want an unhurried read on the numbers, Heather Grubb is happy to talk through it. Let's Connect.
