Barbara Bliley outside her new catering kitchen and event space in Midlo. (Jackie DiBartolomeo photos)
Since launching her business The Lazy Graze last year, Barbara Bliley has been traveling around the region, bringing her custom cheese and charcuterie boards to customer homes and to events like weddings, bridal showers and birthday parties.
Now the company has a home of its own.
Bliley opens the doors this month on the first brick-and-mortar space for The Lazy Graze at 1334 Sycamore Square Drive in Midlothian.
The 1,400-square-foot space will serve as an event venue and catering kitchen, as an option for people who want to host a small event with charcuterie catering built-in, and to host Lazy Graze’s “Build-A-Board” charcuterie workshops.
Having run the business from her home since its beginning, Bliley began looking in recent months for a physical space where she could host the workshops instead of visiting customers in their homes, because she’s looking to grow into the next phase of her business. The workshops teach up to 24 people how to source quality charcuterie ingredients, cut and style cheeses and meats and understand flavor pairings.
“I wanted to find a space where I could build out my own kitchen, but also have a place for the workshops and events, both public and private-style events,” she said.
Bliley spent years of her career in Richmond doing communications and branding work, founding her own firm called Olio Branding and working at Medrio.
Driven by a love of entertaining, Bliley launched Lazy Graze in early 2025, offering boards with charcuterie staples like cured meats and cheeses, jams, hummus and other spreads. The boards range in size from small spreads all the way up to “grazing tables,” charcuterie spreads laid out directly across a tabletop for large crowds such as at weddings to enjoy.
The exterior of the new Lazy Graze event space and catering kitchen.
Bliley began searching for a storefront in recent months. She found the Sycamore Square space, which was previously home to painting studio Paint ‘N Play RVA. The studio closed its physical location a few years ago, though it still does mobile painting parties in the area.
The space, which Bliley said is cozy with soft lighting and different seating options, will host the charcuterie board workshops and other creative workshops, as well as business or networking events and parties, all catered in-house by Bliley.
It will be able to fit about 34 people for a seated event, with some extra room for any standing events like cocktail parties.
Bliley said she sees the location as a “micro-event studio,” where customers can host parties they might host at home, like bridal showers, but perhaps don’t believe the space is suitable.
“I think there are very few make-it-your-own event spaces that also offer the flexible cheese and charcuterie options already built-in,” Bliley said. “I’m hoping that’s what I can add.”
Along with an event space, Bliley said she hopes to offer some speaker series or other recurring events, starting with a Boss Girl Dinner event series, playing on the popular “girl dinner” trend where people graze lightly for dinner on charcuterie items that require little cooking.
The event series would be geared toward female entrepreneurs across different industries to discuss their respective challenges and goals.
“If there’s opportunities to bring community together to discuss things, the idea of my space being a part of that … it’s a huge range of stuff,” she said. “Space plus food, bringing everyone together, I think there’s a real opportunity to do that.”
Not forgetting the catering part of her business, Bliley added that a larger kitchen in the event space will allow her to expand her corporate catering to accommodate larger company sizes than was possible with her in-home kitchen.
The Lazy Graze is currently a one-woman show for Bliley, though she noted that her teenage daughter helps with events as needed. She said she will likely need to hire an events manager when she opens the new space to balance that with off-site catering.
Bob Butcher and Andrew Thacker of S.L. Nusbaum Realty Co. represented the landlord in the Lazy Graze lease deal.
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