Sarah Lynch was 20 years old when she walked into Baja Bean in Charlottesville, Virginia, looking for a summer job before her senior year at the University of Virginia. She worked 25 tables her first shift and at the end of the night her manager handed her the schedule, saying “take whatever slots you want.” A girl who had grown up selling pocket knives in Augusta County, she knew how to work and she loved to play.
Three years later, in 1998, she opened the Baja Bean in downtown Staunton, one of the two independent cities in Augusta, as its managing partner. Returning to the streets of her childhood and not yet certain she was ready to leave big city life behind, she remembers “I thought we’d have busy lunches and dead late nights.” But her experience was the opposite. “It was a party every night.”
The only place in town open until 2am with liquor, under Sarah’s management Baja served up Mexican cuisine and easy laughter. Capturing big acts traveling up and down the east coast, live music became a Sunday night ritual. She built a clientele around “craft beer and kindness.” Offering insurance, vacation, and scheduling flexibility, she attracted loyal staff, whom she now lists as coworkers of 22, 17, and 15 years.
She remembers the early days, when the bar aired X Files and everyone crowded in. “I said ok, we can do this, but I’m only serving during the commercials!” Throughout it all, she built community and camaraderie around her. “We have such an eclectic clientele here — Shakespeare kids, lawyers from around the corner. The people who come here I would want to have in my house.” The Baja franchise offered her statewide management roles, but with the arrival of her son in 2004, she decided the Staunton Baja Bean was her home.
Mischief & Magic
Sarah knew she lived in an enchanted place, but this fact sprung to life as she read the Harry Potter series to her son Henry, fiction painting a vivid picture of the many magical stores and destinations that surrounded Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. “This is our town!” thought Sarah, recognizing the historic clockshop, Pufferbellies toy store, the Owl Emporium, and the great stores of spellbinding books. The now infamous Queen City Mischief and Magic festival that turns downtown Staunton into a Harry Potter-themed magical city was born first in her imagination and then in collaborations with her fellow downtown business owners.
The first year, Sarah and her fellow instigators “thought we’d get 500 people.” But when the City’s Tourism Department wrote a blog about the upcoming event, in the first hour it received 24,000 interactions. “We had an emergency meeting,” she recalls.
The City placed the Public Works and Police Departments on call for the event, with barricades at the ready to shut down traffic and open the streets to pedestrians if needed.
When the crowds amassed, spilling out of storefronts and chasing Quidditch balls down the city’s main street, waving wands and donning capes and pointed hats, everyone from the bartenders to the cops were ready for a party.
It’s Sarah’s largest party, filling hotel rooms from Luray to Lexington. In a city of a little more than 25,000 residents, 10,000 to 20,000 people annually conspire to celebrate its (and their own) magical possibilities.
Communities of Care
“Pinch me — I cannot believe how lucky I am,” says Sarah. “I wake up every morning and I think, I get to do this.” But beyond the barstools and the festivals, the live music and the Big Burritos, lies a community that knows it is just as lucky to have her.
Over the years, Baja Bean has become a second home for many. “We had the first rainbow flag downtown,” says Sarah, and Baja has served as Pride Central, where the first night of Pride kicks off. Before the City’s LGBTQ center opened, Baja was a safe place for many, with staff that embodied inclusion and openness. The kind of bar that bans customers for life for derogatory slurs, Sarah is proud of being “festive, wild, and safe.” Her son Henry now works as a host — “I’ve promised not to supervise him directly!” — and her vocation has allowed her to care for aging parents here in the county she grew up in.
No longer new to business ownership, Sarah sits on the Board of Directors of the Shenandoah Community Capital Fund, helping fund new entrepreneurs and start up ventures. The chair of the Economic Vitality committee for Staunton Downtown Development Association, you can also find her hard at work planning the City’s post-COVID resurgence.
A listening ear behind the bar for two and a half decades, Sarah has become accustomed to welcoming and recruiting travelers who make their home in the greater Augusta region. “Here, people take care of you,” she promises. “I never go anywhere without feeling like people are looking out for me. Move here, and you will be loved.”
