This week has been a bit crazy (which seems to be the new normal) so I'm making this one short and sweet. Thank you to everyone - staff, customers, farmers, friends, and family who have helped us make Stomping Ground what it is today. We are so excited to be celebrating five years! 
Head Janitor, Chef, and Proprietor | Modest Bread
Nicole’s cooking style is rooted in, but not limited to, her love of southern biscuits and her diverse culinary upbringing. A military brat, she spent her childhood in the Chicago suburbs enjoying her great-grandmother Mae’s Lithuanian cooking. As a tween, she moved to Paulding County, Ga. where she begrudgingly fell in love with the charmingly perplex small towns of the Deep South. She fondly remembers grubbing on Martin’s biscuits, late-night Waffle House debauchery and cooking with her family.
After graduating from the University of Georgia, Nicole started a marketing career at an art nonprofit in Atlanta. At 25 years old, she became the youngest executive at the local Atlanta NPR affiliate. Chasing her dreams, she moved to Alexandria, VA where she took a short post in the Whole Foods marketing department. Realizing that cooking had been her true love all along, she began night courses at L’Academie de Cuisine. She completed her apprenticeship at Blue Duck Tavern where she was promoted to a line cook after graduation. From there, Nicole worked as a private chef for busy Washington D.C. executives and their families.
As grown-ups tend to do, Nicole realized something about her childhood -- the best parts were enjoying small town communities, cooking with her great-grandmother and sharing meals with family and friends. She opened Stomping Ground (now Rubia’s) to build a safe and welcoming community around yummy, handmade food from local sources. As her first foray running her own kitchen, she has shamelessly hired better, smarter cooks to fill her kitchen and your bellies.
Modest Bread is a collection of idiosyncratic neighborhood restaurants devoted to hospitality in Northern Virginia and includes Rubia’s, Bagel Uprising, Mae’s Market & Cafe, and Virginia’s Darling.
2309 Mt Vernon Avenue
Alexandria, VA 22301
703.664.0445
