Inge's Grocery Store (former)

The building at 333 West Main Street went up in 1820 as a residence. It moved through several hands over the following decades — parsonage, iron foundry, merchant space — until February 1890, when George Pinkney Inge bought it for $3,000.

Inge had graduated from Hampton Institute and taught in Charlottesville's public schools before opening the grocery in July 1891, at age twenty-eight. The store became the commercial center of Vinegar Hill, the city's African American business and residential district. For a time it was the only place in Charlottesville to sell fresh fish, supplying the University Hospital and the city's leading hotels. The Inge family — nine children — lived upstairs. Public hotels refused to accommodate Black visitors, and private homes had to fill the void; Booker T. Washington, a Hampton classmate of George Inge, was among the guests who stayed there.

Thomas Inge, Sr. eventually took over the business and ran it until it was sold in 1979. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. A city historical marker was installed out front in 2004.

Vinegar Hill was razed in the 1960s. The grocery is one of the few structures that survived. What stands at 333 West Main is what the neighborhood couldn't take with it.