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• Ash Daniel
• Denise Dolan brings her health and wellness training to a new position at Ellwood Thompson’s; she’s shown in the store’s meditation and therapy room.

In a Richmond grocery-store first, Ellwood Thompson's Natural Market in Carytown has hired a relationship and wellness coach to help customers find peace, health and purpose.

Denise Dolan, whose training has extended from jin shin jyutsu — an ancient Japanese healing practice — to other professional programs, begins in her role this month. She'll offer individual and group sessions and community programs at the store, on topics including conflict resolution, personal wellness and communication.

"I've been doing this work for about 12 years full time," Dolan says, admitting extreme skepticism at first, "and I had to face all of my fears and learn. I sought out teachers and modalities that would help me face the lack of fulfillment in my life. We learn how to peel away the layers of conditioning to help reveal the authentic self — how to activate that and bring that out. We have to become aware of what is working and isn't working in our life and then we move into the mastery of transformation. What do I want to shift and change? What do I want my life to be at home, in my personal relationships, in the work force?"

Dolan expects her clients, colleagues and store customers to learn how to engage in a shared vision of deeper intercultural and intergenerational understanding. "I think we can have a completely different world," she says, "and I can see the difference in the lives of others who have healed unexpectedly and used their emotions as a launching pad and guidance system to what we want to create. We can shift and support and share visions of what we want our community to be." Learn more at denisedolan.com.

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Goodbye, Becky's: A slew of Richmond dining institutions has closed recently: A Movable Feast, Sensi, Bogart's in the West End, the Empress and many Bill's Barbecue locations. Some are publicly mourned; some end with little fanfare. Becky's, a breakfast and lunch stalwart at 100 E. Cary St., was for at least four decades a personable, home-style diner with a waitress, Julia, who epitomized the role. She knew what customers wanted — the corned beef hash, the scrambled eggs, the sandwiches with extra mayo — and she made the place feel as close to Mayberry as Richmond could get.

Ownership and management changes during the last several years led to dinner service, a full bar and interior redesign that took out the kitsch. Now Becky's is transforming again, to Cary 100 Restaurant and Lounge. It will have a third-floor billiards room, a second-floor bar, and a new upscale menu on the first level, with an official opening planned for Sept. 7.

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Now serving: The Federal Coffee & Tea, at 616 E. Franklin St., offers salads with names such as techno and dub, hot and cold sandwiches, croques and coffees from 6 a.m.-4 p.m. weekdays. The bacon, egg and cheese is $2.75; the Baltimore club with roast beef, ham, turkey, bacon, cheeses and greens on Texas toast is $8.25. Style Weekly's architecture writer Edwin Slipek says the shop's art-deco theme is a nice reflection of the building, one of the city's better examples of the style.

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