The new building at 3401 Haydenpark Lane has a roof shaped like a butterfly. Inside, the shell of a replica Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa is mounted on the wall, and a glass window looks into a small room where some of the pasta is made in-house. Civita Italia Ristorante & Bar held its grand opening on Aug. 3, 2026, with a staff of about 70.
You may already have walked past it on the way to Red Salt or Wong's Tacos. All three restaurants belong to the same company. Since 2017, much of GreenGate's dining character has come from one Richmond restaurant group, EAT Restaurant Partners. With Civita, that group is no longer just a tenant here. It owns land at GreenGate.
The group that has been at GreenGate since the start
Markel | Eagle developed GreenGate about a decade ago. EAT's Red Salt Chophouse & Sushi was one of the development's first tenants in 2017, and the group added a Wong's Tacos in 2019. Civita is EAT's third GreenGate restaurant.
The way Civita came together is what makes it different. Most EAT restaurants sit in buildings the company leased or moved into. For Civita, the group bought a 0.2-acre lot within GreenGate and built a 7,000-square-foot restaurant from scratch. Henrico County records show the purchase price was $1.2 million. EAT had been working on the concept since fall 2024. EAT president Chris Tsui told Richmond BizSense that owning the site let the group control the design.
That is a long-term commitment to a single address. A lease can end. A building on land the operator owns ties that operator to the block for years. When all of its announced projects open, EAT expects to run 16 restaurants in the Richmond region plus a Wong's in Raleigh, North Carolina. GreenGate is where the group chose to put its first brand-new concept since Wong's Tacos launched in 2019.
What a from-scratch building made possible
Owning the building shows up in the design. Michael Pellis Architecture designed the structure, Design Therapy did the interiors, and FasTrac General Contractors built it. "We made it a little more unique with the butterfly-shaped roof. It looks completely different when you walk inside," Tsui said.
The inside has two distinct zones. Richmond Magazine describes a hotel-style lounge with C-shaped booths, curved seating and a long bar, next to a large dining room with vintage checkerboard tile. There is also a private dining room and an outdoor patio. The private room's wallpaper is a drawing of Tuscany by a local artist.
The kitchen is led by chef Kevin LaCivita, and the restaurant is named for him. Tsui calls him classically French-trained and says he has loved LaCivita's cooking for more than 20 years. Civita is also the name of a small town in Calabria, but the menu doesn't stick to one region. "We're not specifically narrowing into one region," Tsui said. LaCivita built the menu after traveling through Italy last summer.
What's on the menu, based on the August coverage:
- Antipasti: arancini and caprese salads
- Pasta: fresh pastas, some made in-house in the glass-walled pasta room, priced from about $24 to $35
- Entrees: dishes such as chicken marsala, priced from $27 to $84
- Dolci: house-made tiramisu and panna cotta, cannoli filled to order with crumbled pistachios, chocolate chips or tri-colored sprinkles, ricotta cheesecake and a flourless chocolate torte
- After dinner: house-made limoncello, grappa, Tuscan dessert wine, espresso, cappuccino and French press coffee
- At the bar: Negronis and Aperol spritzes on tap, plus house cocktails such as the Sicilian Sunset and the Exile From Firenze
The wine list is 11 pages long. It was put together with Valentina Giordano, a portfolio manager at Impero Wine Distributors, and covers bottles from the north of Italy to the south. A cellar behind the bar holds hundreds more.
The bar at Red Salt shaped the lounge at Civita
The two restaurants are connected by more than their owner. According to Tsui, guests at neighboring Red Salt "set the precedent for lingering at the bar," and "We found out that people really enjoyed hanging out there." That lesson shaped Civita's lounge. "We wanted the space to be swanky," Tsui told Richmond Magazine. "We wanted people to come in here and go, 'Oh, hey, this doesn't feel like Richmond.'"
So the newest restaurant on the block was designed around what the operator learned from nine years at the oldest one. An operator who has watched how guests use a space this long can design the next room with real information.
The GreenGate table, one address at a time
EAT runs three of the restaurants here. The other names on GreenGate's streets and along its West Broad Street frontage come from different operators, and together they round out the options.
| Restaurant | Address | Operator or affiliation | On record |
|---|---|---|---|
| Civita Italia Ristorante & Bar | 3401 Haydenpark Ln. | EAT Restaurant Partners | Opened Aug. 3, 2026; daily lunch now listed |
| Red Salt Chophouse & Sushi | 12221 W. Broad St. | EAT Restaurant Partners | One of GreenGate's first tenants, 2017 |
| Wong's Tacos | 201 A Maltby Blvd. | EAT Restaurant Partners | Added at GreenGate in 2019 |
| West Coast Provisions | 301 Maltby Blvd. | Richmond Restaurant Group | Sister to East Coast Provisions on West Cary Street |
| The Daily Kitchen & Bar | 12201 W. Broad St. | Richmond Restaurant Group | Short Pump menus for lunch, dinner and brunch |
| Mellow Mushroom | 12171 W. Broad St. | Mellow Mushroom | Lists its branch in the Green Gate Shopping Center |
Two operators account for five of these six restaurants. EAT runs the steakhouse-and-sushi room, the taco spot and now the Italian lounge. Richmond Restaurant Group runs West Coast Provisions and The Daily. On a walk around GreenGate, most of what you see comes from a short list of Richmond owners rather than national chains, with Mellow Mushroom as the exception.
EAT also has a presence nearby. It recently opened its Lucky AF sushi concept at Short Pump Town Center, in the former Baker's Crust space, which Richmond Magazine puts about a mile from Civita.
Planning a visit this fall
Civita has changed its hours since opening. For its first two weeks it served dinner only, with lunch planned to follow. Lunch has since been added. The restaurant's contact page currently lists:
- Lunch: every day, 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.
- Happy hour: 2:30 to 5 p.m.
- Dinner: 4 to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 4 to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 4 to 9 p.m. Sunday
One thing to watch: a banner on the same site says "Dinner at 5 pm," while the detailed schedule and Richmond Magazine's August listing both say 4 p.m. If you're planning an early dinner or bringing visiting family, call ahead to confirm when the dining room opens.
Civita is open daily from late morning into the evening, so it now overlaps with every other restaurant in the lineup. Red Salt lists both lunch and dinner hours, and The Daily publishes a brunch menu for Short Pump. Between these, GreenGate has a sit-down option at nearly any hour of the day.
What's planned next on Hayden Park Lane
The next announced project near Civita is a medical office, not a restaurant. In January 2026, Richmond Plastic Surgeons announced plans for an office at 3381 Hayden Park Lane, also listed as 12159 W. Broad St. Construction was expected to start in late 2026, with opening planned for late 2027. The January report said a veterinary hospital, dental practices, spas and a surgery center had asked about leasing space in the building. Those were inquiries, not signed leases. No later report has confirmed that construction has begun.
For now, the most recent change on the street is the restaurant with the butterfly roof at 3401 Haydenpark Lane, built by the same group that opened Red Salt here in 2017.
In GreenGate, the restaurants within walking distance are part of what you're choosing when you choose a home. At Privé Real Estate Group, Judy Weber follows those block-by-block changes closely, from a new building on Haydenpark Lane to a medical office scheduled for 2027. If you'd like to talk about how GreenGate is changing and what that means for your home, Let's Connect.
