By: Mary G. Roush
The wild goldenrod plant is impossible to miss throughout West Virginia. You can see it’s bright yellow color from a mile away. But, the secret’s out – Goldenrod is blooming in new ways in Charleston, West Virginia. Thanks to the vision of Nola Todd, it has taken on new life in the form of Goldenrod Kitchen, flourishing straight into the heart of her community.
Cooking has been a part of Nola’s life for as long as she could remember, starting with making pancakes on the weekends with her Dad. As a kid watching Disney’s “The Princess and the Frog”, she used to draw pictures of herself running her own restaurant. But, as she grew older, running an actual restaurant still felt like a far-off idea. The real turning point came during her junior year of high school, on a road trip out west. Talking through college applications and future plans with her Dad, Nola casually mentioned that if her main career choice didn’t work out, maybe she’d open a bakery as a fallback. Her dad stopped her right there and offered a simple piece of advice: “If you want to do that, it doesn’t have to be Plan B. You can just do it.” That advice shifted her whole perspective. When it came time to pick a college, her dad suggested culinary school, but Nola chose business school at West Virginia University instead. She figured she could teach herself how to follow recipes and bake, but running an actual business required more training.
She majored in Entrepreneurship, minored in Appalachian Studies, and kept her sights firmly set on home. Growing up in Charleston, Nola often heard classmates complain that there was “nothing to do here” and that they couldn’t wait to leave. That attitude always bothered her. She loved the outdoors, fell in love with Appalachian history, and firmly believed that…
“The grass isn’t greener somewhere else—it is greener where you water it.”
Instead of moving away to build something somewhere else, she wanted to give young people in West Virginia a reason to be proud of where they came from. After testing her ideas through pop-ups and selling baked goods during college, Nola began to focus on a specific storefront on Tennessee Avenue in Charleston’s Elk City neighborhood on the West Side. The space previously housed the Vandalia Co., and when it was still open, Nola used to sit at a big table in the back and think to herself that one day she’d love to own a cozy place just like it. After Vandalia closed, the storefront sat empty for a full year. Seeing the rent price posted on the door, her dad encouraged her once again: “There’s no harm in just looking.”
She signed the lease in November, graduated from WVU in December 2025, and opened Goldenrod Kitchen the following April at age twenty-one. Her restaurant sits just five minutes from her parents’ house and five minutes from her old middle school.
Nola describes the atmosphere of Goldenrod Kitchen as “West Virginia in a building.” She wanted a space that felt like stepping into a old Appalachian home for a comforting, homemade meal. The menu offers a mix of comforting brunch staples, seasonal treats and modern options. Their crowd favorite is the Goldenrod Kitchen Burrito, packed with potatoes, eggs, protein, and house sauce. For a unique local twist, the Mountain Breakfast Melt puts eggs, cheese, sausage, and hot honey on a sweet McGriddle-style base. Nola’s personal favorite food on the menu is the Blue Ridge Breakfast Burrito, which is stuffed with tofu scramble, avocado, potatoes, and house sauce, paired with scratch-made cinnamon rolls or her daily go-to drink, a Maple Sea Salt Matcha.
Building Goldenrod Kitchen in Charleston was never just a business decision for Nola but a promise to her hometown. Rather than waiting for West Virginia to change around her, she took matters into her own hands, going back to her roots and creating something to share in Charleston.
Roush, Mary G. “A Golden Opportunity.” Goldenseal West Virginia Traditional Life, Fall 2026. https://goldenseal.wvculture.org/a-golden-opportunity/
