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Four restaurant owners talk ups and downs of the last two years As to ld to Je ssic a St ri nger | Photography by J ohn Mi chael Si m pson
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amil, you’ve got two locations of Mediterranean Deli, a catering arm, and you opened an event space and venue, The Story, last year. What have the last two years been like for you?
Jamil Kadoura As for everybody, the last year has been difficult. It was just a matter of surviving and just paying your bills and moving on and looking forward and things would get better. We had an opportunity to buy the West End Wine Bar, and we turned it into an event space. It’s an opportunity we thought would fit us really well. And it’s been doing really, really well. But business has been a little tough the last couple of years, like everybody else. The outside dining was a big thing for us. We have about 40 seats in the front of our restaurant. Without it, I don’t know what it would have been like – it was just a gift from God that we had that much space on the outside, but business started to pick up. We had a good spring and you know, July is July. So the outdoor dining been crucial?
Jamil Oh, God, it’s been everything. Chris Baldwin of 401 Main Well, for us, we just wanted to be a bar with good food initially. But for the last two years, I had to expand the outside and make it more viable so people can hang outside.
Jamil You did a great job, by the way. I’m very impressed. 58
chapelhillmagazine.com September/October 2022
Chris Thank you. And so we made it more of a restaurant with a good bar. We’re having so much in flux in the kitchen with all the guys who … want more money, but they want to do less. The front-ofhouse [staff] is great. My son, Evan Demarr, keeps going, ‘Dad, let’s just rotate food trucks and get rid of the kitchen.’
Greg Overbeck of Chapel Hill Restaurant Group Interesting.
Suzie tower of Jujube The patio seating has been big for us. We have a lot of people who will make a reservation or call and request for the patio, and if it’s not available, they’ll come in for another day – still. So we’ve been trying to work with Glen Lennox and expand it, and thankfully, during the pandemic they allowed us to seat on the sidewalk. They’re still allowing that to happen. So in the fall, when it starts to pick up, we have heaters and seats up in the front and then extended more toward the back outside of the covered area. I don’t think Jujube would have survived if it wasn’t for the outdoor seating.
Greg At
Squid’s, we have a good-sized patio there. At 411 West, we were able to go onto the street, and that helped a lot. I ended up getting some tables from the Chapel Hill Tennis Club. I think the Chamber told me about that. … We depended on to-go [orders] at the beginning. In Chapel Hill, things were really tough for a while, but we did a lot of to-go at Squid’s and 411 West. Out in RTP, where [in