bites of bull city
AMBER WATSON IS THE CREATOR AND WRITER OF THE LOCAL
A Second Wind for the Food Scene B Y A M B E R WAT S ON
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DURHAM FOOD AND RESTAURANT NEWS BLOG, BITES OF BULL CITY (BITESOFBULLCITY.COM).
T’S EVIDENT BY THE NUMBER OF CRANES dotting Durham’s landscape that our city is in the middle of a major growth spurt, and it’s not just builders and investors who view this as prime time for new opportunity. The fact that we have seen several well-known restaurants expand and open up a second (sometimes third!) location in recent months shows that now is the time for many in the local food industry to catch their second wind. Ten years since opening Scratch Bakery downtown, award-winning pastry chef Phoebe Lawless opened her first full-scale restaurant, The Lakewood, last spring in the expanding neighborhood of the same name (which also recently welcomed the third Cocoa Cinnamon location and a new thrift store component of The Scrap Exchange). As Phoebe planned out the new space, she knew it would make an ideal spot to include a second version of the bakery, and so, “Baby Scratch” was born. In that same vicinity, Wendy Woods, longtime resident of the city’s West End and owner of Nosh, made good on a dream to open a fun and friendly eatery in her neighborhood, renovating an old gas station across from the Durham Co-Op Market and turning it into a modern diner called GRUB. After five years of operating out of his popular seafood shack on Mangum Street, Chef Ricky Moore also opened a second Saltbox Seafood Joint location in December, inside the former Shrimp Boats restaurant on Durham-Chapel Hill Boulevard. As popularity for his lightly battered and fried, fresh North Carolina fish grew, so did the line and the wait times. By taking the opportunity to open an additional location – a more traditional restaurant complete with inside seating – Ricky expanded his service to a growing base of customers.
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