Serving its last 'cue

DURHAM -- An institution since 1953, Dillard'sBar-B-Q Seafood will close at the end of business Friday, its owner announced Wednesday.

"I was shocked," Durham Mayor Bill Bell said.

The mayor said he got the news when he stopped in for something to eat on his way to the office. Others in town heard as the word went out over neighborhood e-mail lists. Just before lunchtime, the Durham Convention and Visitors Bureau issued a statement confirming that the "Durham stronghold" would serve no more.

"The economy," said owner Wilma Dillard, when asked her reason for closing.

Dillard has run the family business since its founder, her father, the late Sam Dillard, retired in 1995. The restaurant, at the intersection of Fayetteville and Riddle roads in southern Durham, is renowned in town and farther afield: Food Network cook Rachael Ray once said the barbecue was "amazing."

A comment on an Internet review site begins, "Asking if Dillard's is tasty is a bit like asking if Lindsay Lohan has bad judgment."

In a normal week, the restaurant sold 200 to 250 pounds of barbecue. Besides chopped pork barbecue, the cafeteria-style restaurant has been a popular stop for ribs, pork chops, fried fish and chicken and vegetables cooked Southern style - or, nowadays, pork-free.

"I ate their barbecue. I ate their ribs. It was just a real family-type place," said Bell, who described himself as "probably a country boy at heart."

In 2006, Dillard was one of nine Durham chefs the visitors bureau honored for their "remarkable contributions to preserve and foster Durham's sense of place and its creative, genuine and original identity." The others recognized included fellow barbecue chef Tommy Bullock as well as such stars of the city's food scene as the Magnolia Grill's Ben and Karen Barker, Sara Foster of Foster's Market and George Bakatsias of Cafe Parizade and other well-known establishments of haute cuisine.

"We are ... sad about the closing of one of Durham's beloved institutions," said visitors bureau President Shelly Green.

Durham's rise as an eclectic food mecca may have contributed to Dillard's hard times, Bell said.

"I can understand the pressures," he said. "People have so many choices, and that probably had something to do with it."

Green said she plans to be at Dillard's for the last day with Dillard and her staff.

"Definitely," she said, "to extend my thanks. They are special folks."