Frazier’s, a longtime dining destination on Raleigh’s Hillsborough Street, closed Saturday.
Kevin Jennings, who opened Frazier’s with his wife, Stacey, 14 years ago, explained that the restaurant wasn’t doing as well after it underwent a renovation and changed to a wine bar.
Jennings said they sold Frazier’s to the owners of Klara’s, a Czech restaurant in Cary. (No word yet on their plans for the space.)
Frazier’s was the Jennings’ first restaurant. The Jennings, whose company is called Urban Food Group, also own Porter’s Tavern, Coquette, Chow and two locations of Vivace, one in Charlotte and the other in Raleigh.
Jennings said they plan to focus on opening locations of Vivace in Denver, Washington, D.C. and Durham. For the latter, they have had “initial talks” with the folks behind Diamond View III, a new complex at the Durham Bulls ballpark and the American Tobacco complex.
Italian ice on wheels in downtown Raleigh
The newest food cart to the hit the streets of downtown Raleigh is Sweet Water Ices, a New York Ice Co. It’s the work of two Long Island natives, Mike Beggen and Rich Conroy, both 30. They were visiting friends in Raleigh and noticed there was no place to get traditional Italian ice.
And so, Conroy says they thought: “Why don’t we just do our own?”
They have more than 30 flavors but only serve five flavors at a time from their food bike. Recent offerings included cherry, rainbow, lemon and orange. A small costs $2 and a large costs $3.
For those who don’t know, Italian ice is like a frozen slurpee made with real fruit juice and can be flecked with pieces of fruit. They squeeze fresh oranges for the orange ice. There are bits of real cherries in their cherry ice, which is their top seller. They don’t use syrup or any artificial flavors.
They are parked outside the First Citizens Bank building on Martin Street. They hope to have a second bike in downtown Raleigh starting in July.
Follow them on Twitter, @sweetwaterices or go to their Facebook page: facebook.com/swaterices/info.
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