Students to run pop-up restaurant in downtown Raleigh

For three weeks in August, a restaurant in downtown Raleigh will give people the chance to enjoy artisan sandwiches, salads, beers and desserts made with ingredients from other local restaurants, breweries and farms.

In that short time, the place will also serve as an opportunity to learn and develop partnerships.

Mike Santos, a personal chef, former restaurant owner and part-time teacher, is teaming up with Raleigh restaurant owner Jon Seelbinder to open Linus & Pepper’s, a pop-up sandwich shop in a downstairs area of Seelbinder’s Level Up Restaurant + Barcadium.

The temporary eatery will give Santos a chance to teach his students from The Chef’s Academy in Morrisville how to open and operate a small restaurant, and at the same time give Seelbinder a chance to test those food creations on the public.

“Mike has created the menu and basically is treating this like a school project,” said Kelly Stewart, marketing director for Seelbinder’s restaurant group. “He’s teaching (the students) to open, operate and run a cafe, and get some real life experience.”

Seelbinder plans to open a market and brew pub in about six months on the ground floor of the West at North condo complex in downtown Raleigh, and Linus & Pepper’s will be a trial of sorts for what makes it on the menu there.

“Downtown is lacking a fun little sandwich shop,” she said. “We are hoping this menu will be a test for (Seelbinder’s) market.”

Linus & Pepper’s is also partnering with local places such as lucettegrace, Yellow Dog Bread Co., Big Boss Brewing Company, Endless Sun Produce and Raleigh City Farm.

The pop-up will get its lettuce and produce from Endless Sun and Raleigh City Farm and breads and desserts will come from Yellow Dog and lucettegrace. The place will use premium meats from Metro Deli that will be smoked in-house and include a peppercorn brown sugar rub ham and a roasted pork belly with a Kansas City dry rub.

Its sandwiches will range from a smoked Gouda Monte Cristo ciabatta panini and a pepper jelly pimento cheese BLT to a pork belly Cuban ciabatta panini and shrimp salad on a croissant.

Desserts include a warm chocolate banana beignet, which is a croissant stuffed with Nutella and bananas, then heated on a panini grill, and a selection from lucettegrace and Yellow Dog that is expected to rotate daily.

The pop-up will carry beer from Big Boss and other North Carolina breweries, and customers can purchase liquor drinks from Level Up.

Food prices will range from about $8 to about $13.

The “grab-and-go” restaurant will have a few tables inside and potentially a couple on the sidewalk in front of the building.

Linus & Pepper’s will be in the tiny South Salisbury Street space once occupied by a Subway, and plans to operate from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. seven days a week until it closes Aug. 24, Stewart said.

That closing date could be pushed back depending on Seelbinder’s construction plans for Level Up. He’s expected to start renovating part of the restaurant, including tearing down a wall that separates Linus & Pepper’s from the rest of the downstairs space, about four weeks after the pop-up opens, Stewart said.

“Construction can get delayed,” she said. “If (the restaurant is) going well and they’re not ready to start (with the construction), then they can extend it.”

Linus & Pepper’s will be at 126 S. Salisbury St.

SkyHouse Raleigh, the downtown Raleigh apartment building that opened in May, has filled its three retail spaces .

Provenance, a 2,225-square-foot restaurant owned by chef Teddy Klopf, will have a changing menu that will focus on North Carolina farmers, producers and food. It’s expected to open in mid-November. Taz Zarka, the owner of convenience and wine stores in downtown Raleigh, is opening the 2,430-square-foot Oak City Market in January. Larry’s Beans coffee company is opening an 828-square-foot retail store in the first quarter of 2016.

SkyHouse Raleigh is at the corner of East Martin and South Blount streets.

Habitat for Humanity of Wake County’s ReStore has opened in Wake Forest. The 9,600-square-foot store offers new and used furniture, building materials, appliances and other goods. The store is at 12253 Capital Blvd. in the Market at Wake Forest shopping center. It will have a grand opening Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. with a ribbon cutting at 10 a.m. This is Habitat’s fifth ReStore in Wake County; the others are in Raleigh, Cary, Apex and Fuquay-Varina.

Harris Teeter at the Pointe at Creedmoor shopping center in North Raleigh is opening with a ribbon cutting at 8 a.m. Aug. 12. The 24-hour, 49,000-square-foot grocery store will include a Starbucks along with a hot Asian food bar, floral department, sub shop and pharmacy. It’s at 2051 W. Millbrook Road.

This story was originally published July 30, 2015 at 7:29 PM with the headline "Students to run pop-up restaurant in downtown Raleigh."