Pandemic pivot: How these 12 Triangle restaurants changed their concepts to survive
The pandemic pause has become the pandemic pivot for many restaurants in the Triangle, forced to innovate and evolve to meet a crisis.
A cocktail bar became a burger joint, a taqueria switched to burritos, fancy cocktails became boozy snowcones, a five-decade-old bar hopped on the bottle shop trend.
Necessity leading to invention is a romantic way of talking about what happens when your back is against a wall. Local restaurants have had to survive on takeout and limited dining rooms in efforts to slow the coronavirus. Some have closed and have yet to reopen, while others have become pandemic pop-ups, pausing their usual operations to create something new.
The only pandemic trend is trying to make it to the other side.
“This is the moment for restaurants,” said Durham chef Matt Kelly of St. James Seafood and Mateo. “They’re not trying to create content, they’re trying to keep their businesses alive.”
Here are a dozen notable pivots in the Triangle restaurant community, concepts made for this moment, that exist for no other reason than a pandemic. All are outdoor or for online ordering and each brings something we’re all missing: fun.
Mateo
Though it’s perhaps the most famous of all Spanish dishes, paella rarely makes it to the menu of tapas restaurant Mateo in Durham. In its pandemic form, paella is the centerpiece. Now open for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic, Mateo is putting paella in a pizza box. Acknowledging that you’re likely ordering for a crowd these days, the paellas feed two to four people, with traditional versions, including mussels, shrimp and squid, and a Southern nod, made with smoked pork ribs and Alabama white sauce.
Jimmy’s Dockside
Saint James, Kelly’s seafood spot, has known some stormy seas. It closed for nearly a year following Durham’s gas explosion, reopening in January, only to be hit by the pandemic two months later. Kelly has paused the Saint James name and reopened for takeout as Jimmy’s Dockside, shelving more delicate dishes like ceviche and squid ink pasta, and going heavy on the fried seafood we all crave right now. They’re sticking with Calabash-style platters, buckets of fried chicken, po boys and plenty of Old Bay fries. If it hadn’t been for the pandemic, Kelly probably wouldn’t have thought to vacuum-seal oysters. But here we are, and it works.
Govt. Cheeseburger
This is the granddaddy of all pandemic pivots in the Triangle. The Postmaster in Cary put a pause on its concept early in the pandemic and immediately started griddling burgers. Six months in, Govt. Cheeseburger is one of the few success stories of 2020.
Alley 26
This Durham restaurant and cocktail bar still hasn’t opened its doors, but it does have a spacious alley that it recently opened up Wednesday though Sunday. On weekends, it’s Alley Freeze Over, where the restaurant shelves its drink menu and serves a half-dozen frozen cocktails and another half-dozen boozy snow-cones.
Videri
The famous Raleigh chocolate shop has pivoted to soft-serve ice cream. Knowing folks are less inclined to step indoors right now, Videri added a soft-serve window to its Warehouse District headquarters, serving chocolate and vanilla cones. But why would you go to a chocolate shop to get vanilla?
Queen Burger
In August, Kingfisher owners Sean Umstead and Michelle Vanderwalker converted a concrete patio into a backyard burger bonanza. Bars are still closed in North Carolina, and Kingfisher’s intimate basement space isn’t the most COVID-19-friendly, but outside, diners line up Thursday through Sunday for griddled burgers, housemade veggie burgers and pre-bottled cocktails.
Hillsborough Bakeshop
The acclaimed Hillsborough restaurant Panciuto has been closed since the beginning of the pandemic. According to a note on its website, it vows to reopen, just not anytime soon. In the meantime, chef Aaron Vandemark has launched Hillsborough Bakeshop in Panciuto’s place, a once-a-week, order-ahead online bakery. The shop launches Sept. 12, but is already sold out of its first run. With opening weekend options like blueberry blue cheese tart, olive and tomato foccacia and blackberry jam danishes, there will be plenty to look forward to each week.
Spice Route Kitchen
Cheeni, the chai, coffee and toast shop in the lobby of the Fayetteville Street YMCA, recently reopened. While Cheeni was still closed, owner Preeti Waas started Spice Route Kitchen in July, a kind of Etsy shop for home cooks, serving up a menu of Indian, Asian and Caribbean dishes that changes each week. Waas has partnered with accomplished home cooks and chefs around the Triangle, offering her storefront as a pick-up spot while they create the menu.
Otoño
Starting Sept. 11, Durham’s modern diner Jack Tar will become the outdoor pop-up Otoño, a blend of Northern Mexico and Tex-Mex dishes, using Southern ingredients. Jack Tar’s double cheeseburger and Szechuan hot chicken will stay on the menu, joined by blue corn tamales, chile rellenos and vegan pambazos with mushroom “chorizo.” Jack Tar has been offering takeout for a few weeks, but with the pop-up, will move around 10 tables into the patio in front of the restaurant.
With the patio comes cocktails, including the Aperol margarita from sister restaurant Pizzeria Toro. Owner Gray Brooks has tasked “Chopped” winner and Pizzeria Toro chef de cuisine Marla Thurman to lead Otoño, which will be open Wednesday through Sunday for dinner and weekend brunch, whenever the weather’s clear. All profits from the pop-up will go to Durham Urban Ministries.
ACR at NCMA
In North Carolina’s Phase 2.5, the N.C. Museum of Art is able to reopen for the first time since the pandemic. But since July, Raleigh chef Ashley Christensen has given diners a reason to head to the museum’s Jim Goodnight Park. ACR at the Park is an outdoor cafe serving up breakfast and lunch for visitors looking to picnic on the grounds of the museum. The dining rooms of Christensen’s downtown Raleigh restaurants remain closed, with Beasley’s, Poole’s Diner and Poole’side Pie’s offering to-go orders. But with the park cafe, you can stay outdoors and eat pimento cheese among sculptures.
He’s Not Here
The famous UNC-Chapel Hill bar has rebranded temporarily as the “Home of the Blue Cup Bottle Shop,” in an effort to make up lost revenue with to-go beer sales. The nearly 50-year-old bar doesn’t serve liquor, so it’s also able to operate at half-capacity under North Carolina’s reopening guidelines, but He’s Not Here is capping its guests at 20% and keeping everyone outside.
Burrito Bodega
The long-awaited taqueria Ex-Voto, from Centro’s Angela Salamanca and Marshall Davis, still hasn’t opened in the way that it planned. The Durham Food Hall vendor has instead pivoted to burritos, betting that foil-wrapped tortilla bombs travel better than tacos. It’s a bet that appears to be winning, with burrito fillings like braised short ribs, smoked carnitas and roast chicken, and weekend breakfast burritos stuffed with scrambled eggs, cheese, chorizo and hashbrowns. Burritos can be sealed shut with griddled melted cheese, and if the fancy Crunchwrap Supreme is on the menu, don’t sleep on it.
This story was originally published September 11, 2020 at 8:00 AM.
