Another cherished Chapel Hill restaurant says goodbye amid the ongoing pandemic
In yet another loss for the heart of Franklin Street, Ye Olde Waffle Shoppe has permanently closed after nearly a half-century in the breakfast business.
The restaurant’s owners, mother and daughter Linda Chris and Melissa Peng, announced the closing on the Ye Old Waffle Shoppe website, attributing the end of the business to COVID-19 losses and the ongoing pandemic.
“It is hard to imagine waking up in the morning and not heading over to Ye Olde to prepare breakfast for the town of Chapel Hill, as it has been our norm for over 48 years,” the message read on the Ye Olde Waffle Shoppe website. “However, from a public health perspective and due to the ongoing challenges of the pandemic, it is the right choice for us. We will miss seeing our dedicated staff, loyal customers, and cherished community members. Much love to all who have supported us over the years as we will hold dear the memories made together.”
Ye Olde Waffle Shoppe had been completely closed since the beginning of the pandemic, when North Carolina shut down restaurant dining rooms on March 17. Since then, many restaurants have survived on takeout, limited indoor and outdoor dining and other pandemic pivots, but Ye Olde Waffle Shoppe had not been able to reopen.
In April, Peng started a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for laid-off restaurant employees, saying that Ye Olde Waffle Shoppe had not been approved for any small business loans. That campaign is now closed, but raised more than $7,000. In an update message in August, Peng said the layout of its kitchen made it impossible to safely operate the restaurant during the pandemic and that it would remain closed.
“What is Ye Olde Waffle Shoppe if you can’t experience walking inside, saying hello, and seeing your food be cooked in front of you?” Peng said in August. “The openness and narrowness of our kitchen makes it impossible to practice social distancing and safely serve others in the current circumstances.”
Generations of UNC students dined there
The name Ye Olde Waffle Shoppe befits an institution that’s fed generations of UNC-Chapel Hill students seemingly forever, fueling game days and soothing late nights with comforting morning breakfast fare.
Founding owner Jimmy Chris opened Ye Olde Waffle Shoppe in 1972, built on Franklin Street with materials used from the Greek Orthodox Church where he and his wife, Linda, were married. When Chris died in 2012, his wife and daughter continued running the restaurant.
In the hours after the closing announcement, Peng said restaurant fans from over the decades reached out to share their love of Ye Old Waffle Shoppe. Peng grew up in the restaurant, she said, doing every job imaginable within its walls, before eventually carrying on its legacy.
“You do it for a feeling, you do it for a community,” Peng said. “This has always been a community space for folks, for interactions one on one. We’ve been trying to hold out for as long as we could.”
Peng said takeout wouldn’t have worked for Ye Olde Waffle Shoppe and would have been at odds with what kept the restaurant going for decades, through the ebbs and flows of Franklin Street.
“Our business model is intimacy, it’s immediacy, it’s feeding people on the spot,” Peng said. “We’ve never really thrived on takeout. We’re right on Franklin Street and rely on people popping in and having a bite.”
The COVID-19 pandemic has posed an existential threat to the restaurant industry, as the Triangle has already lost dozens of beloved businesses. In a college town like Chapel Hill, students were sent home after the first week of classes amid multiple coronavirus outbreaks.
Changes on Franklin Street
Franklin Street had been experiencing a larger shift as heightened development activity led to the closing of a number of decades-old restaurants.
The Chris family owns the Ye Olde Waffle Shoppe space, so they’ll shift from restaurant owners to landlords. Peng said the restaurant felt the competition of modern day Franklin Street, but was busy until the beginning of the pandemic. For the next chapter of the space, Peng and Chris said they would like to hand it off to another future institution.
“We’d like to see something that can thrive and be cherished in the way that we were,” Peng said.
This story was originally published December 1, 2020 at 3:57 PM.
