Cary’s Fenton development bets big on food. It just nabbed a downtown Raleigh bar.
With a Wegmans grocery store as its anchor and new restaurants from some of the Triangle’s most popular chefs, Cary’s Fenton development looks to make dining out a centerpiece of the $850 million project.
The newest piece of that puzzle is the popular Raleigh cocktail bar Dram & Draught, which will open a new location in Fenton, joining Scott Crawford’s Crawford Brothers Steakhouse and Michael Lee’s M Sushi as notable local additions to the 69-acre development.
“(Fenton is) going to change the whole dynamics of the Triangle, and we want to be part of it,” said Dram & Draught co-owner Kevin Barrett. “What sold me was Scott Crawford and Mike Lee. I’m a big fan of both of those guys, they’re friends in the industry. When I found out those guys were going over there, I wanted to be in the same development as them.”
Owned by Drew Schenck and Kevin Barrett, Dram & Draught opened in Raleigh in 2016 and has been at the forefront of the Triangle’s cocktail bar boom. Their whiskey menu numbers in the hundreds of bottles and includes antique pours of bourbon from the 1950s and other rare bottles. Dram & Draught added a Greensboro location in 2018 and plans to open a recently completed Durham location this year once COVID restrictions are eased.
“We’re very excited to have something like this in Cary again,” said Schenck, who has lived in Cary since the mid-90s and said he’s seen its malls come and go.
The appeal of a rooftop bar
The Fenton Dram & Draught will be a mostly glass, standalone building in the middle of the development, Schenck said, with 1,500 square feet of space on the first level, plus an outdoor patio, and another 1,200 square-foot covered rooftop with its own bar and seating. It will also be the first Dram & Draught to offer food.
A rooftop bar, Schenck said, had eluded Dram & Draught at its other locations and was one of the reasons the pair wanted to join Fenton.
“People want to sit out on a rooftop bar,” Schenck said. “Kevin and I always wanted a rooftop bar and here it’s right in the center of everything. ... We’re the first ones to have one of these jewel boxes, we’re right near the Fenton Hotel. As far as we’re concerned, they’re building Fenton around us.”
Planning to open in spring 2022, Fenton’s first wave will include several highly-anticipated restaurants. Beyond Crawford and Lee, Atlanta celebrity chef Ford Fry will open the northern-most location of his Tex-Mex restaurant group, Superica, which has locations in Charlotte. Italian restaurant Colletta, part of the Charleston-based Indigo Road Hospitality Group, which opened O-Ku Sushi and Oak Steakhouse in Raleigh, will also open in Fenton.
“What makes a bar is not the drinks we provide, but the clientele; we’re first and foremost a neighborhood bar,” Schenck said. “We want to serve excellent cocktails and world class whiskey, but the people that come in are the biggest part of what it means to be a neighborhood bar.”
The neighborhood around Fenton changed last year when Cary-based Epic Games announced it would turn the Cary Town Center into its new headquarters. With Fenton located right across the street, Dram & Draught’s owners aim to be the neighborhood bar of a tech giant.
“We knew something was happening with that property, but the fact that Epic is there is awesome,” Barrett said. “To get lucky, you’ve got to take some chances.”
Fenton is owned by real estate firm Hines and real estate developer Columbia Development. The project will include a 357 apartment building, two hotels and more than a half million square feet of retail and office space.
Betting on dining out to return
Director of leasing for Columbia Development, Dotan Zuckerman, said Fenton’s restaurant and retail space is 80% leased and that for its remaining spaces they’ll pursue clothing and fast casual restaurants. The project broke ground late last year, and Zuckerman said construction should be completed by the end of 2021 and handed over to tenants.
The pandemic pushed Fenton’s opening back and led to the movie theater company Cinebistro pulling out amid its bankruptcy filing, to be replaced in the development by Paragon Theaters. Zuckerman said in recruiting tenants, it looked for local and regional chefs instead of larger chains.
“Food has become very, very important to us,” Zuckerman said. “In this day and age, you can pull up Amazon and order whatever you want and it will be delivered right to you. We have to create an experience on the property to get people to come.”
The ongoing COVID pandemic has crippled the nation’s restaurant industry, forcing most to shift to takeout models and limit in-person dining. Zuckerman said Fenton has added curbside pickup spaces to its plans, anticipating demand for takeout to remain high after the pandemic. But with food and drinks central to the nearly $1 billion development, Fenton is a bet that dining out will quickly regain its luster in the public eye.
Zuckerman said he believes there won’t be a long-lasting COVID hangover for restaurants.
“It’s my first worldwide pandemic, but I subscribe to the belief of pent-up demand,” Zuckerman said. “People have been stuck at home for so long, once it’s safe and everyone’s vaccinated, I believe people will be out and traveling and eating.”
This story was originally published February 18, 2021 at 8:00 AM.
