Southern restaurant Lula & Sadie’s is leaving the Durham Food Hall for its own spot
After two years in the Durham Food Hall, one of Durham’s Southern restaurants is expanding into its own space.
Next month, Lula & Sadie’s will move into the former Davis Baking Building in Durham’s Lakewood neighborhood. The space had been the much-lauded but short-lived restaurant The Lakewood, and a second location of the popular True Flavors Diner.
After decades in Durham’s restaurant industry and years running the food truck Bull City Street Food, chef Harry Monds lauched Lula & Sadie’s as his latest brick and mortar project, naming the Southern menu after his grandmothers.
That menu featured red beans and rice, baby back ribs, a burger topped with pimento cheese and sides like collard greens and mac and cheese. Brunch items featured a chicken and waffles made with red velvet waffles.
“We were always needing Lula & Sadie’s to be a sit down restaurant,” Monds said. “We had simply outgrown that space. The food hall was a wonderful experience, we were able to get our feet underneath us.”
‘I would do it again’
Lula & Sadie’s announced the move on its social media pages, calling the news “bittersweet.” The restaurant plans to reopen in the new space by the end of June. Its last day of service in the food hall will be May 22.
Monds said Lula & Sadie’s was initially conceived as a fine-dining restaurant, but the potential of the new food hall made him curious in trying to launch the restaurant there, even if it didn’t exactly fit the mold he had in mind.
“I was very intrigued by the food hall concept,” Monds said. “When we were approached, I liked the whole idea of what food halls are supposed to be, with different chefs and everyone doing something different. If I had to do it over again, I would do it again. It’s become a centerpiece of downtown.”
Historically known as the Davis Baking Company building, the space at 2022 Chapel Hill Road in Durham was renovated into Phoebe Lawless’ restaurant The Lakewood in 2017. It would close the next year, just before being named one of the country’s 50 best new restaurants of 2018 by Bon Appetit magazine.
Later, a second location of True Flavors Diner and its biscuit offshoot Debbie Lou’s was opened in the space, but both were closed in 2020 as restaurant became casualties to the pandemic.
The Lakewood neighborhood is home to several restaurants and cafes, including the coffee roaster Little Waves and a location of Cocoa Cinnamon, Honeysuckle at Lakewood and Azteca Grill. Much of the nearby Lakewood Shopping Center was bought in 2018 by Greenville’s BrodyCo, which at the time expressed plans to redevelop the area. Monds expects that potential for development was part of the attraction.
“You’ll see that be the next area to take off,” Monds said.
Rooftop patio
Monds said Lula & Sadie’s will serve a dining room of about 80 seats, plus the restaurant’s rooftop patio. That patio looks to host special food-centric weekend events, Monds said, and will be upgraded to handle all-season weather. A new bar will also be built downstairs.
Eventually, Monds said he will open a small casual restaurant in a companion space in the building, with a menu geared toward takeout and delivery, with a small outdoor space.
With the larger space, Monds believes Lula & Sadie’s will have more space to chase its creative whims.
“The team has to rein me in (at the food hall). I want to put new things on the menu constantly,” Monds said. “It will be the same menu (in Lakewood), but we’ll be a lot freer now to add specials. I’m really big on seasonal cooking and trying to keep things new and fresh and different.”
This story was originally published May 10, 2022 at 4:49 PM.
