A major Cary restaurant closes in one of the Triangle’s favorite dining spaces
Opened five months before a global pandemic, the Cary restaurant ko.an has closed its doors for good after a nearly four-year run.
Following a summer break, the owners of ko.an announced this week that the upscale Asian restaurant in a SAS-owned building would not reopen. Owner Sean Degnan said he is still considering whether he will introduce a new concept in the space or move on entirely.
“We’re still talking about what we’ll do,” Degnan told The News & Observer in a phone interview. “We were coming out of a busy season and into the dead time of the summer. It made more sense to be closed than to be open.”
The closing of ko.an ends a Triangle restaurant trilogy for Degnan that started with the former global fusion restaurant bu.ku in downtown Raleigh and the Latin so.ca in the Village District, which closed in 2022. So.ca also had the distinction of being the first restaurant early in 2020 to be publicly associated with a diner who tested positive for COVID.
“Welcoming you into our spaces, these past 13 years, to celebrate life’s big events with food and drink and dessert from every corner of the globe, has been our greatest joy and honor,” read the final post on the ko.an Instagram page. “Whether our paths first crossed at bu•ku in downtown Raleigh, at so•ca in the Village District, or here at kō•än, in Cary (or any of the many spaces in between), we will forever miss this version of us. Whatever comes next will be very different.”
Just a few months after opening in the beloved former An Cuisines space off Weston Parkway, ko.an was forced to pivot into a few different way to stay open during the COVID pandemic.
Early on it was one of several restaurants that operated as small grocers, selling essentials to customers at a time when things like toilet paper and pantry staples were sometimes difficult to find. Then ko.an started a meal kit service, which The News & Observer dining critic Greg Cox wrote about in one of his pandemic columns.
Full service vs. fast-casual dining
Degnan said whatever his next restaurant project is, it will have to be different.
“With ko.an, we definitely had to pivot pretty early; it’s the only life it knew and was certainly a challenge right out of the gate,” Degnan said. “I think as you talk about restaurants going forward, the equation has changed. It doesn’t work the same as it used to. You need some other product to drive sales.”
Degnan believes restaurants need to offer subscription services or delivery or sell a takeout-ready product to compete in this post-COVID dining era.
“Full service versus fast-casual has always been a struggle, but one is definitely winning right now,” Degnan said.
Over the 13 years from the opening of bu.ku to the closing of ko.an, Degnan was part of a group of restaurateurs ushering in a more ambitious level of restaurants in the Triangle.
“We’re really proud of all three of our concepts and restaurants and the people that helped pull it off,” Degnan said.
“Whatever we do next will be very different than all three of them. When we were first getting started, downtown Raleigh was not a destination place, now I would say the whole Triangle is. And that’s not just us, it’s Ashley (Christensen) and Scott (Crawford) and Cheetie (Kumar) and Angela (Salamanca). It was fun to be among that list of places to go out to eat.”
This story was originally published July 18, 2023 at 2:35 PM.
