A new all-day restaurant opens soon in Durham. A first look at Redstart Takeaway
As a meal delivery company, Redstart Foods imagines a world without restaurants.
Customers order from a weekly menu, choosing from dishes ranging from smoked chicken to barbecue sandwiches to bright herb salads, all of which are then delivered on Tuesdays. The kitchen table is the Redstart dining room.
So why is Redstart Foods opening its first restaurant, Redstart Takeaway? There are a lot of reasons, but perhaps top among them is that the space next door happened to become available.
“There was never really a plan for a Redstart restaurant, because it’s pretty much like the opposite of our current business model, you know?” said Matt Northrup, who co-owns Redstart Takeaway with wife Jordan Owens. “But it was just too hard to pass up one next door.”
Redstart Takeaway opens to the public on Monday, Sept. 2. The new restaurant and retail shop will open in the mornings for pastries, egg sandwiches and coffee, serve salads, bowls and sandwiches at lunch and run dinner services Friday and Saturday night.
The Takeaway dining room is one long wooden banquette with bright orange formica tables along one wall, flanked on the other side by a long bar with leather stools and a pastry case. Front windows will bathe a small retail shop with sunlight and the sights and sounds of Roxboro Road. Owens curated the retail shop, designed the interior of Takeaway and painted murals along the walls.
“I think all of the food at Redstart is pretty creative, a lot of it is a little bit weird in the best possible way, and I tried to bring that same energy into this space,” Owens said. “It’s a little bit offbeat but also really welcoming and comfortable.”
A neighborhood restaurant
Redstart Takeaway is a kind of time machine for Northrup and Owens, who used to live in nearby Northgate Park and wished a similar restaurant existed at the time.
“We’re excited to just have a restaurant in this neighborhood where you can order food and get drinks,” Owens said. “It’s really like a neighborhood spot.”
The food
The library of Redstart’s meal delivery dishes is vast, but Northrup said Takeaway will be a pared-down version. Expect in-house breads like English muffins for the signature breakfast sandwich, plus pastries either baked by Redstart or Union Special Bakery in Raleigh. Northrup is even making a proprietary American-ish cheese.
Takeaway offers something that could never be on a Redstart menu — immediacy.
“One of the challenges that I’ve witnessed from the outside is (Matt’s) always trying to figure out what he’s going to make that can be packaged and reheated,” Owens said. “And that’s always been kind of a limiting factor for Redstart dishes. He’ll create these beautiful, creative dishes, but everything’s getting packaged into cardboard boxes and put in people’s cars.”
That could mean menus with more seafood and eggs and warm crispy edges.
It also means that Redstart is going to meet its diners for the first time.
“The thing that’s funny about Redstart is we don’t have a ton of communication with our customers; it’s a no-contact system,” Northrup said. “So it’s going to be interesting to actually meet our customers, which I’m stoked about. I hope they’re stoked to meet me.”
Retail shop
The Takeaway retail shop is packed with gourmet goods and food-centric wares, from silver, fish-shaped lemon squeezers, to housemade hot sauces. There are many food-shaped candles, from tiny raspberries, to long spears of asparagus and baguette loaves. You’ll find tinned fish, olive oil and shelves of natural wines.
Outdoor patio and parking
Most of the parking for Redstart Takeaway is behind the restaurant, which means most people will enter through the back door, walking by a dozen wooden tables in a courtyard of pebbled gravel.
The hours
Redstart Takeaway will be open every day of the week, but the kitchen will be closed on Wednesdays and Thursdays. On those days, pastries and coffee will still be served and the space will still be available to hang. Regular hours will be 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., plus Friday and Saturday dinner services until 10 p.m.
Redstart Takeaway
2025 N. Roxboro St., Durham. redstartfoods.com/pages/takeaway
This story was originally published August 30, 2024 at 11:37 AM.
