First pandemic, then vandalism. Yet Raleigh restaurants remain hopeful amid repairs.
With plywood on the windows, Big Ed’s opened its dining room for breakfast Tuesday in Raleigh’s City Market. It was the ninth service since North Carolina reopened its restaurants and the first since protests in Raleigh escalated into vandalism, amid tear gas and rubber bullets from police. The windows of Big Ed’s weren’t damaged, but the plywood was put up all the same.
“It feels quieter whenever you poke your head out,” said Sam Hobgood, whose parents own Big Ed’s and who is the kitchen manager of the City Market location. “We were saying it feels like we’re the only place open.”
For four straight nights, protests have been held in Raleigh against police brutality toward African Americans, a movement sparked by the death of George Floyd while pinned down by a Minneapolis police officer. Monday and Tuesday protests ended without incident after Raleigh imposed a curfew. The peaceful protests over the weekend broke down into rioting, including damaged buildings and businesses.
The unrest of the last week compounds an already volatile America reeling with the public health crisis of the coronavirus, which has killed nearly 1,000 in North Carolina and more than 100,000 nationwide. Efforts to control that disease have shut down restaurants and businesses, leading to job losses in the millions and a teetering economy.
“We’ve been protecting our business for two months,” Hobgood said. “We’ve done everything we can behind the scenes to make sure we could turn on the lights at the end of the stay-at-home order. Then in a matter of an hour it all changed.”
Very disappointing
The majority of the damage occurred on Saturday night, as many businesses boarded up their window the next morning, broken or not.
Plaza Cafe owner Darvir Ahluwalia said he saw on his security system as people broke into his downtown restaurant around midnight Saturday. They smashed windows and televisions and broke into the cash register.
“It was like watching it on TV, but it’s your own business,” Ahluwalia said. “It was very disappointing.”
Plaza Cafe recently reopened after being closed for two months. Located on Fayetteville Street and only open for breakfast and lunch, the restaurant depends on downtown Raleigh lunch traffic, but has been non-existent since early March. Surviving became even harder, he said.
“I’m all for the peaceful protest, but I think there were some who used the opportunity to cause destruction and that took away from the message others hoped to convey,” Ahluwalia said. “The community really came together to help us with the cleanup effort and (were) generous with their time and effort.”
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Full of life and love
By the time Jeff Seizer got to his Raleigh restaurant Royale on Sunday morning, people he didn’t know were already putting up plywood where the windows used to be.
“I was feeling really hopeless,” Seizer said. “But this morning, it’s a day full of life and love. ... If Royale needed to get smashed up and downtown Raleigh needed to get smashed up for a larger cause, so be it.”
At Royale, Seizer expects to serve food this week. The kitchen was untouched and the dining room hadn’t reopened, so in one sense, not much had changed.
“We’re in the middle of a pandemic, and we’ve already reopened once,” Seizer said. “We’ll reopen again. There’s nothing to do but keep going. You just go and find out how resilient you are. ... It’s a testament to humans. To go through something like a global pandemic, and now riots and to still get in the streets and help out one another. I’m awestruck.”
Seizer is organizing a plan in downtown Raleigh to turn all the fresh plywood into murals.
“I can’t sit by and let this darkness take over,” Seizer said. “If you’re an artist sitting at home, come paint a mural. Post a picture of your grandmother you haven’t seen in two months. Post George Floyd. Post Martin Luther King Jr. Let’s fill our town with something special.”
Crisis of the day
A mural has already started at Garland restaurant, as plywood is covered with flowers and protest phrases.
Due to the coronavirus, Garland had been closed for more than two months, but recently reopened for pre-made family meals to go. After Saturday night, Garland was intact, compared to many other restaurants downtown, with only one hole from a brick. On Sunday, the restaurant was protected with plywood.
“It’s all we can do now, whatever crisis the day brings, we’ll figure it out,” said Raleigh restaurant owner Cheetie Kumar, who owns Garland with husband Paul Siler. “The country’s in a volatile place, and it seems prudent to be cautious.”
While the rioting and property damage complicates an already existential moment for Raleigh’s restaurant community, Kumar said it’s important to keep space for the issues being raised by the weekend’s protests and that lives are more valuable than property.
“We’re not the ones affected day to day, it’s not our reality to live in fear,” Kumar said.
On Monday, Raleigh Provisions owner Kim Hammer cleaned up her shop for the second morning in a row. Compared to the day before, things were better. Raleigh Provisions still smelled like stale beer, which had been smashed by looters, she said, but this time no one made it inside.
“All this stuff around me is just stuff,” Hammer said. “I’m having a hard time dealing with the small details like insurance and repairs and all of those things. I need time, I need a break. It’s a lot to absorb what’s happening in our community.”
Food and comfort
Hammer also owns the dessert bar Bittersweet and the bar Johnson Street Yacht Club. Separate from the financial toll the shutdown has had on the restaurants, Hammer said their absence is felt now more than ever.
“This is the perfect time for people to be gathering together and talking about what’s happening,” Hammer said. “We can’t have a proper town hall right now. We’re all frustrated.”
While plywood remains on windows and restaurants and the future of dining rooms uncertain, Kumar said restaurants hope to be places of healing, even if they’re hurting right now.
“Food and comfort are going to be necessary,” Kumar said. “It always is and we’ll be ready.”
This story was originally published June 3, 2020 at 12:00 AM with the headline "First pandemic, then vandalism. Yet Raleigh restaurants remain hopeful amid repairs.."
