Food halls were built to bring people together. They must regroup for a changed future.
Food halls were built as the ultimate gathering spaces, large sprawling buildings, often reclaimed from the past, and filled with vendors and communal tables meant to bring the various tastes and preferences of diners together.
For now, though, gathering is problematic.
The Durham Food Hall didn’t get its champagne-smashing grand opening, but is nonetheless open. Nine vendors plus the bar are up and running, doing mostly online orders, with limited hours. Still, there are often sellouts. And on Saturday mornings, with Durham’s popular Farmers’ Market drawing a few hundred shoppers, people line the sidewalk outside the food hall placing orders on their phones.
“It’s not what we had hoped for,” said Joel Schroeter of Old North Meats & Provisions, of opening during the coronavirus. “It’s been weird. It’s been encouraging.”
Schroeter is a fine dining alum of Raleigh’s Mandolin restaurant, but left nearly two years ago to start Old North Meats as a sandwich and charcuterie shop. It’s the kind of passion project food halls tend to showcase, the creativity of a food truck but in a brick-and-mortar space.
Father’s Day was the first day where Schroeter felt slammed, he said, as Old North Meats prepared housemade sausages for grilling and sold sandwiches and snacks. Foot traffic is a future luxury that Schroeter hopes to count on one day.
“The fun part isn’t gone,” Schroeter said. “This is the situation we’re in. We have to do it. So you lean into it and try to enjoy it.”
Food hall changes
Touchless transactions, capacity limits, widespread mask wearing and open spaces are the updates food halls have made to mitigate health risks. But what about the question of being comfortable inside a space for more than a moment. Schroeter said only time can tackle that one.
“It’s just a matter of people getting comfortable going to restaurants at all,” Schroeter said. “Until then we’ll keep working on getting the name out there.”
Lula & Sadie’s, a Southern food concept from Durham chef Harry S. Monds, is the only vendor open seven days a week right now at the Durham Food Hall. Of all the vendors, his is probably the one most impacted by the shift to takeout, with a menu of composed dishes like beef short ribs, bacon-wrapped meatloaf and chicken and dumplings.
Monds said he was skeptical about opening up now, but that he feels encouraged by the response.
“What we do was meant for plates, plain and simple,” Monds said. “(Takeout) was a tough pill to swallow. But oddly enough we’ve transitioned to making it work in the vein we’re doing now.”
The private events industry has been hurting even worse than restaurants, as catered parties and weddings have seen three months of cancellations and face a short-term future of small gatherings.
The Durham Food Hall has the facility’s liquor license, so it was counting on alcohol sales and private events even more than the vendors. Durham Food Hall owner Adair Mueller estimates losses at 50% to 60% for the food hall itself.
“That definitely has impacted the health of the hall,” Mueller said.
Mueller doesn’t have a timeline for when the Durham Food Hall will open up for dine-in, but said she’ll start renting out the upstairs events space and lounge soon for small groups.
Each of the Triangle’s food halls proved to be complex projects to get off the ground, facing construction delays, health inspections and now the coronavirus. Mueller spent two years getting the hall open. Now she said she’s trying to hold on, seeing crowds in the hundreds when she was expecting thousands.
“We just have to wait this period out,” Mueller said. “Nobody is going to be profiting, we’re all just trying to cover our costs. ... I was thinking this was the light at the end of the tunnel, but then the tunnel extended.”
Johnston County’s first food hall
In Selma, the Old North State Food Hall planned to open this spring in the former JR’s Cigar Warehouse along Interstate 95. The pandemic ground progress to a halt, and some investors stepped back, general manager Larry Lane said. But the break allows the food hall to build in the changes forced by the pandemic, instead of pivoting.
“It was actually a good thing,” Lane said. “It gave us the opportunity to step back and redesign some elements.”
Lane projects the Old North State Food Hall to open in early to mid-November.
The project is still booking vendors, announcing its latest signing, Luna Pizza Cafe out of Greenvlle.
Luna, founded by Richard Williams and John Jefferson, will serve Neapolitan-style pizzas and Italian entrees.
Other vendors include Boulevard Coffee and Barley & Burger. Redneck BBQ Lab, a popular Johnston County barbecue joint, is no longer part of the project, Lane said, after being unable to work out a deal.
Lane expects touchless transactions to outlast the pandemic.
“Maybe it’s not ever going to go back to the way it was,” Lane said. “This is a blessing and a curse for us. We believe the draw is still going to be great food and celebrating North Carolina. We’re trying to make it more functional now.”
Raleigh reopens its food halls
After months of running on takeout, Raleigh’s food halls are both open for dine-in, with Morgan Street Food Hall in the Warehouse District opening up when North Carolina moved into Phase Two last month and Transfer Company waiting a week before opening its doors. The decisions to open up the food halls make Morgan Street and Transfer Co. among the largest restaurants currently operating.
Nick Neptune, general manager for Transfer Co., said that space is an asset.
“The majority of the public has been cooped up for two or three months now,” Neptune said. “We have 16,000 square feet of space. Plenty of space for people to move around.”
The push for businesses to open up, even as North Carolina’s coronavirus numbers trend upward, has largely been an economic one. The list of permanently closed restaurants and bars continues to grow, with more expected before the pandemic subsides. But Neptune said takeout wasn’t enough for a different reason, that humans are missing the community they find when going out.
“Human beings are social creatures,” Neptune said. “We all appreciate human connection. People want to be back and celebrate with each other. I think that’s a reflection of what we see in the protests and demonstrations, thousands of people in the streets, not just in this country but around the world.”
This story was originally published June 24, 2020 at 8:00 AM with the headline "Food halls were built to bring people together. They must regroup for a changed future.."
