A great Raleigh restaurant will close this month. Here’s the last day to get a smashburger
At the end of this month, one of Raleigh’s promising new restaurants will close.
The pandemic-born restaurant Fine Folk announced this week that October will be its last month of service. In an Instagram post, the restaurant thanked its supporters over its two-year run and encouraged people to support their local restaurants.
“It’s not the post we want to be making but here it is. This October will be our last month of service. From the jump Fine Folk has been through the toughest of times, and this summer was among the biggest hardships we’ve faced. Go out, support your local businesses. Support your friends,” the post read.
Fine Folk is the brainchild of chef and owner Christopher Lopez, who first launched the seed that became the restaurant as a pandemic pivot, serving smashburgers out of the former Postmaster in Cary where he used to work. Dubbed Gov’t Cheeseburger, that pandemic concept held residencies around Raleigh before finally evolving into the sit-down Americana joint Fine Folk.
“Words cannot express our gratitude to those who have stuck with us over the past three years. through all our locations, menus, concepts, and wild ideas,” the restaurant posted on its Instagram page. “Thank you. We set out to create a space that we could be proud of- that Raleigh could be proud of- and we did just that.stay tuned for details regarding our last hurrah. Goin’ out on our own terms, with style.”
Lopez co-owned and operated Fine Folk with his wife, the baker and pastry chef Maria Luna, formerly of Union Special Bread and business partner Andrew Ullom, owner of Union Special Bread.
Opened in April 2022 in Gateway Plaza, Fine Folk aimed for a kind of casual and irreverent elegance built around takes on the American restaurant canon. There was a Caesar wedge salad with the head of romaine kept mostly whole as it was dressed and topped with bread crumbs and banana peppers. There was a stroganoff and steak frites and the famous two-patty smashburger that launched the brand in the first place.
Fine Folk will be open through the end of October. The restaurant’s last day is scheduled to be Monday, Oct. 30.
This story was originally published October 13, 2023 at 8:21 AM with the headline "A great Raleigh restaurant will close this month. Here’s the last day to get a smashburger."
