The breakfast brand of a James Beard-winning chef is opening its first NC location
A James Beard-winning Southern chef is bringing his breakfast restaurant to the Triangle.
Big Bad Breakfast will open in Durham this spring as the brand’s first restaurant in North Carolina. Founded by Oxford, Miss., chef John Currence, Big Bad Breakfast specializes in the indulgent morning cravings.
The Durham Big Bad Breakfast has scheduled its grand opening for April 30. The space at 2608 Erwin Road was previously Another Broken Egg Cafe, which closed the location in 2020.
Currence is well acquainted with the Triangle, once living here as a UNC-Chapel Hill student and a cook at the famed Crook’s Corner. In the decades since, he’s grown to one of the South’s most celebrated chefs, earning the 2009 James Beard award for Best Chef: South for his restaurant City Grocery.
In 2008 Currence started Big Bad Breakfast as a tiny restaurant in downtown Oxford. Today there are more than 20 locations throughout the South.
The Durham location will be led by restaurant industry veteran and Durham native Jay Niemeyer, who will serve as general manager and is an operating partner.
Big Bad Breakfast menu
Niemeyer is a self-professed lover of breakfast foods, a meal he says he never misses.
“I love breakfast food and I know this high end breakfast food space,” said Niemeyer of buying into the Big Bad Breakfast brand. “We whip our butter, make our own jellies and make gravies every day from scratch. The food has a cult following.”
The menu includes favorites like fried baguette French toast and shrimp and grits, and bright spots like bruleed grapefruit. The biscuits are layered and buttery, Niemeyer said, rather than cake-like and fluffy.
Big Bad Breakfast argues that every day of the week is brunch-worthy and Niemeyer said the restaurant will have a menu of brunch cocktails, including a fresh-squeezed morning margarita and a lively Bloody Mary with 18 different ingredients.
With breakfast in the name, lunch could be an afterthought, but Niemeyer said Big Bad Breakfast will serve mid-day smashburgers and pickle-brined chicken sandwiches.
“It’s true, 75 percent of our business is typically done in the morning, but we think our location will do lunch pretty well,” Niemeyer said.
▪ Hours: The Durham Big Bad Breakfast will be open seven days a week from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Look for the grand opening Tuesday, April 30.
This story was originally published March 15, 2024 at 12:27 PM with the headline "The breakfast brand of a James Beard-winning chef is opening its first NC location."
