Two local coffee companies and a prominent chef will be serving travelers at RDU
Updated April 10, 2023: The 42nd Street Oyster Bar and the Starbucks at the bottom of the escalators in Terminal 2 have closed and will re-emerge as Crawford’s Genuine and Black & White Coffee Roasters later this year.
One of the Triangle’s best-known chefs and two local coffee companies will be setting up shop at Raleigh-Durham International Airport.
Scott Crawford, the five-time James Beard Award semifinalist with two restaurants in Raleigh, one in Clayton and one coming in Cary, will open Crawford’s Genuine in RDU’s Terminal 2 next year.
Crawford’s will be open from breakfast through dinner, serving dishes not typically found in airports, including grilled octopus, lobster-potato chowder and a crab tartine sandwich. It will replace another local restaurant, 42nd Street Oyster Bar.
“We believe that this will be truly a destination for our travelers,” said Kimberly Stewart, RDU’s director of concessions.
Meanwhile, Black & White Coffee Roasters of Raleigh and Beyu Caffe of Durham will open coffee shops in different parts of the airport.
Black & White will take over the Starbucks on the concourse in Terminal 2, at the bottom of the escalators just beyond the security checkpoint. It’s scheduled to open sometime next year after renovations to the space.
Founded by U.S. Barista Champions Lem Butler and Kyle Ramage in 2017, Black & White has a national wholesale business and three cafes in Wake Forest, Rolesville and downtown Raleigh.
Beyu will serve coffee, tea, smoothies and grab-and-go food in the ticketing areas of both terminals 1 and 2, outside the security checkpoints. It will replace Starbucks shops that closed when the coronavirus pandemic decimated air travel in 2020.
Beyu, which began with a cafe in downtown Durham, also has two shops on the Duke University campus and one at Boxyard RTP in Research Triangle Park.
Dorien Bolden, Beyu’s CEO, told members of the Airport Authority board on Thursday that its downtown Durham restaurant has drawn prominent visitors in recent months, including Apple CEO Tim Cook, NFL wide receiver Terrell Owens and comedian Chris Rock.
“When you really think about sense of place in North Carolina, people want to come hang out at Beyu,” Bolden said. “And I think bringing that sense of place into the airport is going to be exciting.”
Those who would rather get Starbucks will still find two locations at RDU, one in each of the terminal concourses.
An acclaimed chef comes to the airport
Crawford came to the Triangle in 2009 from The Cloister at Sea Island, Georgia, to become executive chief at Herons, the restaurant in the Umstead Hotel in Cary. After five years there, he struck out with a partner to open Standard Foods off Person Street in downtown Raleigh.
Crawford’s flagship restaurant, Crawford and Son, opened around the corner two years later. His other restaurants include Jolie, a French bistro next door, and Crawford Cookshop, which opened in Clayton last fall. Crawford Brothers Steakhouse is scheduled to open in the Fenton development in Cary next year.
Crawford has been a semifinalist for the James Beard Foundation’s Best Chef in the Southeast award five times, most recently in 2016.
At RDU, Crawford is working with Grove Bay Hospitality Group, a restaurant concessionaire based in Florida that is also handling the Black & White cafe and a third restaurant, Carolina Craft, an open-air bar that will serve beer, cocktails, tapas and charcuterie boards. The airport’s board approved a 10-year lease agreement with Grove Bay on Thursday.
The Beyu lease, meanwhile, covers only three years, with two optional one-year extensions. That’s because the airport plans to make changes to the ticketing areas of both terminals in the coming years that may require the Beyu cafes to move or shut down.
The new leases come as RDU is still trying to fill terminal retail spaces that went vacant during the COVID-19 pandemic. Air travel is rebounding; more than 937,600 passengers passed through RDU in March, 90% more than the same month last year, though still 16% fewer than in March 2019 before the pandemic.
This story was originally published April 21, 2022 at 5:06 PM with the headline "Two local coffee companies and a prominent chef will be serving travelers at RDU."
