One of North Carolina’s most iconic restaurants may be rattling back to life, but there’s still no timetable for its return.
Crook’s Corner, the Chapel Hill restaurant that helped change the course of Southern dining, is working toward a reopening, possibly this year, said owner Shannon Healy, who took over the restaurant in 2019.
Crook’s closed in 2021 as one of the most painful restaurant losses of the pandemic. That loss appeared to be permanent, but Healy said he always hoped to bring Crook’s back.
“I’ve always said I would love to reopen it,” Healy said in a phone interview. “I’m trying to. I continue to try. We’ve cleared some hurdles. Other hurdles remain.”
A pioneering restaurant
Crook’s Corner was opened in 1982 by Gene Hamer and the late chef Bill Neal. The Franklin Street restaurant became one of the most celebrated and influential kitchens in the South, changing the narrative and expectations of Southern food and pioneering local ingredients and seasonal cooking.
Following Neal’s death in 1991, chef Bill Smith later took over the kitchen and steered it his own way until retiring in 2019. Hamer sold the restaurant that year to a group that included Healy, the owner of Durham’s Alley Twenty Six and a former Crook’s bar manager.
“I don’t have a crystal ball to have a time frame, but I would love to open this fall,” Healy said. “There are repairs needed to that building. I don’t want to lose the iconic nature of that spot.”
The possibility of a Crook’s return started floating through the Chapel Hill community earlier this year when the restaurant changed the wording of a sign on its door to “temporarily closed.” More recently another sign teased the potential sale of a Crook’s seasonal favorite, honeysuckle sorbet.
Then over the weekend, a tweet from Inside Carolina reporter Ross Martin further stoked the Crook’s rumor mill, suggesting the restaurant would return as early as September.
Healy said he couldn’t commit the restaurant to any kind of timeline.
“You clearly know something that I don’t,” Healy tweeted in reply. “Don’t get me wrong, I’d love that. But as of this moment, I have no idea what you are talking about.”
Upgrades needed
The uncertainty in Crook’s return lies in the upgrades the restaurant needs to reopen, Healy said. Those upgrades include plumbing fixes and improvements to the restaurant’s patio, making it usable year-round.
Healy said that work is needed to ensure the long-term future of Crook’s.
“I want to open it so that it’s around for another 40 years,” Healy said. “There’s no reason to open it for a day or two. If we’re going to do it, let’s do it right.”
In its four decades, Crook’s Corner has collected generations of fans, from UNC-Chapel Hill students to local residents and foodies. Healy said he’s fielding dozens of inquiries about Crook’s future, but the he doesn’t have any answers, only that it’s an enthusiasm he shares.
“What I’m doing now is horribly unpopular, but I’m acting in the best interests of the legacy of the restaurant,” Healy said. “I appreciate the enthusiasm, but I have to take my time and do it right. This is a love project. Besides my personal history at Crook’s, I believe it’s an important restaurant. And that’s what I’m doing it. I want it to be open for good.”
As for the honeysuckle sorbet, Healy said that’s not a guarantee either.
But plans are in the works to sell cups and pints of the famous frozen dessert out of the restaurant for a few hours a day. That sorbet will be the same as it ever was, made from locally foraged honeysuckle blossoms and mixed by former Crook’s chef Bill Smith.
“If we can do it, we’ll announce it,” Healy said.
This story was originally published May 02, 2022 5:48 PM.
