Business of Life

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Commercial building located on Smith Ave., 6,000 SF building (3,000 SF of office space/3,000 SF of warehouse space) located on 1.87 acres. RESTAURANT ROUNDUP

This is a sampling of stories from the Business Journal’s weekly Restaurant Roundup email. Subscribe at wilmingtonbiz.com.

GLOW announces chefs appearing next year

Girls Leadership Academy of Wilmington (GLOW) officials have announced the celebrity chefs who will participate in the academy’s annual celebrity chef fundraising event next year.

In a combination of virtual and in-real-life appearances, chefs Emeril Lagasse, Guy Fieri, Tyler Florence and Robert Irvine will interact with guests attending the event on GLOW’s Wilmington campus, where classrooms will be decorated and set to host no more than 20 guests each, dependent on sponsorship level.

GLOW is North Carolina’s only single-gender public charter school. The school opened in August 2016, with its inaugural sixth-grade class.

Irvine will be on campus to welcome GLOW guests, while chefs Lagasse, Fieri and Florence will be streaming live from their homes, test kitchens and restaurants via Zoom. Each chef will introduce their recipes as guests are served a four-course meal.

The event is scheduled for Saturday, Jan. 23, 2021, at 7 p.m., with sponsor events beginning earlier in the evening.

Guests will be limited to classrooms and outdoor patios, in keeping with social distancing guidelines.

For information about sponsorships, contact GLOW Development Director Sarah Brickels at sbrickels@ glowacademy.net. - Jessica Maurer

Bringing culture, more at African Caribbean Market

The key to a good batch of egusi or ogbono is all in the fish, according to Felix Emeka.

Felix and his wife, Tammi, recently opened African Caribbean Market & More behind Long Leaf Park at 4209 Oleander Drive, Unit 7.

Egusi and ogbono are seeds ground in Nigerian soups, often used as thickening agents. They’re staples Felix Emeka enjoyed in his homeland as a child. Both soups are made with a variety of meats (goat, chicken), fish and crayfish, plus red palm oil, onion and chopped greens and leaves, sometimes even okra and spicy peppers.

“One of my favorite [ingredients is] cod stockfish,” Felix Emeka said. “It tastes different when you prepare a good egusi with stockfish, along with smoked fish. It’s almost like you’re back in your mother’s kitchen in the village.”

Customers can find the stockfish at the market. It’s the main reason the Emekas decided to open a new business: to pass on the love they share when cooking together, especially with hard-to-find global ingredients. They want their market to add another level of diversity to Southeastern North Carolina, all the while connecting people.

The market carries Caribbean soft drinks, coco bread, spicy buns, specialty canned, bottled and packaged items like saka saka (cassava leaves), coconut bulla cakes and more. - Shea Carver

Nutty Buddies opens in The Cotton Exchange

Allen Carpenter and Zach Harmon, owners of Rooster & The Crow located in Chandler’s Wharf, have opened a new concept, Nutty Buddies, at The Cotton Exchange.

The new eatery came about after the closure of The Scoop, an ice cream and sweets shop that had occupied the space since 1978.

Despite the fact that Carpenter and Harmon had already rented the space across from their existing restaurant, they decided to move forward with taking over the space at The Cotton Exchange and instead use the additional space at Chandler’s Wharf to expand their socially distanced indoor seating capacity at the restaurant.

They have completely renovated the space at The Cotton Exchange, and added additional courtyard seating.

Nutty Buddies not only serves 16 flavors of ice cream along with shakes, floats and malts, but Pineapple Dole Whip, a dairy-free, vegan soft serve treat, black and white cookies, homemade popcorn in flavors such as Oreo, caramel, and kettle corn, and homemade banana pudding from Rooster & The Crow.

It also serves warm sandwiches prepared with Boar’s Head meats and cheeses, homemade pimento cheese and house-brined grilled chicken. Sandwiches are made to order and served with chips. - Jessica Maurer

| BUSINESS OF LIFE |

Making room for outdoor dining

BY SHEA CARVER

The U.S. is in month six of dealing with a global pandemic. North Carolina is in phase 2.5 of allowing openings of approved businesses.

As a result, many eateries and drinkeries—including distilleries, bottle shops, wineries and breweries (still, no bars)—are expanding outdoor spaces to accommodate more customers and help with increased revenue.

More so, it’s a safer protocol to follow in the coronavirus pandemic, as any droplets and particles customers breathe will disperse quicker in open air than when inside.

Rx installed a Needlepoint Bipolar Ionization system to purify air circulating from their HVAC for indoor diners; however, owners James and Sarah Rushing Doss said they felt the time was right to begin listening to customer requests, too. Regulars have been asking for outdoor seating at the eatery at Fifth Avenue and Castle Street for a while now.

“We didn’t want to haphazardly pull some tables out on the sidewalk to try to make it work,” Rushing Doss tells. “That is not the Rx experience we want to provide.”

To match the artful and cozy vibe of their upscale Southern cuisine, they enlisted the help of Christopher Yermal of Old School Rebuilders to help preserve green space and redevelop existing structures. Yermal will add a 48-by-20-foot enclosed and covered space off the side of the building. Although it will take up part of Rx’s parking lot, the Rescue Mission of Cape Fear across the street has allowed them use of their lot, in addition to surrounding offstreet parking.

“We plan to install large louvered shutters around the perimeter of the space to encourage or restrict airflow based on the weather/season,” Rushing Doss adds. "We’re also going to install sola tubes in the ceiling, which will provide enough light to grow plants in the space.”

To break up the space, there will be permanent nature-based art installations from local sculptor Michael Van Hout.

The courtyard addition will include 30 to 40 seats, with tables separated 6 feet per social-distancing measures. It will double Rx’s current capacity to help them achieve

PHOTO BY MICHAEL CLINE SPENCER Catering to customers: Sarah Rushing Doss and her husband, James Doss, owners of Rx Restaurant and Bar, are adding outdoor space to their Wilmington eatery.

pre-COVID numbers of occupancy. More so, it gives the Dosses more ideas and opportunities to grow their business.

“We want patrons to enjoy their entire experience while dining with us, and ambience is a part of that,” Rushing Doss says. “After COVID-19 is behind us, we'll then have so much flexibility with [the patio]. We can host events and private parties, art shows, intimate concerts, fundraisers, beer and wine dinners, oyster roasts, pig pickin’. . . The possibilities feel endless.”

Up the street at 1815 Castle, End of Days Distillery co-owner Beth Faulkner also envisions live music, events and parties on their newly constructed outdoor space. The $20,000 addition utilizes eight barrels from their distillery as hightop tables, flanked by four barstools each. It also has sail shades to comfortably situate 32 more customers.

“Although this was something that was in our eventual plans, COVID forced us to move forward earlier than expected,” Faulkner says. Actually, the distillery won the 2020 Coastal Entrepreneur Award for Covid Innovation. “Ensuring social distancing for our customers was a top priority once we were allowed to reopen.”

Customers are required to maintain social distance in public space, wear masks when entering the distillery and walking around, plus when interacting with staff (also required to wear masks at all times). Masks can only be removed when eating and drinking.

EOD sustained business through the pandemic by selling to-go bottles of award-winning hand-crafted gin, vodka and rum (recognized by the 2020 Denver International Spirits Competition, NY International Spirits Competition and SIP International Awards). It also began production of hand sanitizer from its overrun of pure-grain alcohol.

“We began by giving out free hand sanitizer to healthcare and essential workers,” Faulkner says. "In addition to this initiative we were able to support many small businesses and corporations that needed assistance [securing the hard-to-come-by sanitizer].”

The distillery operates Wednesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., and has food trucks booked most Wednesday through Saturday evenings.

“We finished our rickhouse a few months ago and have started our aging products line,” Faulkner said. “We hope to release barrel-rested gin later this year, in addition to barrel-aged rum.”