Awards are offered in 11 different award categories, including new residential, commercial, or institutional construction, plus historic preservation, sustainable design, and tree and landscape conservation. The award for “Maintained Outstanding Appearance” honors appearance contributions by projects 5 years old or older. The “Individual” award is presented to a citizen who has consistently worked to preserve or improve city appearance.

The deadline for entries for the 2010 Sir Walter Raleigh Awards is Friday, July 9. Nominations for the can be made online at or by completing a printed form available at City government offices. In addition to project information, six or more digital photos of each nominated project or individual, submitted on CD or flash drive, are also required.

An independent jury will meet in July to review the nominations. Award winners will be selected based on specific criteria, including exhibition of a new standard of excellence, awareness of land stewardship, innovation, conservation of natural and/ or historic resources, and exceeding applicable ordinances. The Raleigh City Council will confirm the jury’s selections in August. Awards will be presented in October.

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I am certainly more out of touch with Crabtree than ever, but I can only think of Hudson Belk, Kanki, Merle Norman, and the Hallmark store as being the only remaining original tenants in their original spaces. Is there one I’m missing?

Diners who frequented the belated Cactus Flower and Tavola Rossa restaurants will be surprised at the amount of renovation that went into the Crabtree Tavern. Gone are the numerous level changes throughout the restaurant, as is the carpet (replaced with a black and white tile floor). The bar area now sits in the former dining room, opening the P-shaped restaurant as one large cohesive room. A plethora of TVs hang throughout the restaurant, and offer diners (especially on Sunday) a chance to get a view of all of the televised games. Excellent music from a satellite service creates a nice noise foundation. However all of that is destroyed when an internet jukebox goes to work, overwhelming the experience at stomach-churning volumes.

The Tavern’s dinner menu (.pdf) selection is excellent. There are numerous appetizers that are perfect for community feeding, including the excellent beef brisket nachos. Higher quality tortilla chips would take this dish to the forefront of the Raleigh "nacho scene". To be avoided is the chili, which pales to Wendy’s and Sweet Tomatoes’ average offerings.

A popular item in the bar is the Beer Tower, a 3’ tall test tube holding almost two pitchers of draft beer. To keep the tower cold the bartender drops in a frozen, non-melting ice torpedo. The towers are priced in the $20-$25 range.

There is a fascinating selection of burgers, all offered on homemade buns. We tried the excellent Mountaineer which creatively marries a smoked tomato slice with barbecue sauce and goat cheese on a solid hamburger patty. Also good, but not as interesting as it sounds, is the Down Home Southern Burger. It features fried green tomato, county ham, pimento cheese, and mustard aioli. For some reason, though, the interesting ingredients get dominated by the beef flavor. We had good buns on one night, but on two other occasions the bread was noticeably firm.

The Entrees section of the menu is where the tavern has a real chance to make some noise in West Raleigh. I tried both the Shepherd’s Pie and the Chicken Pot Pie, and both were outstanding. The Shepherd’s Pie has a nice kick of ground lamb flavor, while the pot pie is extremely well blended, and stands as the best item on the menu.

We also tried the BBQ Brisket sandwich which was very good, but probably not better than the Q-Shack’s.

Where the Crabtree Tavern gets a failing grade is with the kitchen’s efficiency. I have dined in the restaurant three times now and it took 30, 40, and 45 minutes for our entrees to reach our table. With dining times climbing to one and a half hours for fairly simple food, I have to wonder how many diners are eager to return.

Crabtree Tavern has a very good chance to finally bring West Raleigh what it misses most: a reasonably priced, fairly quick restaurant that appeals to a broad range of palates. Ever since General Mills began screwing up Darryl’s, there has been a tremendous void. With the tavern’s location near the RBC Center and on Crabtree’s doorstep, a little bit of efficiency can take this restaurant where it wants to go. The question is whether or not they can step up to the plate.

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The location will continue to be a training site, with the company headquarters located at the base of the Glenwood Avenue hill, in the shadows of Crabtree Valley Mall.

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The chef, Aron Cremeans, comes from Restaurant Bateux in Beaufort, SC, and most recently Vines Bistro in Cary. The dinner menu (.pdf) features standard upscale tavern fare, but has enough range to be potentially a regular favorite. Prices are in the $8-$17 range, which is a price point for which this area, in this economy, is dying.

The restaurant will also host trivia each Tuesday (beginning 1/5) as well as competitions with Playstation and cornhole (I’m afraid to ask).

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The LEGO store is on the first floor of Crabtree Valley Mall in the center court (Across from Belk Men’s Store).

I have to say, as a six-summer Sea Gull veteran, it is hard to match the experience at these camps. Some of my most prized experiences occurred in Arapahoe. The camps’ ability to bring together an enthusiastic group of responsible college-aged staff members is nothing short of astounding. If you know someone who is interested, let them know about camp night. It is one of the few ways to get an appreciation for the true world of Sea Gull and Seafarer.

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According to the article the developers estimate that it will take at least 3 months to secure new financing. This is bad news for the area’s woefully substandard hotel market. Surely Starwood Hotels, the parent company for the Westin chain, is not happy about having to wait longer for a presence near Crabtree Valley Mall, one of the South’s top shopping centers.

The restaurant is basically seafood’s answer to Sullivan’s, and if Wednesday night’s grand opening party is any indication, M&S will be a perfect fit for a market needing high-end seafood that even land-lubbers would like. The decor is extremely buttoned down, contemporary with a hint of Asian influence. Three stained glass light fixtures over the bar honoring the area’s major college’s remind us that we aren’t in Anywhere, USA. While we were able to sample only a small portion of the menu at the special event, the samples were all we needed to know that their deep-frying techniques and sauce-making are spot-on.

They’ve done a couple of lunches this week that have already gotten rave reviews. My trusty sources started out with the delicious Shrimp Flat-bread Pizza appetizer (w/ tomatoes and mozzarella). It was just under 12″ in diameter and had a very thin crust. Next, they moved on to the Bacon and Blue Cheese Chopped Salad and the Seasonal Mixed Greens Salad. Both were delightful. In fact, they commented that a fantastic lunch for two would be for each to get a salad and share a pizza.

Given that these are hungry folk, they moved on to the entrees, and weren’t disappointed. They ordered an entree salad, Classic Bay Shrimp Louis, which featured much lettuce, small (but numerous) shrimp, and an excess of 1000 Island Dressing. Dressed properly, they said, this salad would have been a big hit. The other entree was the Stuffed Shrimp, which was fantastic. There were only two shrimp, but they were large and filled with a delicious crab stuffing.

The highlight of the meal came at the end, with the Tiramisu Cheesecake. While this pair does like their Tiramisu, they said this was the finest dessert they have ever eaten, which carries a lot of weight (no pun intended) with this observer.

We have some good mid-level seafood restaurants in Raleigh, but there haven’t been any that are good for those wanting a top notch business meeting, special occasion, or fine dining experience. McCormick & Schmick’s has done well in some of America’s classic seafood cities, and Raleigh will fall right in line.

Below you’ll find the menus for McCormick & Schmick’s opening day. The first image is the Dinner Menu, with the wine list following. The third image shows the Lunch menu, with the wine list following. Due to the large format of the originals, it was necessary to section the menus before scanning, and reassemble the images electronically. Please pardon any format inconsistencies or strange lines running through portions of the images.

The current recommendation is to finally remove the road from the city’s comprehensive plan. After all this time, the City has not found justification for its existence. Today the City Council recommended pushing the topic back to committee to consider its need with the ensuing developments behind Crabtree. According to Michell Silver’s presentation today, though, it is likely that this road will not be included in the new comprehensive plan for the city.

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This story comes in sharp contrast to the all-is-well-with-Crabtree’s-store news in the TBJ article a week-and-a-half ago.