Great news for Crossroads Plaza in Cary! The Crossroads location of Bear Rock Cafe is the latest to close in the faltering chain. Luckily, though, the space will be occupied in the late spring by Jason’s Deli.

Yoho Asian Bistro’s now-shuttered North Hills location has a notice on the door. Printed on North Hills’ stationary, the note announces that “Spring Rolls”, an Asian Fusion restaurant, will be replacing Yoho this spring. Given the source of the notice, it isn’t likely that these will be the same owners.

The new Harris Teeter at North Hills East opened this week and introduced a new concept in grocery shopping to North Carolina, the 2-story grocery store. The design is part of the New Urbanist-styled North Hills East, which replaces a failing, low-rise apartment complex with a tightly-designed, semi-urban mixed use design. Judging by early reviews, the store has major, unrecoverable flaws that will prevent the store from sustaining its ambitious goal.

To be fair Harris Teeter has done an outstanding job stocking the new store. Along with their full compliment of non-perishables from their distribution centers, the store also stocks an impressive array of fresh food. The produce section is outstanding, and stocks some exotic fruits and vegetables that aren’t typically seen at even high-end grocery stores. A prepared foods bar and salad bar are positioned to rival that seen at Whole Foods, while fresh pizza and made-to-order sandwiches at a reasonable price add some value to the store over others in the area. The fresh breads are superior to Whole Foods, while the cheese and meat counters pale somewhat, but are still outstanding in their own right. This somewhat to be expected for a new store, and it will be interesting to see how the store is stocked once the constant clientele settles in.

That said, the rest of the store is a complete failure, and it goes back to the design stages. In residential real estate older houses blessed with a charming design and strong foundation, but need some cosmetic work are said to have “good bones”. On the other hand there is this Harris Teeter, which will stand for decades as an example of “bad bones”.

Most notable is the two-story design. I am all for breaking paradigms to find new solutions. We didn’t get where we are today without some people taking some risks, and to that, Harris Teeter and Kane Realty are to be commended. This implementation of the vertical big box concept, though, is horrible at best.

The second story hovers over the left half of the store, and contains aisles of housewares, baking goods, cereals, cosmetics, pet foods, and juices. It essentially is all of the stuff that exists in that 3rd, 1/4th of a normal grocery store. The problem, however, is that in order for one to get their cart upstairs, they must use an elevator, which in this instance, is not a glass elevator and only holds two people and two shopping carts. During fairly busy times, there is a line of people trying to get on at the top and the bottom. The design team did not account for this, and did not allocate an adequate space for the queues.

The aisles feel tight. While the central aisles in a store like the Cameron Village store are also tight, the end aisles are wide, and there is a high ceiling. Not so at North Hills. The end aisles are just as narrow as the grocery aisles, the ceiling is low, and there is no natural light entering the space, creating a nightmare for claustrophobic people.

The store did a poor job with signage inside the store. Brown aisle makers with small, beige type are hard to read from the end aisles.

The upstairs section consists of about 7,500 square feet of stock space. One has to wonder of the store would have been better served by a North Hills design that just implemented 8,000 more square feet of space on their footprint. It isn’t like there is a scarcity of land that required this usual design. It would have made an enormous difference in the convenience level for this store.

Second to the disastrous 2-story design is the store’s strange parking-deck-only entrance. The only way to access the store is from the parking garage. Did I mention claustrophobia? While I tend to favor parking garages for their relatively constant temperature and always dry settings, this parking garage design is horribly inefficient and dangerous. There are two stories of the garage that are designated for Harris Teeter shoppers. Cars coming from Six Forks enter the upper level, which is a simple ring with a downramp in the middle. The bombastic lower level is accessed also by the St. Alban’s Drive traffic. All traffic entering the lower level moves in a counterclockwise direction, and there is only one way, one lane out of the deck’s lower level. What happens when some big SUV wants to back out of a space? The entire line of traffic leaving has to wait. What happens when a second car backs out? Urge to kill rises.

To top it all off, before reaching the garage’s exit, this steady stream of exiting traffic makes one final sweep, right by the store’s front doors where the pedestrian concentration is highest. It is a design that is so bad and was so preventable, that is makes me wonder if the architect who is responsible for this should be allowed to stay in his/her profession.

Because the store sits on the ground level of a 7-story apartment building, I was only able to get spotty cell phone and internet service on the store’s main floor, and had absolutely no connectivity on the second floor, where all of the cafe seating is. This is a solvable problem, but a big one as while shopping I like to access my recipes and rolling shopping lists in Evernote as well as call home to check on current pantry inventory.

So what is the shopper’s best plan of attack? During hours that are likely to have light traffic, just park in the lower level. It won’t be that dangerous. During times where the store is likely to be crowded (and this morning is an example of that. The store was far more crowded that the old North Hills store ever was), though, I recommend parking in the upper ring and using the parking lot elevator. This upper ring can be accessed two ways: from the main entrance on Six Forks Rd, and from the State Street entrance. (State street is a little one-block long street off St. Albans, parallel to Dartmouth Drive, perpendicular to St. Albans.)

I also don’t like the store’s placement as it pertains to the entire North Hills development. The North Hills master plan would have been better served by putting this store at the Dartmouth/Six Forks corner, facing St. Albans with its back to Six Forks. The store could have been the base for a very functional, attractive building that would join the flow of the existing North Hills to the new East. As it stands now, one of the major advantages to living in The Alexan, an accessible grocery store, is gone.

I fear for the store’s future as I have heard nothing but thumbs down so far. Judging by the people I overheard and talked to in the store, most ITB shoppers will go to the Harris Teeters at Glenwood Village and Cameron Village, as well as the big, nearby Kroger. Those to the north are most likely to use this HT store, but that is not the demographic this particular store aims to reach. It is a BIG problem that the boys in Charlotte will have to address (most likely by eventually removing all of the labor-intensive, short-life fresh-cooked items that make the store special). As it stands now, the architects picked by Kane have done a great disservice to not only the Harris Teeter corporation, but also the residents in the North Hills region of Raleigh.

It’s been at least eight long years since I walked into a retail store and was awestruck. That period of time ended when I recently visited The Meat House. The store is a national chain of butcher shops, but don’t be fooled. There isn’t a local merchant within at least 30 miles (maybe hundreds more) that remotely comes close to delivering the incredible product I saw.

The heart of the store is its meat counter, where a myriad of fresh meats are presented for the picking. Seafood is not available (except for some megashrimp), but pork, poultry, and a slew of red meat options are. I counted 10 variations on “steak”. The store also stocks a deep supply of frozen, difficult-to-find items such as venison, pheasant, duck, fois gras, ostrich, and more.

The Meat House is more than just a meat counter, though, as the specialty grocery items are larger in scope than expected. A new kind of tortilla chips I haven’t seen are delicious, as well as the three accompanying sample dips displayed (I especially liked the artichoke dip). The store also stocks prepared meals from Cafe 121 in Sanford. The meat prices are more in line with the Fresh Market, so it is noticeably cheaper than Whole Foods.

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While the Meat House’s standard meat counter is unmatched in the eastern half of the Triangle, the store really shines with its semi-prepared foods. I counted 25 different marinated meats, pinwheel steaks, kebabs, and the like. The store has a grill outside, and they constantly keep a chafing dish with two samples going at all times. I have tried 5 items now and each has been incredible. The chicken wings and the Sundried Tomato and Herb-marinated Chicken were fantastic, and so were a couple of marinated beef tips. The Burgundy Wine marinated Beef Tips, however, were so remarkable I have thought about them while trying to sleep. Not only are the marinades excellent for these items, but the quality and tenderness of the meat is so good that it shines through even the strong marinades.

If the store is a success, the owners will continue their pursuit of a North Raleigh location. I sent along my recommendation (of going in where Blockbuster on Wake Forest Road was), and it appears that their site selection criteria are on par with what will be a true success for Raleigh one day. The nearby Trader Joe’s opened with much fanfare a couple of years ago. However I never felt it was worth the drive to Cary. The Meat House, on the other hand, undoubtedly is.

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Back in the early 70’s North Raleigh had just a few grocery stores. North Hills had a Winn-Dixie, there was a Big Star next to the Six Forks K-Mart (where Borders is), and an A&P was in Colony (now Food Lion). As North Raleigh grew and bigger, nicer grocery stores opened, the Winn-Dixie in North Hills Plaza deteriorated progressively, but inexplicably remained open (probably because the Big Star closed and the Holly Park Winn-Dixie came and went). Finally the grocery gods granted us mercy and closed the Winn-Dixie, replacing it with a swank, clean Harris-Teeter about a decade ago.

That store location, the one that has fed me for most of my life, closes at 6pm tonight. With it go many memories: watching the live lobster tank, shouting on the store PA from my child’s seat, the Long Island woman singing about bagels (whatever those are!) on the P.A., racing out to the parking lot to repark our car that had drifted away in neutral, and meeting employees who would become close personal family friends. The memories aren’t just the old ones, either. The Indian store manager has been one of my little girl’s favorite retail personalities. (He, incidentally, is moving back to the Glenwood Village location). The store, while not stocking the wide range we have all had the luxury of knowing in the modern era, was still great for staples and extremely convenient.

Tomorrow everything changes. A new, 48,000 square foot Harris Teeter will open across the Mississippi (Six Forks Road) literally in North Hills East’s parking garage. The store is two-stories, but don’t worry about that second level. It reportedly will contain coffee, flowers, and gift cards. (How long until they recognize that sales of those items will be non existent, and move more necessary household items up there?). The stock from the Lassiter location will be divided among 12 different Harris Teeter locations. Managers and their staff will come in and take an aisle-a-piece in order to distribute the merchandise and offer North Hills customers a turnkey experience during the transition.

Much like the closing of the Cardinal Theatres, the closing of a grocery store in old North Hills Plaza means the end of an era for North Raleigh. Perhaps the store will be filled with books in the moderate future. Perhaps it will be something equally serviceable. What it won’t be is food, and it will never quite be the same. As they say, “the only constant is change”.

Today the leading foodservice industry publication, Nation’s Restaurant News, has named the Angus Barn to its list of 50 All-American Icon restaurants. The Barn has “become synonymous with hospitality and service excellence” according to Nation’s Restaurant News. That’s one of the primary reasons why the establishment made the NRN 50. The Angus Barn is the only North Carolina restaurant on the list, and joins such noted dining institutions as Commander’s Palace in New Orleans, St. Elmo Steak House in Indianapolis and The Four Seasons in New York City.

This comes as no surprise. The Angus Barn is known for going out of their way to present an outstanding experience. The restaurant has a rigorous training program for its waitstaff, and only hires people who make it their profession. Owner/manager Van will not accept customers waiting unnecessarily. Case in point: I recently stopped by at 5:30pm one day to buy some blue cheese dressing from the gift shop. The refrigerators were out of stock, but the nice, helpful lady who was running the shop went to the kitchen to make a couple for me. When Van found out that I had been waiting 10 minutes for the dressing, she went to the back, got things rolling, and comped my purchase.

If one is paying attention, they will notice some of the many details that go into the experience at the Angus Barn. The restaurant’s Christmas Tree every year is the finest in any restaurant around. The relish station, an unnecessary perk that was put in place decades ago to placate those waiting for a table, is always fresh. Much of the wood from the restaurant was salvaged from barns in the area. Inset in the brick floor of the gift shop is a 6” thick disc of wood from the state’s largest loblolly pine tree. In the last couple of years, The Angus Barn opened The Pavilions, a rustic lakeside special events facility. A trip to the men’s room of the facility is another example of the fine detail that (along with the excellent, consistent food) has earned this restaurant’s status among the nation’s top restaurants.

The Angus Barn was already one of the early inductees to the publication’s prestigious “Hall of Fame” list. Magnolia Grill is the only other North Carolina restaurant to receive that honor.

OpenTable has named Rey’s to its list of 50 Most Romantic Restaurants in America. The restaurant features “fine dining with a French Quarter flair”, and offers some of the best table service in the area. Rey’s is open for dinner nightly, except for Sunday, and is located in the old Ruth’s Chris location on Buck Jones Road.

No other restaurants in North Carolina made the list, although The Melting Pot chain, with locations on Wake Forest Road and at Southpoint in Durham, was named to the list.

The introduction of hand blow dryers in public restrooms often times introduced no clear way to exit without touching an enteric bacteria-coated door handle. To date the best way to exit the bathroom without smearing someone else’s bacteria on your hands is to use a paper towel to touch the door handle. Golden Corral in Cary has a new approach, the door hook. Using the forearm a person tall enough to reach the hook should now be able to leave the restroom with uncontaminated hands. This is especially important in a restaurant that serves finger foods like fried chicken, rolls, etc.

Of course it is still up to the diner to properly wash their hands. According to the CDC, hands should be washed for the length of time it takes to sing “Happy Birthday” twice. Diners should also assign themselves one hand for touching the dirty food bar serving utensils and one for handling food. However for maximum cleanliness, use a dime-sized dollop of alcohol-based gel of at least 60% concentration (40% gels are worthless) after each trip to the food bar. (CDC Paper, .PDF)

While there are still many routes for disease transmission, it is nice to see a restaurant offering a solution to one of the key sources of sickness.

There has been a little bit of news recently announced about some restaurants in the area.

• Bentley’s, in the parking lot of the Target in Cary, has closed. Restaurant owner Lou Moshakos has not announced a new concept for the place, but said that he has been working hard expanding his Carolina Ale House concept and dealing with his food group’s recent acquisitions of several Wilmington restaurants. Perhaps an Eddie Romanelli’s would go well in that space???
• The rooftop Carolina Ale House planned for the former Pine State office building will open this coming Summer, according to TBJ.
• Canteen 18, a Southwest concept by 18 Seaboard owner Jason Smith, will open in March in the former Nowell’s space in Cameron Village.
• Chick-Fil-A’s long-awaited store in Cameron Village has been completely replanned, according to Sue Stock’s Friday column. Instead of being in the former dry cleaner’s location behind McDonald’s, the store will instead be built in the Rite-Aid parking lot, at the corner of Cameron and Woodburn. This will work much better than the other site, as the site plan called for bizarre routing of the drive-thru traffic. I guess we can put those Harris Teeter to Cameron/Woodburn rumors to rest?
• Fins has closed, and will reopen as “bu*ku” this week. They plan on serving “global street food” (which probably means that I will spend a ton of money and leave hungry, if it is like every other tapas place I’ve been to.) Of grave concern is this passage on their website. If this is going to be anything but another loud (very loud) Red Room, I’ll be surprised. I usually like to keep my head-bobbing places separate from my $30-a-head restaurants, but I’ll certainly give it a try!
  • A dynamic, urban approach to late night food and entertainment will invite guests to take in an act over dessert and a nightcap; or healthy, fresh street-food fare in a casual upscale setting, as local and touring DJs, artists and bands welcome night-owls to bob their heads, sing along or dance to progressive and traditional sounds and beats.
• Sawasdee, a fantastic Thai restaurant, has opened a second location. It is in Pleasant Valley Promenade on Glenwood Avenue, in the former location of Gino Russo’s and Sedona.
• Solas is now serving brunch on Sundays.
• Feeling a little New Orleans in your blood? Battistella’s Kitchen has reopened in the former Ramada Inn, high on the hill overlooking the Glenwood Ave/I-440 interchange (access via Arrow Dr. from inbound Glenwood Ave.)
• Briggs Hardware (Atlantic/Six Forks) is now stocking cheeses and dressings from the Angus Barn’s gift shop.
• Bloomsbury Bistro has revived their 3-course tasting menu thru February 11, which is one of the best deals in Raleigh. For $50 per couple, each person gets an appetizer and full-size entree of their choice, as well as a Bistro Dessert Sampler (featuring 4 different items) for two. The offer is only available to members of “Toler’s Table”, the restaurant’s VIP club. Signup is free and available through the Bistro’s website.