Friday Fun Food Facts - January 4, 2013

Triangle Restaurant News

Triangle restaurant news...that not everyone knows. Impress your co-workers at the water cooler. 

•  Welcome to 2013! And with that comes new year's resolutions, and we start off with a doozie..."Get back in the kitchen." Well, Rocky Top's Dean Ogan is certainly going to keep with this resolution. This week Rockwell's American Grill in Cary closed, but will reopen later this month as Dean's Seasfood Grill & Bar. We'll keep up with Dean and his venture back to his roots and back into the kitchen and let you know an exact open date once we get one. Keep up with them on Facebook here. 

• Back before the holidays, we had two "pending" restaurants that are now open for business. Check out Bad Daddy's Burger Bar located in the Seaboard Station in downtown Raleigh. Get more information here. 

• And the latest concept from the Chapel Hill Restaurant Group, Page Road Grill, is now open for business. PRG is located on Page Road (go figure) just off of Interstate 40 in RTP. Check them out here. 

• Cary/Apex has a new dining establishment. Back on December 16th, Back In The Day Café opened at 3470 Kildaire Farm Road, near the intersection of Kildaire Farm Road and Ten Ten. "Serving comfort food with attitude," they are open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Check them out here. 

• Folks in downtown Raleigh now have a third Subway Restaurant within walking distance. Subway opened at the end of December in the former Port City Java location at the corner of Fayetteville and Martin Streets. The other downtown locations are on Salisbury Street and in City Market.

• In our "pending file" we are still awaiting the opening of Glenwood South's Dos Taquitos Xoco. We have received word that it will open this month. Keep up with them on Facebook here. 

• Over in Hillsborough, the Herald-Sun is reporting that the husband-and-wife team of Kate & Mick Carroll are planning to open Radius Pizzeria in March at 112 N. Churton Street, in a space that previously housed Hillsborough Savings & Loan.

• New to the pending file, we add Fiction Kitchen in downtown Raleigh. The much-anticipated 100% vegetarian restaurant is very, very close to opening on Dawson Street. They even have their menu up on their website. Check it out here. 

• We have also added Blend and Grind, a coffee, smoothie and juice bar which will be located close to Bad Daddy's Burger Bar in downtown Raleigh's Seaboard Station. They note on their Facebook page that they are looking to open next month. We'll keep an eye on this one as they have run into multiple delays in their process.  

• Thanks to a tip from my Twitter buddy, @burgeoningbaker, we learned that
  Denny's is coming to the Hope Valley Commons Shopping Center in Durham (intersection of 751 and Hwy. 54). No word yet on an open date.  

• We also got word that Clayton will be home to the newest location of Char-Grill. Looking towards an August opening, it will be located in the Clayton Corners Shopping Center in a vacant lot behind KS Bank. This will be the 8th Triangle location for the locally grown chain. Get more details here. 

• Sara Foster, owner and founder of Foster's Market, with locations in Durham & Chapel Hill, has sold the Chapel Hill location to long-time manager, Sera Cuni and her partner, Susan White. Curi will keep the name for at least two years and Foster will continue to be involved.

• As a follow-up to something we ran last month, the former Franklin Street Pizza & Pasta location on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill, which then was sold and become the second location of Tomato Jake's, has turned over ownership again and is now Korchipi Korean Chicken & Pizza.

• Sadly, over the holidays we had two local institutions suffer fire damage - The Hibernian Pub in downtown Raleigh and Parker & Otis in downtown Durham. That is the bad news. The good news is no one was injured in either incident and both will definitely reopen. Parker & Otis is shooting for an opening in early February, while the Hibernian rebuild will be quite a bit longer. Our thoughts go out to the owners and employees. Keep up with Parker & Otis here and The Hibernian here. 

• Speaking of The Hibernian, their newest location up on Falls of the Neuse Road in North Raleigh looks to be opening this month, according to a release, and most likely the middle of this month. We'll keep an eye on it and keep you posted. Keep up with them on Facebook here. 

• The Il Palio Ristorante at The Siena Hotel over in Chapel Hill is partnering with 3Cups to hold a four-course wine dinner on Jan. 18. The Blakeslee Vineyard Wine Dinner will feature Il Palio chef Adam Rose and Blakeslee Vineyard Estate, which produces pinot noir grapes in Oregon. The evening begins at 6:30 and will set you back $75 per person plus tax and gratuity.

• And we close with a couple of fun lists for you to check out. The first is a list of "must do" food events for 2013 compiled by the N&O's amazing Andrea Weigl. Check it out here and get these events on your calendar for 2013. And the other is a list of predictions for 2013 by my buddy Dana McCall at GoGoRaleigh. Not all of them are food related, and some I respectfully disagree with, but that is what makes predictions fun. And this is a great list. See what you think here.