WSTB

Ryan’s Restaurant Honored as Top 100 Best Restaurants for Service. There were a few other nominees from NC mostly in the mountains & in Raleigh. None in Charlotte or the city with a color in its name.

03/07/2013 - In honor of the art of excellence in restaurant hospitality, OpenTable, the world’s leading provider of online restaurant reservations, has announced the 2013 Diners’ Choice Award winners for the Top 100 Best Restaurants for Service in the United States and highlight the Top 10 honorees for hospitality. These awards reflect the combined opinions of more than 5 million reviews submitted by verified OpenTable diners for more than 15,000 restaurants in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

http://www.opentable.com/bestservice.

Chris Barnes, late of 6th & Vine and NOMA has re-surfaced with the opening of Silo Deli Wine & Cheese in Reynolda Village in the old location of Mayberry's in the old cow barn. He will be serving wines and craft beers along with hot and cold sandwiches, salads and small plates.
On Thursdays, Barnes plans to have a “Vinyl Night,” with a DJ playing music from the 1950s and ’60s. He also plans to have live acoustic music on Fridays and Saturdays. Silo is open from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Wednesday, 11 a.m. to midnight Thursday through Saturday, and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday.

http://www.journalnow.com/business/busi ... f6878.html

Cheddars is now soft opened to the public as of Sunday past... Not sure when the official grand opening is but traffic has been light so far but that may change by the weekend

Tried the new Cheddars restaurant on Hanes Blvd today. It has been opened for a week now. Lunch was packed with people but they still manage to maintain pretty good level of service for a new restaurant with a new crew. I had the Napa Ciabatta sandwich which was quite good. The mile high Onion Rings is a lot of rings for $4. The menu is casual dining but offers a variety of dishes you usually do not see in places like Applebees or Chilis. I recommend it.

According to the Business Journal, The owners of Milner’s American Southern restaurant are planning a new restaurant concept called Brothers which will open in the former Bambino restaurant space at 2391 Lewisville Clemmons Road this spring. in Clemmons. It will have a vintage industrial design concept.

The menu and presentation at Brothers will be more casual than Milner’s and feature scratch pizza, tacos, burgers, grilled cheese sandwiches and a smokehouse section. A chalkboard menu will change weekly and feature fresh, local and regional food, such as pork, bison and seafood from North Carolina and vegetables from Minglewood, Sugar Creek and Harmony Ridge Farms. “Buddy and I want to have the ability at Brothers to create fun food and service that comes with less of the rules that have defined Milner’s,” said John Milner.

http://www.bizjournals.com/triad/news/2 ... mmons.html

I sometimes forget about Ryan's because it's been here so long, I guess, but it's really one of the best restaurants in the city and Triad. The food is excellent and so are the service and the atmosphere. Congratulations to Ryan's for this well-deserved recognition.

And at the other end of the culinary spectrum . . . a classic Southside spoon, the Acadia Grill at Broad and Acadia, has reopened after a two-year run as "Big Mama's" :

http://www.journalnow.com/news/local/ar ... 0f31a.html

Glad they kept the name. We all need to make it a point to stop by and support their efforts.

Kudos to Bib’s Downtown whose owners will be featured next season in the cooking competition show BBQ Pitmasters which will air sometime this summer. The show is on the cable channel Destination America on Time Warner channel 256 or 1256 in High Def. Remember it's not Eastern or Western, its Bestern!!

http://www.journalnow.com/news/local/ar ... 0f31a.html

Another brewery bar opening as reported by the WSJ:

Ryan Pritts, Eric Weyer and Eric Swaim have signed a lease to open a microbrewery and bar at 918 Bridge St., off Northwest Boulevard behind West End Opera House. The company will be called Hoots Beer Co. and the bar will be Hoots Roller Bar, Swaim said. The bar and brewery is in a storage building of the former Hoots Roller Mill, which made flour many years ago.

“We plan to make all styles of beer,” Swaim said. “We’ll have a 10-barrel system to start, and it probably will be sold exclusively in-house at least for the first year.”The bar also will serve wine and liquor. They hope to open the bar by late summer and the brewery by fall or early winter. A website, www.hootspublic.com, is under construction, as is a Facebook page to be titled Hoots Roller Bar.

If their choice of names is any indication, these guys are off to a smart, successful start.

Another new microbrewery - I wish them well and hope the location is not too out-of-the-way.

Fratelli's Italian Steakhouse is now open in the old Staley's site. I've linked their website below. Menu is looking some kind of tasty...

http://www.fratellis-steakhouse.com/

re. the new microbrewery....

When the new bar downtown opened I was surprised not to see any signs of the old 'private club' rule. Has NC relaxed its rules and allowed normal bars to exist finally?

Smitty's Notes keeping us all posted on the latest :

Coming to the Ardmore and West End neighborhoods is a new bar called The Quiet Pint Tavern. Its location will be 1420 West First Street at First Street and Business 40 off ramp. Proprietor is David Hillman, owner of Burke Street Pizza, which has locations in Winston-Salem and Greensboro. There will be plenty of parking, a 40-foot-long bar with televisions and seating for about 50 to 60 people. The neighborhood bar will feature craft beers on draft, wines and liquor. Open for lunch, dinner and late night, The Quiet Pint will offer a menu with lighter fare. An anticipated opening is this September. For more information visit their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/QuietPintTavern