Changing Culture through Food/Restaurants

Glenn Bitler III

Culture encompasses the things that the people of an area regard as important such as the types of foods, clothing, hobbies, and interests like academics, athletics, spending time with family/friends. Culture is the traditions and values of all the people that live in a given area. For Chapel Hill and Carrboro, the culture is composed of the diverse group of students that attend the university, the workers and professors at the university, and the young professionals and others who live in the area and work in Research Triangle Park or do research for the university. The culture of Chapel Hill particularly includes the UNC tradition and history as well as support for its sports teams because many students and alumni are big on that. Part of the culture is the foods that people eat and pride themselves in such as a family recipe or food that comes from their native country.

Restaurants in the area have adapted to the culture of the area to cater to their customers. These restaurants look to add their own bit of zeal to the culture through their food and other things that people will remember about a place. People may go to a place to experience the food, the atmosphere of a restaurant, or just go out to a place for a break from the norm. Some examples of how culture has dictated what restaurants have done is the eloquence of Top of the Hill, the Italian cuisine and interior design of 411 West, and the Carolina paraphernalia at Sutton’s.

The restaurants have made food that is popular with the people in the area to make sure they have a large client base, but they have also begun to push the envelope and start to sprinkle in their own things to add to the culture. For example Sutton’s attempts to tie their food to the UNC client base with entrees named for distinct features around campus, such as the Dean Dome Deluxe. The restaurant also plays into the UNC theme with memorabilia from various past Tar Heel athletes and teams. Spankys does the same thing with their “goofy” pictures/paintings that are around the restaurant and have many past Tar Heel athletes in them. These restaurants do this because many students and alumni who come back to Chapel Hill value the athletes that have played for their university.

The food on display on Franklin Street also shows that Chapel Hill is indeed a college town with many dessert shops including Krispy Kreme, Sugarland, Coldstone, and Ben and Jerry’s. The tenants on Franklin Street have to be fairly successful, otherwise they are replaced. That is why it is easy to see that the college students and young professionals around Chapel Hill support so many dessert businesses. This is seen in that if this many restaurants were placed in another area where the percentage of young adults was much lower then only a few of them would be able to survive.

The variety of foods on Franklin Street and in the surrounding areas, like Rosemary Street and Main Street in Carrboro, shows the vast amount of different people in the area all mixing into one culture with many aspects. There are places that are made to just be fast like McDonalds, Jimmy Johns, and Armadillo Grill. There are places that are around to comfort the customer like Top of the Hill, 411 West, and the dining services at the Carolina Inn. There are places with American food like Buns, and Suttons. There are exotic places like Qdoba, Sakura, and Asia Café. The variety of food products that are available around the area in restaurants is the starting point of showing how much diversity there is in the people living in Chapel Hill. Students who need food that is fast when they are in a hurry because they are studying or have to go to class is a large percentage of the population. The upscale restaurants that are in Chapel Hill can thrive as well with alumni who come back, parents taking their kids who go here out to dinner and with functions like cocktail and formals that sororities and fraternities have along with people’s birthdays.

Another way that the restaurants in the area cater to the population is the “late-night” hours that some restaurants have. For instance, Buns and Subway are open until 3 in the morning on Friday and Saturday nights. On every night but Sunday and Monday, Qdoba is open until 3 am as well. B Skis is open till 3 am also. The reason why these restaurants staying open late is that they are hoping to catch the crowds that are at the bars on the nights where people drink there or just drink elsewhere and want food when they are inebriated.

The restaurants not only follow the “culture pattern” of the area to ensure that their customers remain happy and that they have customers, but they seek to add their own element to the culture. They try to affect it and add their own bit of something to it. For Top of the Hill, there are two things that have become a part of the culture and they are the brewery that they have and can be seen while dining in the restaurant, and its vantage point for celebrations on Franklin Street after National Championships and victories over Duke. For Carolina Brewery on Franklin Street, they have added their unique beers that they brew in-house. For Southern Rail, the unique experience of dining there in a railroad car. These reasons all stand out because it is what one notices at first about a restaurant or it is the thing that is the “wow factor” while they are there.

This continues with the idea that Mama Dips has southern-style cuisine that many people around Chapel Hill crave, but they also provide it in a unique setting with the rocking chairs on the front porch as you approach to set the atmosphere as serene. The wrap-around porch of the restaurant helps to add to the southern element without ever seeing the food or the signs that Mama Dips is a southern food oriented restaurant. Bandidos on Franklin Street is a unique example because the place is kind of in an alley and some people might not want to go there because it looks kind of sketchy but the food is good and the interior of the restaurant is just as unique as its location.

The biggest thing that the restaurants have to do in the area is conform to the desires of the people in the area. During the school year, the majority of the people in the area are UNC students and their parents when they come to visit. This means that the places have to have options that sit well with college aged kids. The other thing that restaurants try to do is to carve their own niche in the area so that another restaurant with similar food perhaps is not as widely recognized or remembered so that the restaurant will not fall to its competitors. Overall, the area’s culture is not that affected by the restaurants in the area because it is very hard to change the culture of the area after it has been influenced for so many years already and has so much variety. Mostly, the restaurants find their own niche in the culture to survive.