Mary's Of Course! Cafe is leaving Brookstown Avenue, but its space won't be empty for long.
Chef Darryl Murray will open a vegetarian restaurant there called The Grilled Asparagus.
For five years, Murray has worked on his vision of a vegetarian restaurant that will also promote healthful eating.
"There is a large community of vegetarians who are not getting served when they go out in public," Murray said. "Basically, the only thing that is out there is a salad or a little veggie burger."
He said that the closest vegetarian restaurant to Winston-Salem is BoBa House near UNC Greensboro.
Murray, a vegetarian for two years, most recently worked in Raleigh as a sous chef for the Carolina Hurricanes hockey team. He is a native of Winston-Salem and a graduate of the Triad Community Kitchen program of Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwest North Carolina.
His menu items will include cilantro spinach hummus, barbecue tofu, and a variety of vegetarian pizzas and wraps.
The Grilled Asparagus, which will open July 1, will also have items for vegans, a gluten-free menu and a raw menu. It will offer North Carolina wines and beers and Sunday brunch, and provide online ordering and deliveries in the downtown area.
There will be live entertainment on Fridays and Saturdays and jazz on Sunday nights. Murray will initially start with lunch and dinner but plans to add breakfast in the fall.
Mary Haglund, the owner of Mary's Of Course! Cafe, said she is pleased that a vegetarian restaurant is opening in town.
"I just think Winston-Salem is finally ready for this," she said.
Originally, Haglund had planned on staying put on Brookstown and opening a second location downtown.
But, she said, it just was not a feasible idea. Now, she will have just one restaurant -- the new Breakfast Of Course! Mary's Too that will be going into a renovated building at 723 Trade St., between Seventh Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Drive.
The last day of operation for Mary's Of Course! Cafe at 301 Brookstown Ave. will be May 23. All employees and customers are being asked to wear their pajamas to brunch that day.
"We're putting Mary's to bed," Haglund said.
She will open Breakfast Of Course! Mary's Too on June 4.
"We are changing the menu a little bit to be more focused on breakfast," Haglund said. "And obviously we can expand the menu a little bit because we have a much larger facility, kitchen and storage."
New items on the menu include waffles, pancakes and some different breakfast sandwiches.
And that's not all that is changing: Haglund will take on two business partners -- Shama Patterson, her daughter, and Daniel Webster, the restaurant's executive chef --in her new venture.
Haglund opened Mary's of Course! in June 2000. "We're famous for our brunches on the weekends," she said.
Jason Thiel, the president of the Downtown Winston-Salem Partnership, said he believes that both new restaurants will do well.
"They are just so distinctive," he said.
Thiel said that Haglund has a lot of support from loyal customers and a great team, and has operated a revered business in the community.
"Their business is not just going to be reproduced anywhere else," he said.
Thiel said that Murray is an accomplished chef who is building on a niche by opening a vegetarian restaurant.
"That is something you see very successful in other communities," Thiel said. "I suspect that the people who are vegetarians or vegans, or people who are looking for gluten-free dishes are the type of people who have been waiting for something exclusive like this."
fdaniel@wsjournal.com
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