Dillard's BBQ, a Durham institution, will close Friday after 58 years in business because of "the economy," owner Wilma Dillard has told the Durham Convention and Visitors Bureau. 

The restaurant opened in 1953 at its current location on Fayetteville Road. Ms. Dillard, a former school teacher, took over managing the restaurant in 1997 after her father died, the DCVB reports.  Samuel Dillard ran the restaurant until that time.

The family plans to restructure, reorganize and watch the economy.

"We just want people to know how much we appreciate them -- their years and years of support.  We could not have made this far without their good will," Dillard told the DCVB.  "We provided a service for them and they provided us the opportunity serve them and to be a blessing.  We made friends.  This business has always been about people."

The restaurant is Durham's second oldest BBQ operation after Bullock's, which opened in 1952.  
 

The Durham Convention and Visitors Bureau has promoted E'Vonne Coleman to Chief Operating Officer, taking over some responsibilities previously handled by CEO Shelly Green.

Coleman (right) is "an excellent administrator who will serve us well in managing more of the day-to-day operations of the bureau," Green wrote in an email this morning to the DCVB mailing list.

Before going to work for the DCVB in 2008, Coleman was associate community services director at Duke University. Prior to the Duke job, she was executive director of the Durham Arts Council and assistant to the director at the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Coleman has been supervising the visitors bureau's visitor services and "marketing resources support"; with the promotion, she takes over marketing and group sales as well, Green wrote.

"My strength is in strategy while her strength is in implementation," Green wrote. "I will have more quality time with staff on the bigger picture of where we need to go while she will ensure that staff have the resources necessary to get the job done."

Conventional wisdom says Durham has an image problem.

Numbers say otherwise -- according to the Durham Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Seventy-six percent of North Carolinians have a positive image of our Bull City, more than of Winston-Salem, Charlotte, Greensboro or Raleigh.

The City Council expressed its appreciation tonight to Reyn Bowman, who is retiring Dec. 31 after 20 years heading the Durham Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Mayor Bill Bell described Bowman (right) as "a fierce defender of Durham's image and brand" and protector of "Durham's appearance and unique sense of place."

Bowman created the DCVB and has been its only CEO. During his administration, the number of visitors to Durham has grown from 2.3 million to more than 6 million and the CVB has received multiple awards for innovations and has set "best practice" standards for the destination-marketing industry.

"Thanks, Mayor," Bowman said. "I obviously love this community and couldn't do the work I've done unless I did love the community."

Besides a proclamation, Bell presented Bowman a key to the city.

"Reyn doesn't need a key to get back in," Bell said. "We're not changing any locks just because he's retiring."

Chief Operating Officer Shelly Green will become CEO in January.

Sales-tax revenue from the Dallas-Fort Worth airport is shared among five towns and two counties.

San Francisco International Airport is located in San Mateo County, which shares the wealth with the city and county of San Francisco.

At least, those were the cases in 2004 -- according to a report prepared by the Durham Convention and Visitors Bureau and shared with the City Council and County Board of Commissioners more than five years ago.

It's the same information some commissioners asked the county staff to dig up at their last meeting, when the subject of getting a share of the sales-tax revenue from Raleigh-Durham International came up.

Maybe they forgot.

Nothing came of it back then, but now the issue is back at least on Durham County's part of the table.

According to a March 8, 2004 memo from the DCVB president Reyn Bowman to County Manager Mike Ruffin and then-City Manager Marcia Conner, a consultant had wondered why Durham didn't get any of the general sales tax generated at RDU. Aside from allocations for airport operation and TTA, the income goes to Wake County, where the airport is located -- although it is jointly owned by Wake and Durham counties and the cities of Durham and Raleigh.

County commissioner Joe Bowser (who, along with commissioners Becky Heron and Ellen Reckhow, raised the issue after an airport authority report earlier this month) was on the DCVB board at the time and brought the matter to the commissioners' attention and to that of the Durham delegation to the state legislature.

The county asked DCVB to investigate, and, enquiring of authorities at similarly shared airports, got the information above.

The memo further states that "Durham draws the highest market share [of the four RDU owners] of visitor-related passengers who generate the dedicated and undedicated tax revenue generated at the co-owned Airport facility."

Thus armed, Bowman arranged for Durham, Raleigh and Wake officials to talk tax business, "but a meeting to do due diligence was cut short" due to some misunderstanding between Bowman and the Durham managers -- according to a June 8, 2004 letter from DCVB's board officers to members of the Durham City Council and county board.
"It is problematic that the initial meeting's mission may have been misunderstood," the letter concluded. "But we strongly encourage you to resume pursuit of this objective."
Better late than never.