Go HERE to read the story from business reporter David Bracken about the Empire Eats owner's latest projects.

Empire Eats owns The Raleigh Times, Sitti, Gravy and The Pit in downtown Raleigh.

Empire Eats, the local restaurant group that owns The Raleigh Times Bar, Gravy, Sitti and The Pit, is buying the former Hideaway BBQ location on Capital Boulevard.

Hideaway BBQ, which was likely better known as a roots music venue than as a restaurant, closed in 2008. and has been empty ever since.

Greg Hatem, head of Empire Eats, says he building is ideal to use a catering kitchen since it is close to the highway and close to downtown. Empire Eats had been using the former Duck & Dumpling restaurant on Moore Square as a catering kitchen but Hatem has found new tenants for that space. No word yet on who that will be.

You can help send culinary students from Wake Tech Community College on a three-week trip to France by eating French food.

The Wake Tech Culinary Team will prepare a five-course French meal with wine pairings on Feb. 26 in the former Duck & Dumpling space at 222 Blount St. in downtown Raleigh. Seatings are every half hour from 6-7:30 p.m. Dinner with wine costs $70 and dinner without wine costs $50.

For a reservation, send an email to culinary@waketech.edu.
 

Photo by Staff photographer Corey Lowenstein

Bob Garner, (pictured above) the North Carolina barbecue expert, is now working for Empire Eats, a local restaurant chain that owns The Pit, a popular barbecue restaurant in downtown Raleigh.

Garner, 64, is the author of two North Carolina barbecue books: "North Carolina Barbecue: Flavored by Time" and "Bob Garner's Guide to North Carolina Barbeque." A longtime fan of the state's barbecue traditions, Garner became known for his 'cue know-how based on his work on UNC-TV's North Carolina Weekend show. Garner would travel the state, filming segments about restaurants and eventually produced an hour-long show about the state's favorite food tradition.

"He is kind of the spokesperson of North Carolina barbecue," says Greg Hatem, a downtown developer and owner of the Empire Eats restaurant group. "..That's such an important mission of what The Pit is supposed to be."

Hatem opened The Pit five years ago with famous eastern North Carolina pitmaster Ed Mitchell. But Hatem and Mitchell parted ways earlier this year. (To see my earlier blog post about Ed Mitchell leaving The Pit, go HERE. No word yet on Mitchell's new venture.)

Hatem plans to open a second location of The Pit in Durham although the exact location is unknown at the moment. He denied reports that the restaurant will be located at 309 E. Chapel Hill St. Hatem owns that building and placed a sign teasing the Pit coming to Durham but says that's not the restaurant's future location.

Garner's job for Empire Eats will be broad. Garner says he and Hatem have joked about what his title should be: "barbecue-ologist" or "curator of the traditional food committment." Both say Garner will consult on the menu, help source food, help train the staff, write cookbooks and continue to lead a series of barbecue heritage dinners at The Pit. Plus, Garner will produce a series of videos about the heritage dinners and the group's restaurants. (To see one of Garner's videos of a recent heritage dinner, go HERE.)

Garner says he will continue to work parttime for UNC-TV, producing food and restaurant segments for North Carolina Weekend. Plus, he says, he is writing a new book that combines and updates the material in her previous two books. It will be called "Bob Garner's Book of Barbecue" and will be published this spring, Garner says.

(Note: I had a story last year about Garner having gastric-bypass surgery and continuing his life as a food expert and eater. Go HERE to read the story.)

Go HERE to read my co-worker's David Bracken's story on the .biz blog.

UPDATE: Samantha Hatem, a spokesperson for Empire Eats, says chef William D'Auvray still works for them despite Fai Thai converting to a catering facility. D'Auvray is a well-regarded chef for his previous Raleigh restaurants, Fins and bu.ku. Fins has since closed and bu.ku continues without him.

Developer Greg Hatem has closed his newest restaurant, Fai Thai, just three months after it opened in the downtown Raleigh space formerly occupied by Duck & Dumpling.

Hatem said today that he closed the restaurant so that its dining and kitchen space could be used to handle catering requests at his other downtown restaurants.

“We’ve turned down one to two events a week just in our spaces,” he said.

Hatem’s other downtown restaurants include Sitti, Gravy, Raleigh Times and The Pit.

Hatem partnered with William D’Auvray, formerly chef-proprietor of Fins and bu.ku, to open Fai Thai.
 

Go HERE to read the story and see the photo gallery of Mitchell. The story is just a little more polished.

Famous eastern North Carolina barbecue pitmaster Ed Mitchell is leaving The Pit in downtown Raleigh and plans to open another restaurant in the Triangle, according to a press release that went out today.

Meanwhile, Mitchell's former business partner, Greg Hatem, announced that he would be opening a second location of The Pit in downtown Durham later this year or early next year.

Mitchell is a well-regarded barbecue pitmaster who originally transformed his family's Wilson grocery store in 1990 into a barbecue destination. As Mitchell's profile started to rise, he stumbled as a businessman. He ended up in a squabble with the bank that resulted in litigation and that restaurant was closed in 2004. A year later, he was convicted of failure to pay state sales taxes related to the business and served 30 days in jail. 

But in 2007, Mitchell's resurrection on the barbecue scene seemed assured. He partnered with downtown Raleigh developer Greg Hatem to open The Pit. Hatem operates Empire Eats and has stakes in several downtown Raleigh restaurants, including  The Raleigh Times, The Morning Times, Sitti, Gravy and Fai Thai. It seemed at the time like a good pairing: Mitchell with the barbecue expertise and being a known barbecue personality and Hatem with the business sense and an existing centralized system for running the restaurant's payroll, ordering and logistics.

Mitchell's return to the restaurant scene was covered extensively in the national food magazines. Then a 2009 appearance on "Throwdown! with Bobby Flay," the Food Network star, made the Raleigh restaurant even more popular than it already was. The restaurant even began selling its own brand of barbecue sauces at Williams-Sonoma stores.

But now that partnership has come to an end. In a phone interview, Mitchell said: "I thought it was time to move on. There were some other things I wanted to do to take my vision to the next level. I'm very happy that Greg and I did something great. The opportunity was very appreciated."

Mitchell didn't want to discuss his next restaurant project but hopes to within a month's time. The press release directs the public to this website for updates: http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Pitmaster-ED-Mitchell/104706286282872

Mitchell did reveal that he plans to partner with Butterball, which is headquartered in Garner, to make turkey barbecue. He will be showing off that dish at the Big Apple Barbecue Block Party next month in New York City. (Mitchell is a founding pitmaster at the block party and this is his ninth year to cook for the event.)

Reached on the phone, Hatem said, "We enjoyed our relationship with Ed Mitchell. Ed wants to pursue the Ed Mitchell brand. We want to continue pursuing great North Carolina whole hog barbecue."

Hatem added that nothing will change at the Pit restaurant. The recipes, sauces and dishes will not be altered due to Mitchell's departure.

Hatem added that they plan to open a catering kitchen to help the restaurant keep up with demand and be able to offering catering services.

The Duck & Dumpling restaurant in downtown Raleigh will close at the end of the year. It's a move that will shutter a long-standing downtown restaurant and the first one opened by Raleigh businessman Greg Hatem.

Hatem's Empire Eats is the company behind several downtown Raleigh restaurants, including the Raleigh Times and Morning Times, The Pit, Siti and Gravy. But Duck & Dumpling was first, opening eight years ago and bringing Asian cuisine to downtown Raleigh.

Though a popular lunch and weekend dining spot, Hatem said business at the restaurant was just OK.

"It hadn’t done great in years, put it that way," he said.

If you dine at Raleigh's Sitti restaurant from 6-9 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 12, ten percent of the evening's proceeds will be donated InterAct.

InterAct is a Wake County nonprofit that helps families struggling with domestic abuse.