Chapel Hill's Southern Season has opened a coffee bar and changed its hours to open at 8 a.m. instead of 10 a.m. six days a week.

The store's new hours are 8 a.m.-7 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 8 a.m.-9 p.m. Friday-Saturday and 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Sunday.

The new hours allow customers to take advantage of the store's new coffee bar, which is located just past the coffee and tea sales counters. The coffee bar has 20 different coffees, many from local coffee roasters: Durham-based Counter Culture Coffee, Carrboro Coffee Co. in Carrboro and Raleigh-based Stockton Graham & Co. Plus, they have more than 20 different teas available for brewing.

Coffee bar supervisor Reiko Tanaka explains that they offer drip coffee as well as individual cups of coffee brewed using fresh ground coffee and a coffee filter cone. For the latter, a customer can request any of the dozens of coffee sold in the store. The price difference is $1.65 for 12 ounces of drip coffee versus $2.25-$2.95.

Southern Season became the gourmet food, housewares and mail order behemoth that it is today by starting out as a small store selling gourmet coffee. This may indicate a return to its roots but it also may be responding to a nearby coffee competitor. 3CUPS has been offering coffee brewed to order since it opened several years ago on South Elliot Road.

Southern Season was sold last year to an investment firm, which has plans to expand the business to other markets. Go HERE to read a story I wrote about that last year.

A Southern Season has two well-known cookbook authors and cooking instructors coming into town:

• Rick Rodgers, who wrote "Thanksgiving 101," is back for a 2 p.m. Nov. 13 cooking class about how to tackle Thanksgiving. The menu includes sherried crab bisque, hickory-smoked turkey with mustard-beer baste, sweet potato and pineapple pudding, kitchen sink stuffing with chestnuts and sausage, harvest vegetables, mulled cranberry sauce and pumpkin chiffon pie. Rodgers also has a class at 1 p.m. Nov. 12 based on his new book, "I love Meatballs!" 
• Molly Stevens, the James Beard-award-winning author of "All About Braising," will be teaching a roasting class at 6 p.m. Nov. 16. The menu includes garlic-roasted shrimp with tomatoes, capers and feta, butterflied roast chicken with romesco sauce, roasted cauliflower steaks with crunchy parsley-pine nut breadcrumbs, mustard-crusted roasted potatoes and orange-scented honey-roasted figs with black pepper.

The classes each cost $50.

To reserve your spot, call 929-7133 or go to www.southernseason.com

Roy Cloud, owner of Vintage 59 Imports and author of "To Burgundy and Back Again," a memoir about his years in the wine importing business, is coming to the Triangle for several events. Those include:

• 6 p.m. Nov. 8, a wine tasting with appetizers and book signing at A Southern Season in Chapel Hill. Tickets cost $25. Call 929-7133 for a reservation.
• 6:30 p.m. Nov. 10, a four-course wine dinner at Saint Jacques restaurant in Raleigh for $65 a person. For a reservation, call 862-2770.

A Southern Season, Chapel Hill's landmark gourmet food store for more than 35 years, has been sold to a local investment firm with plans to expand the brand throughout the Southeast.

"This is not a 200-store chain, but it could be a 15-store chain," said Clay Hamner, a Chapel Hill entrepreneur and managing partner of TC Capital Fund, which bought the firm from owner Michael Barefoot this week. Hamner said Charlotte, Atlanta and Birmingham could be future locations.

The Reliable Cheese shop in downtown Durham is expected to open Thursday, according to owner Patrick Coleff.

Coleff, 34, has been in the cheese business for six years. This Cleveland native used to work at a legal publishing company during the day and as a line cook at night. When he decided to go to culinary school, he enrolled at the Institute of Culinary Education in New York City and got a part-time job at Murray's Cheese Shop. He then went on to work as a cheese buyer at Cobblestone Foods and later did a stint at Stinky Bklyn.

Two years ago, his wife, Genevieve Southern, and he decided it was time to move and open their own cheese shop. They looked at Portland and Durham but decided on Durham because Southern has family here and they have a three-year-old son. They moved to the Triangle and Coleff got a job at Southern Season in Chapel Hill and then Weaver Street Market in Carrboro.

Coleff describes Reliable Cheese as mainly a cheese shop that also will sell beer, wine and meat. He focuses on small cheese producers in the United States and Europe; local cheesemakers will be represented, including Chapel Hill Creamery and Goat Lady Dairy.

They are located next to Rue Cler at 405-A East Chapel Hill St., Durham. The hours are 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Sunday. They are closed Mondays.

Nick Malgieri is the former executive pastry chef at Windows on the World, a cookbook author and cooking instructor. He will be teaching two classes at Southern Season in Chapel Hill. Here is the schedule:

• 1 p.m. April 16, Around the World with Malgieri's new cookbook,  "Bake! Essential Techniques for Perfect Baking." The class costs $50.
• 2 p.m. April 17, Spectacular Cakes, Simple to Elaborate, $50.

To see the full menu for each class, go to www.southernseason.com.

To make a reservation, call 929-7133.
 

You have two upcoming chances to meet Molly O’Neill, former New York Times magazine food columnist and cookbook author:

She will be signing copies of her new book, “One Big Table: A Portait of American Cooking,” from noon to 3 p.m. Saturday, March 19 at A Southern Season in Chapel Hill.

She will be speaking at 5:30 p.m. March 24 in Hyde Hall at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill about her new book as part of UNC’s first Food Cultures student symposium. Seating is limited. To reserve a seat, e-mail Nina Bryce at nbryce@email.unc.edu.

O'Neill was a columnist for a The New York Times magazine for 10 years. She hosted the PBS series “Great Food."  She also won the Julia Child/IACP Award for "The New York Cookbook" and was awarded three James Beard citations for books, journalism and television, as well as the foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

Her lates book contains recipes by several local folks: chef Bill Smith of Crook's Corner in Chapel Hill, Kavanah Ramsier of SEEDS in Durham, Gabriel Ainslie of Durham, author Lee Smith of Hillsborough, Dean McCord, aka VarmintBites, of Raleigh and lawyer Hugh Stevens of Raleigh.

REMINDER: Each February, Southern Season celebrates women in food. Unfortunately, the events for Shirley Corriher and Mildred Council, aka Mama Dip, are sold out already.

One of the other events is a food writers forum  including Southern Living writer Donna Florio; Raleigh Metro magazine columnist Moreton Neal; The News & Observer's food writer Andrea Weigl; and Chapel Hill author Kelly Alexander, author of "Hometown Appetites: The Story of Clementine Paddleford, the Forgotton Food Writer Who Chronicled How America Ate." The event will be 4 p.m. Feb. 19. It costs $30.

To reserve a space, call 929-7133 or go to www.southernseason.com

REMINDER: A Southern Season runs a series of cooking classes featuring local chefs. So if you want to learn how to cook the food served at your favorite local restaurants, here are a few upcoming classes:

• Chef Masa Tsujimura of Raleigh's Waraji will be teaching a sushi class at 2 p.m. Jan. 16. The class costs $50.
• Chefs Alex Gallis of Cypress on the Hill in Chapel Hill and Chef Jeremy Blankenship of Tyler's Taproom in Carrboro are teaching together at 6 p.m. Jan. 31. The class costs $40.
• Chef Mel Melton of Papa Mojo's Roadhouse in Durham will cook as well as perform with his band, The Wicked Mojos. That class will be 2 p.m. Feb. 27. It costs $45.
• Jamil Kadoura, the gracious owner of Chapel Hill's Mediterranean Deli, will be there at  6 p.m. Mar. 8. The class costs $30.
• Justin Cole, the young new executive chef at La Residence in Chapel Hill, will be teaching at 6 p.m. March 14. The class costs $40.

To reserve your spot in any of these classes, call 929-7133 or go to www.southernseason.com

Each February, Southern Season celebrates women in food. Unfortunately, the events for Shirley Corriher and Mildred Council, aka Mama Dip, are sold out already.

One of the other events is a food writers forum  including Southern Living writer Donna Florio; Raleigh Metro magazine columnist Moreton Neal; The News & Observer's food writer Andrea Weigl; and Chapel Hill author Kelly Alexander, author of "Hometown Appetites: The Story of Clementine Paddleford, the Forgotton Food Writer Who Chronicled How America Ate." The event will be 4 p.m. Feb. 19. It costs $30.

To reserve a space, call 929-7133 or go to www.southernseason.com