food – Omnibus

Three ways Orange County recycling creates more trash

By Megan Cain

It Starts at Your Stove

It’s taco Tuesday inside the little yellow house on the corner.

Jess Griffin stands next to the stove, sipping a margarita out of a Solo cup. She empties the ground beef from its foam casing into the pan. The meat cracks and sizzles alongside the sautéed garlic and onion.

Without a second thought, Griffin tosses the plastic wrap covering the meat into the garbage. She begins to do the same with the foam casing until her housemate, Nadia Parashkevova, stops her.

“Isn’t that recyclable?”

Griffin side-eyes her housemate. Parashkevova has always been an Earth nut. She flips it over, noticing the chasing arrows on the bottom.

She throws it into the recycling bin with little bits of meat still clinging to the bottom. She does the same with a glass jar of salsa. But she ties two unrinsed cans of black beans in a grocery bag to avoid drippage.

Then, the two proceed with their evening, unaware of the trouble they’ve caused.

Who is an Expert

“Just a little extra effort can go a long way,” the solid waste planner for Orange County, Blair Pollock, said.

Pollock started Orange County’s recycling program in 1987 and says he forgot to leave.

Since his arrival, the county has cut its waste from 1.36 tons to about half of a ton of landfilled trash per person.

They can do better, he says. Especially when it comes to his three no-noes.

What Not to Do

Contamination by food waste is the first.

“Somebody is working on the other end of that line, and during the summer, after sitting in the hot sun for a few days, that dirty can is going to be pretty rank,” Pollock said.

Just a light rinse of your containers, particularly the plastics, goes a long way.

Plastic can’t be heated to 1000-degree temperatures like glass and steel, so food and liquid remnants can complicate the sorting plant process or contaminate clean pieces, creating more trash.

Pollock’s second no-no? Plastic bags.

Bagging your recyclables might keep them from dripping, but with more than 140,000 tons of recyclables coming into the sorting plant each year, there isn’t enough time to open each bag.

“They don’t know if you put the dead cat in there, the dead goldfish or the bag of kitty litter, so they’re not going to open it,” Pollock said.

Bagged recyclables take the scenic route to the landfill. And all that effort was wasted.

Finally, don’t put your garden hoses or hangers in the recycling bin. These items can jam the belts and pulleys at the sorting center.

Other non-recyclable materials get mixed in too, but are less destructive than the big three.

Solo cups aren’t recyclable in many places, including Orange County, but they often find their way to recycling bins. Looking at the bottom of one, you’ll see a number six, which stands for polystyrene. It’s made from natural gas.

Pollock says as long as practices like fracking keep natural gas prices low, there isn’t much of a market for these materials to be recycled.

When Solo cups and other non-recyclable materials end up in recycling bins, they go right to the closest landfill, wasting energy and resources.

Recycling right makes a difference. If the container isn’t listed as an acceptable material on the label on your cart, don’t put it in there.

Even if it’s not on the label, it might still be recyclable. Large plastics, tires and scrap wood are among the materials accepted at five waste and recycling centers across Orange County.

What Happens Next

Just a few days later, it’s the most exciting day of the week. It’s trash day.

Taco Tuesday’s remnants sit in a brimming blue bin on the curb, anticipating pickup.

Black liquid oozes from the cans into the plastic grocery bag. Leftover margarita from the Solo cup seeps into Griffin’s notes from last semester. The salsa jar remains intact, for now. The smell of 3-days-old juicy, beef-soaked plastic foam wafts from the bin.

Delicious.

The contents of the bin and the rest of the county’s recyclables are picked up and dumped into a massive pile at the Orange County landfill.

A bulldozer packs these materials by the ton into a tractor-trailer that drives it all down to the sorting center in Raleigh.

There, the bag of cans and the Solo cup will be thrown away, perhaps along with the notes, depending on how badly they have been damaged by the margarita.

Some unlucky worker will have to deal with the hamburger tray and everything contaminated by its stench.

The glass jar is the only thing that’s going to be melted down, turned into usable material and sold back to companies.

How You Can Do More

But the loop isn’t closed yet.

If your favorite brand doesn’t use recycled material in its packaging, Pollock advises that you call and request for them to.

“If people will do that, and oil gets to $100 a barrel and natural gas gets to $5 a therm, then we’ll have recycling nirvana,” Pollock said.

According to Pollock, you contribute to the first arrow by recycling. But many consumers forget that they can serve a vital role by closing the loop and buying products made with recycled material.

“I know I tend to be a finger-wagger about this, but the good people of Orange County truly are doing a great job. We’re consistently at the top of the heap when it comes to waste reduction per person,” Pollock said.

Edited by Molly Sprecher

UNC-CH’s Persian Cultural Society celebrates the rebirth of spring

By Mitra Norowzi

The year is 1397. Hundreds gather in the Great Hall to feast and be merry. Lively music reverberates throughout the vast room, ringing out into the hallways.

Guests embrace one another, celebrating spring’s long-anticipated arrival. Just days before, they had chanted before fires, coaxing it out of winter’s darkness.

As they stop to admire the decorations, they reach for their smartphones to snap a few quick photos.

While 1397 has just begun in Iran and Afghanistan because they follow a solar calendar, the majority of the world following the Gregorian calendar is already well into 2018.

The new year was marked by the spring vernal equinox on March 20, and was celebrated by about 300 million people around the world, including the Triangle’s Persian community at the UNC-Chapel Hill’s Persian New Year party hosted by UNC-CH’s Persian Cultural Society.

The Persian New Year, or Nowruz, is the biggest holiday of the year for Iranians. Translating to “new day” in Farsi, the Persian language, Nowruz is a celebration of the rebirth of spring and the new possibilities it brings.

Reflecting on Nowruz

Fatemeh Sadeghifar, a student at North Carolina State University, moved to North Carolina from Tehran, Iran, about eight years ago. As a child in Iran, the anticipation of Nowruz buzzed weeks before the actual day as families prepared for the holiday, much like the frenzy felt here in America the entire month of December before Christmas.

She remembers the excitement she felt waiting for the exact moment of the equinox. It changes every year, and the different timings were fun for her, especially the years where the equinox was in the night, and she’d be allowed to stay up late.

In Iran, she recalls, this moment would erupt in outpourings of joy and celebration felt and heard by everyone, whether they were at home, out in the street or at school or work.

“The first day of Nowruz [here], I just went to school,” Sadeghifar said. “No one else knew what it was.”

As a kid, she would receive eidi, which are gifts and often money. And her family would set the Haft-Seen table, which is central to the celebration of Nowruz.

The Haft-Seen setting includes seven objects beginning with “seen,” the Persian character for “S,” with each representing a hope or aspiration for the coming year. Many Haft-Seen tables, like the one attendees of UNC’s Nowruz celebration were greeted with, also include books of Persian poetry, live or fake goldfish and a mirror.

Guests flood into the Great Hall

Entering guests were welcomed by tables serving hot, black tea and baklava, a sweet and flaky Mediterranean pastry. The baklava line remained unclogged and in motion, but the line for tea quickly grew until it snaked along two adjacent walls of the Student Union’s massive Great Hall. For people from a tea-obsessed culture, this line might have represented the only axis of evil that Iranian-Americans will recognize.

While the rest of the night’s guests arrived, those already seated at their tables enjoyed conversation with friends new and old over Persian sweets served family-style such as tiny rice flour cookies topped with small, black poppy seeds, sweet and chunky walnut cookies and delicate paisley-shaped coconut cookies.

Iranian guests, particularly the adults, served their seatmates by passing around the platter of treats, practicing the tradition of ta’arof, a practice of courtesy that involves excessive offering and deference. To non-Iranians, this looks a lot like arguing, but ta’arof is considered the proper conduct to demonstrate respect.

Tables also had fresh fruit and dried nuts, typical pre-meal refreshments at Iranian events or dinner parties for snacking before the performances and dinner.

Students were present, but the majority of seated guests appeared to be local families. UNC-CH junior Rose Jackson, a member of the school’s Persian Cultural Society and an organizer of the night’s festivities, said although the annual celebration is a student-led event, the larger Iranian community is active and is eager to be involved.

“So what was initially a student event had a lot of community support, so it became this kind of intergenerational setup,” Jackson said.

Throughout the night, Jackson and her peers scuttled about like worker ants to make sure everything ran smoothly. Jackson served double-duty as a master of ceremonies and a food runner. She even had to step in last minute as a backup DJ. But the hard work had a high payoff, she said.

“I’m Iranian, so it’s important for me to celebrate my culture myself, but also it’s important for me to create a place where other people can celebrate my culture whether it’s other Iranians or people who aren’t familiar with the culture but want to be,” Jackson said.

The celebration begins

The night’s program began with an introduction by Jackson and her fellow UNC-CH students explaining the history of Nowruz for those unfamiliar with the holiday.

The performances honored Iran’s past traditions, but also honored the contemporary culture of Iran’s present, where youth outnumber the old.

A haunting rendition of the contemporary Persian love song, “Soltane Ghalbha,” was performed on piano, violin and guitar. The music began softly at first, but soon became sweeping as the vocals entered the mix.

But those looking for a more authentic musical performance were not disappointed with the lively tanbur solo of the traditional song, “Ey Sareban,” performed by Mohsen Bahrami. The traditional long-necked string instrument crooned and trilled, thumping at the heart of the audience. Many of the audience’s older members waved their arms slowly, quietly singing along.

Jackson said many older Iranians were either expelled from the country or made the difficult choice to leave due to unrest.

“It’s an important event when you aren’t allowed to go back to your own country to be allowed to celebrate this still,” she said.

Fostering understanding

Sara Hosseini, a student at Campbell University, traveled all the way from Buies Creek, North Carolina, to Chapel Hill to perform a traditional poetry reading alongside Duke University professor Amir Rezvani.

The pair demonstrated Iran’s rich history of poetry and literature with their recitation of “Spring is Here,” a classical poem by 13^th-century poet Rumi. Each verse was read first in Farsi by Rezvani, and then in English by Hosseini.

“The Persian Cultural Society president asked me if I could do it, and I gladly said yes because Dr. Rezvani is a wonderful man, and the poem was very beautiful, too, about two flowers speaking,” Hosseini said. “I jumped at the moment to do anything to help. Every year, I always come. UNC’s Persian Cultural Society does an excellent job — by far the best in North Carolina — and I wouldn’t miss it ever.”

Hosseini, who is half-Persian and half-Polish, said Nowruz is the time she feels most connected to her Persian roots. Celebrating the holiday and contributing to it by performing was also important to Hosseini to foster more understanding among Americans.

“There’s so many stereotypes and misconceptions about Persian culture and Iran,” Hosseini said. “And if people could just take a second to try and connect and understand and learn about the culture, they’d be pleasantly surprised, and I think they’d really enjoy Persian culture as well.”

The welcoming dance floor

Following the performances was a dinner of aromatic parsley and eggplant stews, searing lamb kabobs and fragrant rice flavored with saffron catered by Flame Kabob, a Persian restaurant in Raleigh.

Then, the lights were turned off in favor of a disco ball, and Persian pop music boomed out from speakers. Everyone took off for the dance floor.

Non-Iranian student Joshua Pontillo came to the celebration with some Iranian friends to learn more about their culture. He felt awkward being dragged out onto the floor and dancing to unfamiliar music in an unfamiliar style, but he found the dance floor full of Iranians to be welcoming.

“One older gentlemen told me I was a natural,” he said.

For Pontillo, observing the Persian New Year as an American was a rewarding experience, and he hopes other Americans will engage with Persian cultural traditions, too.

“I think people can come out and learn a lot, especially when modern politics is so critical of Iran,” he said.

His one disappointment?

“I was upset that I couldn’t try the Persian baklava, which I’ve heard is better — apparently they served more Greek-style baklava,” Pontillo said.

Edited by Adam Phan

The Eco–Institute is a sanctuary for those seeking to return to the basics

By Janna Childers
There’s a metal arch flanked by a vast blur of green. It reads “Pickards Mountain Eco-Institute.” As soon as I crossed that threshold, the atmosphere shifted. The grumble of gravel beneath my tires softened as my red Hyundai Elantra slowed and a sweet wind brushed its way through the leaves and into my small car.

I could no longer hear the distant hum of cars speeding down Jo Mac Road, but the stillness here was not silent. There’s a quiet roar to the invisible activities of the creatures, hidden underneath tall grass or nestled high in the branches of trees. The frogs bellowed as the sun began to drop through the sky. Birds released bursts of sounds that were carried through the expanse of open sky. And the constant underscore of cicadas and crickets could not be ignored. I don’t know whether it was the pungent smell of nurtured earth or the crisp taste of clean air, or maybe something more intangible, but something struck me as different about this place. I exhaled deeply.

Pickards Mountain Eco-Institute is a place of hope. The educational farm offers many different programs, including summer camps for children, workshops in organic farming techniques and a ten-week immersive educational experience for young adults, all of which center around the work of restoring a broken relationship between the earth and humanity.

The 38 acres of land, owned by Megan and Tim Toben, offers a place for a community to gather, to learn, to build and to recharge. It attracts wanderers who sense something wrong with the traditional trajectory of education and career, burnt out environmental activists who want to be reminded of their motivation to do their work and people who are looking for a place to connect with others who share similar concerns about the state of the earth.

At Pickards Mountain, real work is done not only to teach people about the plight of the earth and crises that humanity is facing, but also about how to build a new way of doing things. Somehow, despite all of the negative things this place was built in response to, hope has seeped in to this place and refuses to leave.

A quick 15-minute drive west will take you from the paved and manicured world of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s campus to an unkempt land of oaks, separated by tracts of land for small houses and big fields. It’s here that you will find the Eco-Institute, tucked away behind Honeysuckle Tea House, an open-air tea house and herb farm owned by the Tobens.

While I was making this drive, I rolled the windows down to let the warm evening air blow through my hair and drown out the sound of the radio. I was rehearsing the questions I wanted to ask and the appropriate way to greet Megan Toben, the founder of the Institute, who had agreed to meet with me that evening. The repetition of “Hi, thanks so much for meeting with me,” and “Can you tell me more about…” was underscored by a flood of memories that I kept trying to ignore.

See, the majority of the first two years of my college education were spent sitting in white-walled classrooms being bombarded by devastating information. I heard stories of these structures of injustice that we, as a society have trapped ourselves in, and facts about the tipping point of parts per million of carbon in the atmosphere and how humans have passed that point. I saw examples of disparities between the rich and the poor and the way that greed and power seduce even the wisest of people to keep widening the gap– stories of a failing government, a failing economy, a failing society.

It was hard to find hope. And that same lost feeling started bubbling up again as I drove through the woods to this place I knew was full of people who had devoted their lives building a better future. I just couldn’t imagine how they could do that.

A conversation by the pond

Megan Toben greeted me with a hug, welcoming me to the farm like I was family, like I belonged there. We walked through the gardens of neatly planted vegetables, like spinach and potatoes, asparagus and mint. We passed farmer Dave, the bare-foot garden manager at the Eco-Institute whose shoulder-length blonde curls almost touched the ground as he bent over the rows of plants, pulling out weeds. We stopped by the pond, which takes up about four acres of the land, and sat down in a large red gazebo, with flags of faded primary colors rocking with the wind.

Toben took me back to her days as an undergraduate at Elon Univeristy, where she graduated in 2002. Toben studied biology, but was not able to detach herself from the phenomena she was studying the way her classmates could.

“How is it that things like deforestation and species extinction and water pollution rates and climate disruption are just continuing,” she said. “I mean, it’s still worsening every day. I got to the point where I felt like I couldn’t sit in a classroom and hear the data any longer without doing something. My intellect was being engaged with this desperate information. But there was no engagement for my hands, or my heart, or my voice.”

That’s where the story of the Eco-Institute began. Toben longed for a more holistic education experience, and searched for a way to provide one for herself and to work with others who wanted the same thing. She fell in love with the bodies of work of two environmental activists, Thomas Berry and Joanna Macy, who later would become the philosophical pillars for the work of the Eco-Institute. Then she met Tim Toben.

“When my husband, Tim, and I fell in love, he owned this land,” Toben said. “Part of what drew us to one another was our common love for earth. A big question for us in the beginning was, how can we offer this place to bring people together to support the movement?”

Together, they began to open up their land to the community, hosting potluck dinners and summer camps for children, and teaching people about a new way of living and being in the world — a notion supported by a global ecological and social movement that writer Joanna Macy has deemed “The Great Turning.” Macy wrote that The Great Turning “is a name for the essential adventure of our time: the shift from the industrial growth society to a life-sustaining civilization.”

This global movement encompasses more than just a need to reduce carbon emissions. It is broad and diverse, but essentially is working toward a new way of doing things. It is built on the basis that our current societal and economic systems are disruptive to the balance of the earth, the balance of society and the balance of humanity itself.

“I think that it helps to remember that there was a time when humanity saw itself as a member of the earth community,” Toben said. “At some point, humanity began to see itself as sort of lord and master, and everything else then became, what we call, resource.”

The movement itself can be characterized by many different social movements, like the indigenous movements of Latin America, the Occupy Wallstreet movement in the United States and many other small movements happening in communities around the world. The Eco-Institute sees itself as a gathering place for this movement, a place where people can come to rest and to learn and be a part of the greater community.

“I think there have to people who go out there and picket,” Toben said. “There have to be people who petition for change. There have to be people who use their bodies to stop the bulldozers from taking down the old growth forests. There also has to be midwifing of a new way of doing things. So, there has to be both at the same time. And we’re more in the midwifing of the new way of doing things, like organic agriculture and renewable energy, social justice and cooperation, collaboration, creativity.”

The Eco-Institute offers a variety of programs, including permaculture classes, mushroom growing lessons and outdoor yoga sessions. But, the most important program they offer is a 10-week immersive educational experience called the Odyssey Fellowship. The fellowship was developed after years of hosting young adults who wanted to be a part of the work the institute was doing. Many of them found the farm through the World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, a network of organizations that connect volunteers with organic farms. The program was named after a period of development between adolescence and adulthood called odyssey and marked by wandering.

“When I read that description, I immediately thought of the hundreds of young adults that have come wandering through here in the ten years that the eco-institute has been here, wanting to work on the farm, wanting to spend time here, wanting to engage, wanting to build community, wanting to talk about the issues that are challenging,” Toben said. “We realized that what young adults were really wanting was an opportunity to come and engage on all levels in a truly holistic educational experience.”

The Gathering Place

Apollo, a golden retriever, was lounging in the grass behind the barn and next to a gathering of a few of the current fellows. They had finished cooking and eating dinner together and were gathered around a picnic table with a large sheet of brown paper before them, thinking through plans to publish a zine. Even though they were all outdoors in this common space, they sat around in comfortable clothes with their shoes kicked off. It was like stepping into an outdoor living room. I could tell that this was home for them.

These fellows had gone through the first 10-week Odyssey Fellowship, and were here for another 10-week program, the Odyssey Leadership Program. Jimi Eisenstein, one of the fellows, called it the “graduate program” for the fellowship.

“We graduated from it and wanted more,” he said, his black poufy hair highlighting the swirls of colors on his tie-dye shirt.

Eisenstein was born in Tai Pei, Taiwan, grew up in Pennsylvania, but calls North Carolina his home. Growing up in multiple places was a common theme among the fellows. Anna Feldman is from New York, but lived in Asheville, North Carolina. Hayley May, another of the fellows couldn’t even name a place that she was from. “That’s a hard question to answer,” she said. “I’m from all over.” It made me wonder if part of the attraction to the Eco-Institute was its roots.

Jessica Cudney sat at the picnic table, leaning against Michelle Rozek. The two sat facing the gardens, both dressed in black sweatpants and sweatshirts, with long brown pulled behind their shoulders. For Cudney, the Eco-Institute was a place to learn how to actually live an alternative life.

“A lot of young people are curious about what other options are out there for them, and through social media, a lot of young people are discovering that there are other options available and that people are living alternative lives,” Cudney said. “It’s just difficult to figure out how to start on that journey.”

For Eisenstein, the Eco-Institute was a place where the dread of a meaningless life could be replaced by something more beautiful.

“I guess like a lot of people who grow up in just this culture, the dominant culture, they kind of go through the motions, but there’s also a part of them that feels like there’s something wrong with what they’re doing,” Eisenstein said. “Like, should I really be in school seven hours a day on a beautiful day? There’s this sort of innate rejection of the system that gets kind of quieted down as someone grows up. But here, that voice is nurtured, listened to and so, it kind of comes from the understanding that there is a more beautiful way to live.”

For Christine LeRoy, who graduated from the University of Northern Colorado, coming to the Eco-Institute was a supplement to formal education.

“I went to university and I double majored and I really excelled in that environment, and then I graduated and I realized, I don’t really have very many practical life skills and that’s really a large part of what that is, learning how to live in community, learning how to milk a goat, plant a garden, and like care for yourself and other people and the environment,” she said.

Conclusion

Wendell Berry is a farmer in Kentucky, an environmental activist and a prolific writer. In an interview with filmmaker Laura Dunn, he said: “This is an age of divorce. Things that belong together have been taken apart. And you can’t put it all back together again. What you can do, is the only thing that you can do. You take two things that ought to be together and you put them together. Two things! Not all things.”

Pickards Mountain Eco-Institute is a place that is putting two things together. It is a place of community, of care, of hard-work on all levels. It is a place of hope. And those pit of your stomach, desperate feelings that accompanied me to the farm dissipated at the threshold. I couldn’t be in such an abundant place and feel empty. I may not yet know what my two things will be, but I’m hopeful that I, too, can find two things to put back together.

Edited by Luke Bollinger

Carolina Coffee Shop: the Times They Are A-Changin’

By Colleen Watson

It was just another a quiet weekday afternoon in Carolina Coffee Shop. The inside was dimly lit, with small, fake candle-chandeliers on the ceiling and muted sconces on the walls. The bar in the back left side of the shop boasted an impressive array of alcoholic beverages for a restaurant with the word “coffee” in its title.

Soft classic rock and golden oldies music played in the background, including songs like “My Girl” and “Sugar Pie Honey Bunch.” Booths lined both sides of the cool, brick walls and most of the center of the shop; only three booths were actually occupied. Physically, the booths are straight-backed and made of old, dark wood that creaks when you move on it.

Two women sat at the bar on red-painted, high-top chairs. A small vase rested on top of the bar, holding a dozen roses. The floors were gray and light-blue checkerboard tile, the kind that makes nightly cleanup easier. A few little tables sat crammed-in near the front windows, offering a spectacular view of the bustling Franklin Street.

The Carolina Coffee Shop is a place out of time. I like to imagine somebody time-traveling the shop from the 1920s, picking up an espresso machine from the 1990s, adding a few flat-screens above the bar and calling it a day.

I sat at the bar to order. On the bottom of the menu, there was a small statement, printed in black on the Carolina blue paper. It read: “What started as a student post office became the Carolina Coffee Shop in 1922. We have been feeding Tar Heels for nearly a century.”

At 95 years old, the Shop is not only the oldest restaurant in Chapel Hill, it is the oldest in North Carolina. Serving breakfast, lunch and dinner, the shop features the original booths, bar and architecture from 1922. It’s remarkably long-lasting, compared to the frequent turnover of many similar Franklin Street restaurants. The shop is an iconic symbol of UNC- Chapel Hill and has been for most of its existence. However, the shop is facing a period of uncertainty: in a move meant to attract investors, the Carolina Coffee Shop is being sold.

Management

Daniel Austin’s official title is general manager for the Carolina Coffee Shop. In reality, he does a bit of everything: serving, bartending, meeting with prospective buyers of the shop and working as a public relations contact point. He handles all of that, plus the mountains of paperwork that comes with managing the day-to-day operations of a restaurant.

Austin is young, Chapel Hill native and recent graduate of UNC- Wilmington. He worked at the shop as a teenager and during his college years. He seemed comfortable in his role, despite having just started as the manager in October. Austin even looked the part: sporting khaki shorts, a black “Carolina Coffee Shop” polo and Superman socks.

“When I came on as GM, I said to the owners- we need an identity,” Austin said. “Everyone knows we’re here, no one knows what we do. Right now, my vision has been put on the backburner because of the sale.”

The past few years, Carolina Coffee Shop has been run by a group of absentee owners who choose to remain private. Their asking price for the shop is $145,000.

We sat in a booth at the back of the shop with Austin facing the front, so he could keep an eye on his tables. He’d get up periodically to hand customers their checks or make an espresso for students lingering behind to study. From both his words and actions, it was clear Austin cared about the shop.

“But like anything that you care about, it takes time and effort, and it’s not easy dealing with the landlords,” Austin said with a frustrated look.

And who are the landlords?

“None other than the good old University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,” Austin said. “Dealing with the university is a nightmare, just like any bureaucracy. Since I’ve been here, I’ve had two dozen meetings with the university to get the shop updated. The sewer is 100 years old, brick and mortar. For a prospective buyer, the amount of money they need to invest is ridiculous.”

A lot of customers panicked when they heard about the sale, but Austin isn’t worried about the shop itself.

“This physical establishment is not going to ever move unless there’s a hurricane,” Austin said. “As much importance as this establishment has to the town, it has equal to the university. They have a vested interest in keeping this the Carolina Coffee Shop. They’re not going to let it change.”

Austin is in charge of meeting prospective buyers as a proxy for the absentee owners who wish to remain anonymous in the sale. He explained his process of selling potential buyers on the shop.

“You’re not buying the business, you’re buying people’s perspective on it,” Austin said. “The most consistent comment I’ve gotten is ‘Don’t change, don’t close, don’t change.’ Every prospective buyer has a different vision for this place. Who buys it, who has the right vision, who has the resources to turn that vision into a reality.”

Austin pointed out a few regular customers, working at booths or chatting by the front windows. Of the customers I spoke to, many, if not all, had no idea their beloved shop might soon be in the care of a new owner.

Austin said, “That’s a very special person you’re looking for, to negotiate the price point between the university, the ownership group, the town of Chapel Hill and the people who graduated in 1950 and never left. They all have a vested interest in this place staying the way it is.”

A Not-So-Quiet Evening

There aren’t many people who know the shop better than longtime employee Jeremy Ferry. Ferry is in his thirties. He’s a friendly guy with the slightest bit of a gap in-between his teeth and an easy smile. A quintessential bartender hand-towel hung from his right hip. He’s one of those guys who never stops pacing or rocking back and forth.

I met Ferry on my second visit to the shop, a Wednesday evening, about an hour before their planned closing time. He’d managed the shop for eight years.

“It’s a unique place and I spent a lot of hours here,” Ferry said with a laugh as he surveyed the interior of the restaurant.

It was the same as it had been in the afternoon: muted lighting, a cool atmosphere and golden oldies hits. I sat at the bar and ordered the blackened chicken salad, one of Ferry’s suggestions.

Ferry and Austin stood by the bar and hammered out the plan for Thursday night’s Senior Bar Golf, an event where graduating seniors visit Chapel Hill bars and try drink specials at each establishment.

My salad arrived, delivered by Charlotte Maiden, the only waitress on duty that evening. It smelled fantastic, with blackened-chicken, tomatoes, red peppers, nuts, raisins and goat cheese, all covered in a spicy vinaigrette. I’d barely taken two bites, when an entire sorority came in.

Literally.

I caught a look of absolute terror on Maiden’s face as close to 75 girls packed into the space near the bar. In preparation for Senior Bar Golf, several sororities planned their own bar golf for that evening.

Ferry and Austin jumped into motion, checking IDs as they moved down the bar in rapid succession, filling cups with ice for Long Island iced-teas and margaritas. Drunken girls surrounded me, shouting to each other across the room. There was a lot of yelling, squealing, hugging and pounding fistfuls of Skinny Pop they’d brought along with them in preparation for a night of heavy drinking.

I spoke with Rebecca Shoenthal, one of the sorority members and a senior who is a frequent visitor to the shop.

“I used to come here with my dad,” Shoenthal said. “He loves this place. This is literally where he used to go when he was in college. I remember when I was touring here, it was this or Starbucks. But this is more Chapel Hill.”

The sorority was in and out in about half an hour. It was one of the loudest, most chaotic, definitively feminine moments of my life. A few stragglers sat by the front windows, having run out of steam close to the doors. They huddled together and drunk-talked it out, inching their way toward sober, laughter rising and falling in waves.

Maiden stopped by my spot at the bar as the last rush cleared.

“It’s never like this,” she said. “It’s normally super quiet. Usually weeknights I’m out of here at like 8:30.”

Maiden and Ferry went about closing the restaurant. They wiped down counters and swept under the booths.

Ferry grinned at me, still a little shell-shocked from the visit.

“They didn’t call ahead, which would have been nice,” he said. “But I don’t mind. This has been happening to me for 10 years.”

A State of Flux

For a place that hasn’t really changed since the 1950s, everyone seems to have a different concept of the Carolina Coffee Shop. A lot of patrons mention their brunches. It’s a frequent place for students to bring their visiting parents on weekend mornings. Others mention the Thursday trivia nights, which tend to get a little rowdy. Teams compete, armed with an assortment of random facts and knowledge that only college students seem to possess. Customers mention some pretty great mixers they’ve had with other fraternities and clubs here, while some claim it’s the best place for a casual lunch date.

I spent Thursday evening in the back corner of the Carolina Coffee Shop, observing the chaos that was Senior Bar Golf. At times, close to 100 students were packed into the shop, waiting to order the drink specials written on a whiteboard at the front. The eagle special was the $6 Tar Heel Tail Kicker, a lovely, electric-blue color drink that I imagine would be horrible to throw-up later. The birdie was the $5 Green Monster and $4 drafts were served as the par drink.

Austin had perked up the atmosphere for the party night. They played a mix of 70s hits, the kinds of songs everyone knows the lyrics to.

All in all, it was a great night for seniors looking to go out in style, and bars who were set to make a lot of money off the alcohol sales. The seniors wore the requisite Bar Golf attire: khakis, polo shirts and boat shoes. Some tied cardigans around their shoulders, while others wore visors and one white, golfing-glove like Michael Jackson if he’d gone through a country club phase.

I spoke with countless students, some of whom were ardent fans of the shop, and others who confessed this was their first time entering the restaurant. But the most interesting conversation I had was with a man who wasn’t even a current student.

Nick Williams stood at the back of the bar and nursed a pint, slightly away from the crowd of seniors hell bent on having a great time. He is in his thirties and used to work at the shop when he was a teenager.

“This was a neighborhood family thing,” Williams said. “All our friends worked here together. It used to be a totally different scene. Coffee shop during the day, casual bar during the night. It was classy, very classy.”

He shook his head and gestured at the students.

Williams said, “As a Chapel Hill local, this place means a lot to me. I used to come in here, get a coffee and the free rolls. It’s transitioned into a college bar over the years. Seriously brings a tear to my eye, the idea that it can change even more.”

Williams isn’t alone in thinking that. The Carolina Coffee Shop is grandfathered into the landscape of Chapel Hill. It just remains to be seen if this sale will keep the shop’s traditional roots, or move forward into unknown territory.

Edited by Travis Butler

Durham’s Loaf bakery makes bread, builds community

By Leah Asmelash

At 4 a.m., the streets of downtown Durham, N.C. are eerie. The miscellaneous people who roam the streets during the day — construction workers, the homeless and businesspeople — are gone, leaving only darkness and silence.

The windows of Loaf, a bread bakery on the corner of Parrish Street, are the only source of light this early in the morning. Peering through the one of the two large, square windows, I see a short young woman walking around and setting up equipment. A teal headband holds her short brown hair in place. She wears a clean, white apron over her knit sweater and red and black plaid skirt. This is Maggie Payne, one of the morning bakers at Loaf. I am exhausted, but she holds a large teacup in her hands and appears well-rested, ready to bake.

As she explains her job to me, a man wheels a black bike into the bakery. Maggie greets him and tells me this is Brian Avery, the other morning baker. He flashes me a smile but says nothing, and I will soon realize this quietness is the norm for him. He’s tall and thin with a shock of brown hair. I later learn he rides his bike to Loaf every morning, a custom that takes him about 15 minutes.

Ron Graff opened Loaf in 2011 after four years of selling hearth breads at the Durham Farmers’ Market. Now, the bakery has been featured in Bon Appétit and The New York Times and is among the most popular bakeries in the Triangle.

A Baker’s Routine

It’s a small space, one reminiscent of a hole-in-the-wall bookstore rather than a full-fledged bakery. During the day, the sun streams through the two windows behind the front counter, illuminating the entire space with natural light and highlighting the two pastry cases on display — one filled with croissants, pain au chocolats and danishes, the other filled with tiny cakes and cream puffs. Behind the cases and against the window is the metal bread rack, displaying the breads of the day for purchase, like Market Loaf, Pain de Campagne and Polenta bread. In the back, separated from the front part of the store by a short hallway, is the kitchen where everything is baked.

Loaf’s kitchen is about the size of a small classroom, but the industrial baking equipment makes the space feel even more cramped. There’s a giant wood-fired oven in the back corner, and pushed next to it are four conventional ovens, stacked one on top of the other like a bookshelf. A long table completely covered with a wooden cutting board stretches across the middle of the room. On the right, there are sinks and a small work area next to an industrial stand mixer, and both a walk-in fridge and normal fridge to the left.

Maggie and Brian immediately get to work, Brian slams whole wheat and white croissant dough onto the floured cutting board table, while Maggie quietly melts butter over a plug-in stove top. They don’t speak this early, and the only noise, aside from Brian beating the dough, is the buzz from the large cooler in the front of the bakery.

Brian rolls out each fat rectangle of dough and after beating it, flattens it with a rolling pin. The muscles in his forearms clench with each roll, and he meticulously measures the now thin rectangle to ensure it’s the right size. There’s no guesswork involved here, only precision.

He cuts the dough into squares and lays strips of ham across them. He then tubes a soft cheese mixture across the slices of ham, working quickly and efficiently. On the last one, he makes a tiny mistake and the cheese doesn’t fall exactly where he wanted it to. He quickly smacks his lips and lets out a short sigh before he moves on to finish the pastries.

At this point, Brian has only been in the shop for half an hour, but he already has 30 ham and cheese croissants ready for proofing.

He makes a pot of coffee and offers me some. I notice he drinks it black and slow, only a few sips every 45 minutes. It seems at first that Brian has a cold personality, but I soon realize he just doesn’t talk much. When I start asking questions, he opens up easily.

“I was hoping to have strawberries,” he tells me, now hard at work on apricot danishes. “But we can do that tomorrow.”

He smiles as he speaks, and it’s shy, but warm and genuine. When he works, he is completely focused on whatever he does, whether it’s making coffee or prepping breakfast pastries for the day.

Passion Over Practicality

Meanwhile, Maggie is almost the complete opposite of Brian. For the most part, Brian stays in one place while prepping the pastries, but Maggie is constantly moving — fluttering between the stand mixer and the plug-in stove, juggling multiple tasks at once. She adds butter and milk to the stand mixer for hot cross buns, while melting chocolate on the burner for chocolate éclairs. As she works, she narrates everything to me.

Maggie started baking in high school, ultimately deciding to forego college to pursue a baking career. While in high school, she interned for a woman who made wedding cakes before working at a bakery called Lady Cakes, which is now closed. She considered attending culinary school and spent a year after high school researching the path, but she decided it was too expensive, especially in Durham where so many bakers were willing to take her under their wings.

Her parents were supportive of her pursuing baking rather than school, since it was a craft she loved. Maggie hopes to attend college to study science, but for now she enjoys working at Loaf and plans to remain there for the foreseeable future.

“I really enjoy it,” Maggie says. “Even if I don’t feel like going to work, I still enjoy it.”

It’s clear that she does, her quiet contentment on display every time she starts a pastry. She measures out vanilla extract in a bottle cap and pipes whipped chocolate hazelnut cream to make chocolate hazelnut cream puffs, a last-minute decision that she makes look effortless. The finished cream puffs look like tiny castles, and they glow underneath the pasty case lights, almost too pretty to eat.

In Sync

“I was hoping to make strawberry cream puffs,” she tells me, reflecting what Brian said earlier about the danishes. The two are in sync.

Brian and Maggie don’t talk much and when they do, it’s about work: what ingredients they have or don’t have or what they need to make. Brian gives some direction, but they both have the freedom to essentially do or make whatever they want. As they work, they mostly listen to podcasts and indie music, which Brian plays by connecting his phone to a speaker.

Despite their general silence, they’re engaged in a continuous dance as they go about their shift. Maggie shimmies by Brian as she shuffles to the other side of the kitchen, and he slides by her to get to the back. They work around each other, but somehow never seem to intrude or get in the other’s way.

They’re in harmony, as if they don’t need to communicate. Maggie pulls out the danishes Brian made earlier, spooning cream into the center and topping them with the apricot slices he prepped beforehand. She sprays the proofed ham and cheese croissants from hours earlier with water and tops them with extra cheese. At no point does Brian tell her to do these things, Maggie just knows.

That kind of knowing comes from years of working together. Maggie has been at Loaf for two years now and Brian for six, since the bakery opened its downtown location.

Restaurant Fatigue

Brian started as a line cook at Piedmont, a modern American restaurant in downtown Durham. But he was bored just being a line cook, so eventually he moved up and became the restaurant’s pastry chef, having previously been a baker at Wellspring, a Durham grocery store that is now a Whole Foods.

He met Ron when he was still only selling bread at the Durham Farmers’ Market. Brian discovered he was going to open up a bakery and decided to join.

“I was getting pretty tired of the restaurant business,” Brian said. Bakeries seemed calmer, which appealed to him.

Brian cleans out the wood-fired oven, where Loaf bakes almost all of the bread they sell, sweeping out the ash. Loaves of dough in small straw baskets are lined up on giant, stacked metal cooling racks. He scoops six loaves onto a peel, guiding them into shape using his palms. His touch is gentle but quick. He cuts lines into the tops of loaves using a metal lame, which he holds between his lips while he slides the loaves into the 500-degree wood-fired oven. He repeats this process for about five different types of bread, baking what seems to be hundreds of loaves in total, but the number is probably closer to 50. I don’t see him take a break.

Loaf’s Leader

Around noon, Ron makes his first appearance in Loaf. He’s tall, and his gray hair is pulled back into a braid that falls between his shoulder blades. His double piercings in his left ear sparkle under the light – one silver hoop and one teal stud.

The first thing he does is wash dishes. Ownership doesn’t give him a free pass.

We talk upstairs in a wide room overlooking Parrish Street. It’s a space Ron is still deciding what to do with, but for now serves as a temporary office and storage area.

Ron’s demeanor is lighthearted, and he jokes around with the staff and customers who come in. But when we start talking about Loaf, his tone grows more serious.

For him, Loaf was always about bread. He recognizes that croissants and pain au chocolats may pay the bills, and he’s glad that Loaf is known for those items too, but that isn’t what Loaf was meant to be.

“Bread is why most of us are here,” he says.

Bread was his passion, what he turned to when his day job, a research scientist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, became stressful. He didn’t set out to open a bakery, but as demand for his bread grew, he decided to find a space to bake full time.

A Community Bakery

Loaf is now what Ron calls a community bakery. He works nourish and feed the Triangle with his bread. Loaf donates any leftovers they have to refugee and homeless organizations, and they sell at two farmers’ markets, both Durham’s and Chapel Hill’s, all of which help increase their presence in the community.

Although Loaf didn’t begin with this intention, the bakery has become a way for Ron to give back to his community.

He stares out the window, looking down on Parrish Street. It’s the middle of the day now, so the construction workers have returned and people are roaming the streets.

“I want to be a good citizen,” he says.

Back in the kitchen, the originally quiet space is now filled with chatter and laughter. Music underlines all the action as Maggie tells jokes that make the other bakers laugh. Everyone is still working, but it’s clear they’re all friends, part of the same community.

The only one who doesn’t talk is Brian, who’s completely focused on his bread, one hand on his hip and the other resting on the door of the wood-fired oven. Although he has separated himself from the group, he still waves at passing customers he recognizes. He’s part of Loaf, part of this community bakery that continues to flourish, both in and outside the kitchen.

Edited by Sarah Muzzillo

Instagram restaurant brings spice to late-night food

By Lauren Tarpley

Ian Burris has always loved being in the kitchen. When he was a child, he would cook with his mom and ask to help with dinner. As a teenager, he went to parties and when people would get hungry, Burris would start cooking. Now, at 20 years old, Burris has turned his passion of cooking into his own business.

“I’ve put my whole life into this, so it’s kind of all or nothing,” Burris said.

Burris created the Dankery in Wilmington in 2015 after waiting for the perfect time to pursue his passion, but brought the business to Durham in the summer of 2016. He and his friends were tired of waiting in long lines at Cook Out or Waffle House late at night. Plus, there just weren’t many restaurants that offered quality food after dark.

Burris saw this as an opportunity and began the Dankery, offering “dank food at a great price” from 9 p.m. to 3 a.m. From his kitchen at home, Burris prepares wings, chicken tenders, shrimp, and fries with over 20 flavor options ranging from Cheerwine Barbeque to Thai Chili and delivers his homemade trays to hungry customers throughout Durham.

“These foods were the easiest to start out with,” Burris said. “I knew how to do it and I knew a lot of people would like it.”

Ian Burris launched an Instagram restaurant, serving fries, wings and shrimp burgers from 9 p.m. to 3 a.m. — Ian Burris launched an Instagram restaurant in 2015, serving fries, wings and shrimp burgers from 9 p.m. to 3 a.m.

Spreading the word

Business has been booming for the Dankery even though the restaurant hasn’t opened a physical location. Burris has instead managed to gain a loyal following through social media.

Burris essentially built his business using Instagram and Snapchat. While many businesses struggle with promoting their brand on social media, Burris has been able to use this marketing tool to his advantage. Since customers can’t go into the restaurant to look at the food, Burris posts photos and videos of the delicious food he prepares — bringing in new fans, new customers and new orders.

“It’s all ‘bout earned media and people spreading the word,” Burris said. “They get a tray, they like it, and they tell someone about it.”

Joshua Bumgardner, owner of Chef J’s Trays in Houston, Texas, helped Burris in the beginning stages of developing the Dankery.

“It was his own thing and he had his own hustle, but I helped with the development,” Bumgardner said. “I saw all the work and all the pay off.”

Bumgardner opened Chef J’s Trays in March and has adopted a similar business strategy to Burris, with plans to use earned media and word-of-mouth to gain a following. Although Bumgardner is still developing the social media pages for his business, he has gained a following since opening and now serves around 20 people nightly.

Albert Segars, a distinguished professor of strategy and entrepreneurship at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said social media is vital to small businesses because of its ability to reach a large number of people at little to no cost. However, in order for social media to be effective without being intrusive, it must be managed properly and businesses must find a balance with their social media use.

While Burris has been successful in working from his kitchen, his goal is to someday have multiple food trucks. For now, Burris is in the process of getting the proper permits to open his food truck and will be looking to hire a staff to help run the Dankery. He hopes to have the mobile location open to the public by the end of the year.

From startup to success

Burris’ journey has not been without obstacles. He handles everything on his own, from marketing to cooking and delivery, meaning he often has to turn business away when demand is too high. Burris is solely responsible for financially backing his business, from raising the initial capital to savings funds for expansion.

“There are many challenges to starting a business,” Segars said. “The primary one is money. This means sacrifice, in most cases, entrepreneurs have to invest their own money which can be a risky proposition.”

Burris believes his dedication combined with his delicious food will help make the Dankery successful.

“I have a really good work ethic and when I want to do something, I make sure I get it done,” Burris said. “I’m kind of a perfectionist. When I’m making trays, I want everything to be perfect.”

As a young and talented entrepreneur, Burris has the qualities that can set apart a successful business from a failing one.

“Successful entrepreneurs tend to be very social, positive, and ambitious,” Segars said. “Entrepreneurs are wired differently and their passion is the business they start. Make sure that your service and product are always the best. Never accept less than perfect delivery on customers’ expectations.”

Burris’ passion and drive for his business have helped his business stand out. He has been dedicated to the Dankery and its customers, putting in years of work to build the brand. Segars said time is another challenge young businesses face.

“It requires a lot of time to get a business started,” Segars said. “You must create a product or service, market its value, and devote many hours to managing the business. You have to be willing to wait for success.”

Burris has done just that and as a result, the Dankery continues to profit and grow. But the Dankery is still in the early phases of becoming a full-fledged and well-established business. The Cousins Maine Lobster food truck is a perfect example of a food truck success story. In May of 2015, Deb Keller launched the Cousins Maine food truck in Raleigh, branching from the Cousins Maine brand, which was created in 2012. The truck is wildly popular and serves Maine lobster rolls.

“I went into this with zero restaurant knowledge other than I love eating food at restaurants,” Keller said. “Now, I’m providing the best lobster you can find and we have a beautiful following. That makes it all worth while.”

Like Burris, Cousins Maine Lobster was able to build a loyal following using quality food and superior customer service. By entering the food truck market with a unique product, the Cousins Maine Lobster truck was able to distinguish itself from competitors, which is what Burris intends to do once he is able to expand.

While the food truck market in Raleigh is relatively saturated, that is not the case in Durham. According to Jaseth Fike, a student at Durham Technical Community College, there aren’t many food trucks in the area that cater to students.

“I don’t see a lot of food trucks around campus,” Fike said. “I think if there were more options, more students would go.”

The Dankery has a unique product and high demand. Keller said she loves the concept and believes the brand could separate itself from the masses of taco and burger trucks.

“I personally believe it would be welcomed,” said Keller. “You have to have your signature.”

Edited by Hannah Smoot

Carrboro Farmers’ Market provides community, sustainability

By Leah Asmelash

An old man sells handmade mugs in a corner, in the same spot every week. He smiles and converses with the vendors and customers around him, pointing at different mugs and grinning with almost every sentence. Across from him, a farmer with three tables filled with different types of mushrooms leans against his truck, while his daughter collects money from customers. There are signs for ethically-raised meat and local dairy up ahead.

A few feet away from the vendors, kids run around on the open grass, playing soccer with a muddy yellow ball. Vans are parked on the grass, some with names of farms on the side. Everyone seems to be talking to someone else – farmers talking to customers and other farmers. They speak with the friendliness of people who have known each other for years, but they could have just met that morning.

This is the Carrboro Farmers’ Market, where every Saturday and Wednesday, dozens of farmers set up tables filled with fresh, local produce and meat. Hundreds, sometimes thousands, of customers come to the market every week to shop, chatting with the farmers about new products and what’s good that week.

Although farmers’ markets can be fun for community members, the life of a farmer is not glamorous. It involves early mornings, mud, sweat, animals, animal feces and animal carcasses. It involves early mornings at farmers’ markets and pulling bugs off crops, high costs and hard labor with minimal profits. So what drives people to choose this life – a life without health benefits, a small paycheck and self-employment?

Cane Creek Farm

For Eliza MacLean, owner of Cane Creek Farm in Graham, it was love.

“I was fascinated,” she said, recalling her earlier days managing a pig herd at North Carolina A&T State University. “I fell head over heels in love.”

Although MacLean had worked with and studied animals for many years prior, she said she didn’t know anything about pigs when she started managing the herd. Working with the pigs made her realize she had a tender spot in her heart for livestock, and she became involved in evaluating farms and meat quality for hog production in North Carolina.

Three years later, Peter Kaminsky, author and writer for The New York Times, was searching for someone to care for a herd of rare Ossabaw Island hogs. MacLean was the first suggestion he received, and thus Cane Creek Farm was born, devoted to ethical raising of livestock.

Now, Cane Creek Farm is over 15-years-old. MacLean has pigs available every day of the year, harvesting three to five pigs for her butcher shop and a few more to sell at the Carrboro Farmers’ Market.

Customer Driven

When talking about the slaughtering process, MacLean said she tries to cater to the customers’ desires and do what works best for her community.

“For me, that’s why I’m so small,” she said. “I want to be able to see my community. I want people to know my little story and be able to see my animals and see what they eat, know why they’re paying a little bit more.”

But no one knows the animals, loves the animals, more than MacLean. She’s the one that feeds them every day and prepares them for sale. She takes them to slaughter herself, in a trailer that she says smells like them, and she’s around the animals when they are killed.

“My kids say I treat them as well as I treat the pigs,” she said with a laugh, before further explaining her rationale.

“I want everyone to have room to be what they want to be,” she said. “A pig gets to be a pig, a chicken gets to be a chicken.”

Ethical Breeding

Despite how well she treats them, the animals are always brought to slaughter and sold.

“It doesn’t make real intuitive sense to raise something to certain death,” she said. “But again it wouldn’t be there in the first place if I hadn’t raised it, and it’s doing a good thing for my land, it’s having a nice life while it’s alive, it’s good for consumer – it all makes sense to me.”

Still, MacLean admits it is not always easy.

“It’s sad a lot of the time,” she said.

The sadness doesn’t stop her from having fun though, which she always makes sure to include in her busy schedule.

“I plan my breeding this time of year so that I’m not having babies in August, and we can be flying off rope swings and doing things that are much more appropriate for August than everybody completely stressed because it’s so friggin’ hot,” she said.

MacLean doesn’t sleep much. Instead, she floats down the Haw River while drinking a beer and kayaks in the moonlight. Her kids, both 16-years-old, chase her up mountains. These playful times are important to her, and she makes sure she doesn’t take on too much work so that there’s always, even in the middle of a workday, time for play.

Turtle Run Farm

Two miles away, on the other side of the Haw River, husband-and-wife duo Kevin and Kim Meehan grow organic vegetables on Turtle Run Farm. Before owning the farm, they were in the construction business and originally bought the land to build a house. But Kim had always loved gardening. Gradually, a few rows of vegetables turned into a few plots. In 1996, Turtle Run Farm was born.

Two years later, Kim applied for a spot at the competitive Carrboro Farmers’ Market. She said they weren’t expecting to be accepted, but they ultimately were. They began selling their produce at the Wednesday market, but eventually moved up to the Saturday one.

“Once we got into the Saturday market, we kicked it into high gear,” Kevin said.

Afterwards, their crop production continued to grow to keep up with demand, so much that they began selling honeysuckle bouquets and strawberries which grew naturally on their property, just so they would have something to sell.

They both admit that farming is exhausting, but they enjoy their job because it’s never boring.

“Farming is very satisfying work and at the end of the day you are physically exhausted but mentally enriched,” Kevin said. “Farming is always changing as the seasons come and go, and the weather and tons of other variables create challenges.”

Environmental Advocacy

For the Meehans, their farm is also a type of environmental advocacy, and they refuse to use chemicals and pesticides on their crops. Although Turtle Run is not a certified organic farm, the two are dedicated environmentalists and did not see any other way to farm besides organically.

“(Using pesticides) just never occurred to us,” Kim said.

Since they don’t use sprays and chemicals, Kim said they learned through trial and error which crops will bring a lot of bugs to their land and which ones won’t. That’s the reason why they never sell carrots, she said. They’re too difficult to manage with the bugs and critters they attract. Instead, they try to keep the bugs in check by planting flowers and plants that bloom in order to attract beneficial insects, like ladybugs, to help with pest control.

Farming Community

They also enjoy the community farming has given them, saying the Carrboro Farmers’ Market is a social network just as much as a business network. Local farmers throw parties or host farm-to-fork dinners and other events to bring the farmering community together.

“It’s a tremendous social farmer’s club,” Kim said.

It was the Carrboro Farmers’ Market that pushed the Meehans to move to the area in the first place, figuring that if they had a nice farmers’ market, the town must be pretty nice too.

“It’s a very friendly market,” Kim said.

Kim said the market was one of the best she’s been to in the country.

Alex Rike, assistant manager of the Carrboro Farmers’ Market, agrees, but he says friendliness isn’t the only reason consumers come back week after week.

Buying Local

“It’s a form of consumer activism,” Rike said. “When (customers) spend their dollars at the market, they know they’re supporting their neighbor and, with the case at CFM, someone within 50 miles of where they live. And they get to know their farmer. They get to know that their food is fresh – it’s been picked within the week. They can ask questions about the growing practices.”

MacLean prides herself on the social and economic effects Cane Creek Farm, and local farms in general, have on the community.

“My land is open,” she said. “The cross-country kids run their cross-country meets through the farm. There’s a 5K that combines land in Saxapahaw and goes through the farm. Teaching people about what these animals are really like, how funny, how curious, how smart, how dignified. And keeping the money in that community. What I’m growing is being sold to my neighbors and it makes me feel really good.”

It makes Kevin and Kim feel good too. For both MacLean and the Meehans, their farms serve as ethically raised and organic offerings to their community. So what’s a little hard work for something you love, for something that brings you and your community so much joy?

Edited by Sarah Muzzillo

Late-night food trucks transform Tar Heel town into taco town

By Blake Richardson

Someone painted a giant mural over the brick walls of the garage — a field of grass and rocks under a light blue sky. It looks like it’s been there forever and probably took months to paint.

But it’s hard to pay much attention to the mural because the old school bus in the parking lot is captivating the crowd of customers.

Blue and purple string lights resembling glow sticks snake around the outline of the bus, which is covered in light blue paint — even the windows.

There’s an opening on the right side of the bus where a line of people wait for a late-night meal from City Bus Burritos and Tacos.

A menu boasting treats like tacos and quesadillas overhangs the opening to the food truck, where a couple of workers take orders and prepare food under florescent lighting that poses a stark contrast in the dimly lit parking lot. The young locals wait for food while watching a Spanish soap opera on the small TV that hangs on the side of the bus.

City Bus is just outside the earshot of music blasting down Franklin Street blocks to the right. The song ‘Pumpin Blood’ by NONONO comes from Chapel Hill Tire’s parking lot, where a crowd surrounds Mexican food truck Monterrey.

If the City Bus workers look past the line of customers, they can see the flashing lights of a small sign in the distance. Up close, the word “taco” on the sign becomes clear, and it lures pedestrians to Mexican food truck Taqueria el Tejano.

Chapel Hill and Carrboro are dotted with food trucks, from the Parlez-Vous Crepe truck, to donut truck Dough Broughs, to a truck that’s the brainchild of Sup Dogs and Pantana Bob’s. But the most competitive market is arguably the late-night taco. In a town where it seems at least one restaurant goes out of business each year, these trucks thrive despite the concentrated competition.

‘GOOD FOOD, GOOD SERVICE’

Mac is the owner of City Bus, but he won’t tell you that. He wouldn’t even share his last name.

“I don’t like titles,” he said.

The bus may look playful with its glowing lights, pictures of food and seemingly endless handwritten menu items. But Mac is dedicated to business. Even when it was too early for customers to start forming a line, he was busy working on a screen that was barely visible when looking up at him seated inside the truck.

“Good service, good food,” Mac said. “That’s what I want.”

It’s Mac’s outgoing, kind personality that makes City Bus the favorite food truck for Winston Pace, a Carrboro resident and part-time UNC-Chapel Hill student.

“He’s a real character,” Pace said. “He’s just awesome.”

City Bus came to Chapel Hill in 2011, but Mac said he’s been in the food truck business for about 10 years. City Bus has taken off, drawing a crowd of young students and the occasional older Carrboro resident.

“You can ask the people everywhere about City Bus, and they’ll tell you good food, good service,” Mac said.

City Bus brings a spicy flair to its food. Bottles of the bus’s sauce — one red and one green — sit on the metal windowsill of the truck with a plate hanging above. The words “our sauce is very spicy, hot hot” are written on the plate in red ink.

The homemade sauce is another standout for Pace. And he likes that he can customize his food.

Mac is proud of City Bus’s unique taste.

“People want to eat something different,” he said.

A FAMILIAR NAME

Hans Vargas, one of two people working at the Monterrey food truck, goes to work at 6 p.m. on a Friday.

He doesn’t finish until 3 a.m.

Vargas works the same hours on Saturday. For each of the three taco trucks, these are two of the busiest nights each week.

“It’s food for students,” Vargas said.

Drunken students, to be exact. Vargas said most of Monterrey’s customers stop by the food truck after a night out at a Chapel Hill bar. Most are happy, some are flirtatious, but all are hungry for Mexican food.

With fresh green paint, flashing lights and menus with light-up borders, Monterrey is the most polished looking of the food trucks. The vehicle is even equipped with a stereo to blast music.

But Vargas said the food sets Monterrey apart.

“Everything is fresh,” he said.

The food at Monterrey is restaurant-quality because Monterrey did not start out as a food truck.

Monterrey began as a Chapel Hill restaurant in 1996 and later opened a second location in Carrboro. The food truck is the newest addition to the business, and it can be found about halfway between the two restaurants.

The food truck offerings, which are prepared at the restaurant beforehand, are just a sample of some items on Monterrey’s menu.

Vargas has been working at Monterrey’s food truck for six months, and he has seen the business prosper. In fact, sometimes the truck gets so busy that four workers cram inside instead of two.

On slow nights, the truck brings in revenue by renting the spots in Chapel Hill Tire’s parking lot — free for customers, but $5 for everyone else.

While City Bus is Pace’s favorite, he comes to Monterrey at least three times each week to grab some food after work. He enjoys the variety of items on Monterrey’s menu.

“They also sell chips, which none of the other ones do,” Pace said.

But Vargas said the competition doesn’t affect Monterrey too much because the other two trucks draw more customers from Carrboro.

“It’s too much taco trucks,” Vargas said. “Only in Chapel Hill is only one.”

FAMILY FLAVORS

Taqueria el Tejano is the fifth truck that 23-year-old owner Roberto Garcia’s family has operated.

Garcia is from Houston, Texas, and his family opened a food truck called El Taquito when Garcia was 5 years old. The family moved to North Carolina when he was 9 years old and started selling the food at night to people working in factories and tobacco fields in Henderson.

The right side of the metallic truck is covered with pictures and colorful signs describing items on the menu. A collection of colorful Jarritos sodas in glass bottles rest against the window of the truck. Positioned at the front of the nearly empty Wings Over parking lot, Taqueria el Tejano radiates light.

“We have our own style, our unique flavor,” Garcia said.

This truck is Victoria Garcia’s favorite. The Carrboro resident comes once a week for a corn taco with lime, lettuce, tomato, cheese and other toppings. She pairs the treat with a Jarritos soda. She prefers the truck because of the quality of the meat.

“It has no fat,” she said while sitting at the small wooden table propped next to the truck. “And it’s juicy.”

Roberto Garcia’s mom prepares the food at home each day for her son to sell at night. The family recipe traces back to Garcia’s grandmother, giving the food truck an authentic flavor of San Luís Potosí, the Mexican region that Garcia’s mom is from.

Taqueria el Tejano draws a wide variety of customers, including students, residents, visitors at nearby hotel and Tar Heels fans going to catch a game.

Roberto Garcia’s favorite part about the business is his interactions with a wide array of people — from the friendly conversations to a “thank you” at the cash register.

“Good food to people, that’s always good to see,” he said.

COMPETITION OR CAHOOTS?

Pace has a theory that the three food trucks are in cahoots.

“I have always wondered if they had connections to each other in any way, or if it’s some sort of taco mafia going on,” he said. “That’s a true mystery of the town.”

Do they buy supplies in bulk together to make food cheaper? Or coordinate sales to fix the competition? Pace doesn’t know, but he likes to think there’s something.

If there is a conspiracy between the owners, they’re keeping it well-hid. Mac seemed to hardly notice the competitors nearby.

“I don’t know about what they serve,” Mac said. “I care about mine.”

Vargas also did not seem worried about competition because Monterrey is the closest to downtown Chapel Hill.

Victoria Garcia suspects early restaurant closing times allow the food trucks to thrive. Because they’re the only places open, the three trucks can dominate late-night business.

“I love other restaurants,” she said. “But I’m not hungry before 9 p.m.”

Each truck caters to its niche — a group of loyalists who decide which truck they like best and keep coming back. Those customers allow each truck to prosper.

“Everyone you ask will have a different favorite,” Pace said.

Roberto Garcia said he appreciates the competition.

“It makes you want to be better,” he said. “Makes you want your service to be better, your food to be better.

“So it betters you as a person and as a business owner.”

Edited by Ryan Wilusz