Another Exciting Evening and news of a possible rebirth of the Know

For those of you that may be lamenting the demise of the Know Bookstore and missing your Friday night jazz scene, I recently talked to Bruce Bridges and learned that he is looking at several places to come back at...They range from the Old Eagles Inn (which apparently has a Flood plan issue) to a space in Heritage Square near the Family Dollar and near a cornerstone Church which may be used for the jazz on Friday nights...Originally I thought he was going to the Clements Dentistry building where some of his items are currently being stored, but apparently that space is limited in size and parking....There are some other options as well...They range from the old 1013 Building to the Old Duke Power building near Duke's East Campus to the Sturdivant Building where the nighclub Johnny Dollar was back in the day.....Hopefully this or one of the other options he mentioned will come to fruition....
I am also curious to see what will happen with the Old Movie Theatre at Avondale Road that has been abandoned for awhile and would make for a great music venue, classic movie house, or Dinner Theatre in my opinion...and I know some folks are looking at turning the Old Whitted School (Operation Breakthrough) Building into some kind of center, possibly even modeled in a similar vein to the Holton Center....Let's hope that these places and some of our other empty buildings, such as the Edge in Downtown can be put to good use and continue to help in the revitalization of Durham.
But, as we wait, to see what's happening on those fronts there is still plenty to do in existing businesses...Just last night, I stopped by the Carolina Theatre for a retirement for outgoing director Connie Companero who coined the term 15-501 for me because it seemed that every event she went to I was in the midst of it just like at some point according to her you always run into 15-501 and from there I went and heard some great classical jazz as performed by Freeman Ledbetter's group with his primary vocalist who is also his daughter, Adia, delivering some great tunes and the band being in great form in front of a nice crowd over at Beyu and then from there me and my buddy Ray Paschall headed over to Whiskey where Brian Horton and his cadre of performers were really rocking the house with their upbeat jazz......Just another night of great entertainment in the downtown Durham area......

Restaurant scene in Downtown Durham

It looks like Downtown Durham is definitely developing a nice restaurant scene which will hopefully draw new business into the area as well as new residents....Right now, I am sitting at Scratch, Durham's latest spot, which is using ingredients from local farmers..I think they are going to try and do some of the same things that Eden attempted and which Watts does on Broad Street, but let's hope they have better luck than Eden
Across the way is Dos Perros, another new Restaurant, which is serving Mexican food, and which the Durham Symphony used their downstairs space for a meet the conductor event not too long ago...Speaking of downstairs spaces, at least one other restaurant has such a space and it seems to get a decent amount of use and that is Revolution......also some of the downtown spots are using Jazz music to entice people to their spots....Among the premiere one of these is Beyu Caffe which has music three nights of the week and features some of the top performers in the area including Ben Palmer and Marcus Anderson...Other spots that are doing things with Jazz are Whiskey which features Brian Horton and Blue Coffee Cafe which has jazz every Friday night.....and don't forget Cuban Revolution at American Tobacco is offering a weekly event on Thursdays featuring Salsa Music..........Of course in the midst of all of this development are certain mainstays that have been here for over a decade like Devine's in the Brightleaf area and Talk of the Town in Downtown Durham...Other restaurants and clubs that continue to have a nice long stint in the area are the Marvell Event Center and Tyler's in American Tobacco...Speaking of American Tobacco if you are a sports buff, I strongly recommend Tobacco Road which has more TV's than you can care to watch and has plenty of sports activities for you to check out...It was also the sight of a Lisa Raye event a couple of weeks ago....
This is just a walk around some of the eating and nightclub scene in the Downtown area....Other restaurants and bars that are also featured in the area are Toast, The Republic, the the soon to open Dame's Chicken and Waffles which is in the location where Blue Mountain Cafe was....Don't worry, Blue Mountain is continuing to still do catering work for those of you who were fans of that restaurant....Also in the downtown area is Guajillo's, a very affordable Mexican Restaurant, the Ninth Street Bakery, and of course fast food chains like McDonald's and Subway.......Another fun spot not that far from Downtown is West End Wine Bar....
If you want to head further towards Brightleaf there are also a variety of choices ranging from Bull McCabe, which was definitely popular during the World Cup and which has a nice Trivia event, to 1013 which has a Open mic on Wednesday nights. Also in that area is Satisfaction, the James Joyce, the Federal, Amelia's, the Brazilian restaurant Chama's, Piazza Italia, a nice Italian restaurant, Alivia's, the Down Under Pub, Mount Fuji, El Rodeo, Fishmonger's, and Pop's which has moved into West Village which is also the home of a new restaurant which will be going in the location that used to house Tosca's........So for those of you that say there is no place to eat in Downtown Durham, I argue that is no longer true.....Durham continues to develop...Just as it has plenty of things to do, it has plenty of places to eat. But it still needs a few more things which are hopefully on the way..Among these things are a grocery store and that should be hoping soon with the Co-op Grocery store opening soon in the area and some more hotel rooms and when I recently talked to Carl Webb of Greenfire he let me know that that deal for turning the Suntrust into a Boutique hotel should be near completion...Hopefully the addition of this hotel which will have more than 150 rooms and the Eye and Ear location turning into an extended stay will add to the 700 plus that city officials have said we need in the area....Now if only someone can do something with the old Radisson Hotel near the Car lot that would add another 150 plus rooms........and there are still some available spaces I would love to see come back to life and those include the Old Edge spot, the space that held MK's and the space that held the Safari Cuisine restaurant.......Yes Durham is on the verge of a major explosion and I am hoping to be right in the midst of it...